The Rise of Nintendo and the Nintendo Entertainment System Conquers America
In order to expand the reach of Nintendo, company president Hiroshi Yamauchi had Masayuki Uemura design a home console Yamauchi wanted the console to be a year ahead of the competition in technology and cost a third of the price of the Epoch Cassette Vision Uemura’s original design came with a modem, keyboard, and disk drive, but these were removed to lower the cost The system was released as the Family Computer, or Famicom for short, and its controller was based on the Game & Watch version of Donkey Kong Yamauchi picked three of Shigeru Miyamoto’s games – Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., and Popeye to be launch titles for the Famicom Yamauchi’s goal was to make money not off of the console sales, but off of the game sales Within two months of its July 1983 release, the Famicom sold 500,000 units, with more than a million units sold by years end Nintendo couldn’t keep up with its quickly growing fan base, and Yamauchi’s solution was to allow other game publishers to make games for the Famicom Nintendo set up some rules about allowing others make games for the Famicom Nintendo wanted cash upfront to manufacture cartridges, a cut of the profits from sales, and the right to veto the release of any game, including all pornographic bishojo games
Many publishers baulked at Nintendo’s demands, finding them to be too strict Hudson Soft, makers of Bomber Man, signed up and released Roadrunner, a remake of the American platformer Load Runner, which sold over a million units, about ten times what home computer games were doing Hudson Soft’s success made others want to get into the game, and by 1985, there were 17 publishers making Famicom games
One company making Famicom games was Bullet-Proof Software, created by American Henk Rogers Rogers, living in Japan, decided to get into the Japanese video game industry in 1983 with the growing sale of computer, most notably the NEC PC-8001 Rogers noticed that while many game genres were being made in Japan, there were no role-playing games Rogers was a big fan of Dungeons & Dragons, so for him a lack of RPGs was horrible While Dungeons & Dragons and RPG games were popular in the US, Japan new nothing of them In hopes of making RPGs popular in Japan, Rogers created The Black Onyx, a straight-forward RPG that was heavily inspired by Ultima and Wizardry, and was about dungeon exploration and monster killing The game was released during Christmas 1983, and sold only 600 copies at the time Desperate, Rogers hired an interpreter and started visiting Japanese video game magazines to explain the concept of RPGs and how to play The Black Onyx Rogers’ plan worked, with Japanese video game magazines raving about the game and sales of The Black Onyx going through the roof The Black Onyx’s success prompted Japanese developers started making RPGs, many making them with a Japanese style Portopia Serial Murder Case creator Yuji Horii of Enix lead the Japanese reinvention of the RPG with his 1986 game Dragon Quest Horii rejected the Wizardry template that others followed, replacing the attempted realistic graphics with Dragon Ball inspired visuals, a score that focused more on atmosphere than action, and reduced the reliance on statistics and complex controls Dragon Quest was distinctly Japanese, with a focus on character development and resource management aspects of role-playing When Dragon Quest was released in Japan for the Famicom, it became a sensation, selling more than 2 million copies Dragon Quest formed the blueprint for Japanese RPGs, and influenced developers such as Square’s Hironobu Sakaguchi
Sakaguchi had played Wizardry before, and while he liked the gameplay, he disliked the story In response to Dragon Quest, Sakaguchi made Final Fantasy, a darker game with an undercurrent of angst as opposed to the light-hearted adventure of Dragon Quest Released in 1987, Final Fantasy was given its name because Sakaguchi felt if the game did poor, he would quick being a game developer Soon, others were making RPGs, such as Nintendo with Mother and Sega with Phantasy Star for its Master System console
Despite Nintendo’s involvement in Mother Yamauchi and Miyamoto both expressed dislike of the genre
Despite his dislike of RPGs, Miyamoto took elements from the genre while making The Legend of Zelda
In making The Legend of Zelda, Miyamoto was heavily influenced by his childhood in Sonobe, outside of Kyoto, were he would explore the countryside
Miyamoto wanted players to experience the freedom of exploration and encounter amazing things
The Legend of Zelda would go on to become one of Miyamoto’s biggest creations The popularity of JRPGs was seen most in the release of Dragon Quest III Released on February 10th, 1988, Dragon Quest III sold nearly a million copies on launch day Many children skipped school to buy a copy, with police taking 392 truanting children into custody, with a National Police Agency spokesman describing it as “a national disgrace” The mayhem Dragon Quest III brought caused Enix to only released Dragon Quest games on Sundays or bank holidays The success of Dragon Quest III also confirmed Nintendo’s dominance in Japan, where the Sega Master System had been ignored, and Nintendo’s next step was to look West
