Famicom was red because Nintendo's president fancied it

Here's a delightful little anecdote from the annals of industry history. The Famicom - the console better known in the west as the NES - was coloured as it was because the president of Nintendo really liked it.

The Famicom - or Family Computer, officially, although nobody ever uses that name - was a much more colourful beast than its international brethren, sporting a cheerful red and gold scheme. One of the much-treasured chestnuts of our time is that Nintendo elected to go with red plastic because it was cheap, but it turns out that's simply not true.

In an interview translated by Kotaku, former Nintendo hardware designer Masayuki Uemura said the colour scheme was chosen on something of a whim.

"The reason why we used the dark red was simply due to an order from the company’s president,” he said.

“Our President often wore a scarf that was a similar dark red colour, with the reason being this was a colour he liked.”

There you go. Hiroshi Yamauchi had a scarf he liked and made the console the same colour as it. I love this industry. hit the link above for more discussion of the groundbreaking console's birth.