Released only to Japanese markets, the unit retailed in 1990 as a next generation successor to the 1983 C1 television also produced by Sharp and licensed by Nintendo.

With internally connected SFC-SF1 terminals, luminance and chrominance signals could be separated,[2] and the resulting image quality was notably sharper than standard setups.

Additional functions were added to the remote control such that the SFC portion of the unit can be reset by simultaneously pressing two buttons.

The C1 had been notably unable to connect to the Family Computer Disk System, and the SF1's design was intended to alleviate this problem with any Super Famicom peripherals.

Doubts over the awkward attachment of expansion peripherals were among the reasons the unit never ultimately saw an international release.