Memory management controller (Nintendo)

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Memory management controller" Nintendo – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (September 2007) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please help improve this article by introducing citations to additional sources. Find sources: "Memory management controller" Nintendo – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (May 2014) Some of this article's listed sources may not be reliable. Please help improve this article by looking for better, more reliable sources. Unreliable citations may be challenged and removed. (December 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this message) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Multi-memory controllers or memory management controllers^[1] (MMC) are different kinds of special chips designed by various video game developers for use in Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) cartridges. These chips extend the capabilities of the original console and make it possible to create NES games with features the original console cannot offer alone. The basic NES hardware supports only 40KB of ROM total, up to 32KB PRG and 8KB CHR, thus only a single tile and sprite table are possible. This limit was rapidly reached within the Famicom's first two years on the market and game developers began requesting a way to expand the console's capabilities.

In the emulation and Homebrew community, these chips are also known as mappers.^[2]