In 1984, Nintendo was touting the Advanced Video System, the US version of the Famicom, at trade shows with little success To avoid associations with Atari, the AVS had a video-recorder gray encasing and came with a keyboard attachment to turn it into a home computer, but people could see through their disguise A year earlier, Nintendo tried to persuade Atari to bring the Famicom to the US, but Atari couldn’t afford the deal and declined Yamauchi refused defeat, and asked his son-in-law Minoru Arakawa, the president of Nintendo of America, to find a solution While trying to find a solution to entering the US video game market, Arakawa noticed that people were still playing games, but only really above average ones Arakawa ordered a second redesign of the Famicom, this time called the Nintendo Entertainment System, which would be out and proud a game console Arakawa also embraced the Famicom’s Japanese license system, and added a security chip to the NES so Nintendo could dictate what was available on the console American game developers viewed these rules as draconian and a big step backwards, and had little interest making games for the NES Nintendo had little to fear about American developers disinterest in the NES as they had dozens of great games from Japan Nintendo’s bigger challenge was to get retailers to sell the NES, and Nintendo needed some gimmicks to get this started Nintendo packaged the Zapper light gun and a robot called Robotic Operating Buddy, or R.O.B., with the NES in hopes that retailers would want to sell their console Nintendo pushed the Zapper and R.O.B. hard at the 1985 Consumer Electronics Show, but retailers were unmoved Arakawa felt that there was no hope for the NES, but Yamauchi wouldn’t take no for an answer Yamauchi told Arakawa to focus solely on one city before expanding, and New York City was what was chosen as it was seen as the toughest city to crack Nintendo offered money-back guarantees to retailers, spent millions on advertising, and showed off the Zapper and R.O.B. to shoppers at malls across the city for Christmas 1985 That Christmas, 90,000 NESs were sold, with a majority of the retailers willing to continue selling the product Nintendo expanded the NES to Los Angeles, then Chicago, then San Francisco, then Texas, and then nation wide
Like The Legend of Zelda, Miyamoto’s childhood exploring the countryside was a big influence for Super Mario Bros. Along with the 1984 Pac-Man spin- off Pac-Land, Super Mario Bros. heralded a new era for platform games where action was no longer confided to a single screen and the worlds were lager than players’ TV screens Originally intended to including a shooting element, Miyamoto and co- designer Takashi Tezuka had more fun with the jumping aspects, and made that the focus When Super Mario Bros. was released in the US in 1986, it helped make the NES a landmark device With Miyamoto’s Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda, along with Gunpei Yokoi’s Metroid and the Konami’s Castlevania, Nintendo was bringing video games back to the forefront in the US At the 1987 Consumer Electronics Show, video games made up a large portion of the show Fearful that retailer would slash prices of excess stock, a problem Atari faced, Nintendo limited the supplies that stores could sell This rarity made the NES even more popular, making it the most popular toy of Christmas 1987 Nintendo took a cut of every NES game sold, dictated when the game could be released, told licensees how many games they could release every year, and got to decide whether a game was good enough to release Australian publisher Beam Software tried to get around this rule by working out a way to get around Nintendo’s security protection and use this to make a development system to sell NES games Beam was able to sign up one publisher before Nintendo found out, causing Nintendo to state that any publisher who signed up with Beam would lose their license Beam begged for forgiveness, and eventually Nintendo allowed them to become a Nintendo licensee In continuing their theme of avoiding Atari’s mistakes, Nintendo put in place a zero tolerance policy to defects and bugs Nintendo didn’t want returns of their products, so developers had to make sure their product was perfect if they wanted to release on time This policy was revolutionary at the time, changing the way games were programmed and developed, but it was hard on the publishers To avoid another Custer’s Revenge, Nintendo produced an extensive list detailing what game publishers could not put in NES games
These rules echoed the Hays Code enforced in Hollywood from 1934 to 1968, as well as the 1954 Comics Code, while those codes were agreed upon by their industries, Nintendo enforced their code on the industry without consent
Nintendo prohibited graphic depictions of death, sex, nudity, gratuitous violence, criticism of religion, illegal drug use, tobacco, alcohol, and sexist or racist content
No one was free from Nintendo’s code, including Miyamoto, whose Pac-Man clone Devil World couldn’t wasn’t released in the US because it featured demons, Bibles, and crucifixes Despite Nintendo’s strict rules, publishers didn’t mind, trading creative and business freedom for huge profits Atari’s 7800 ProSystem and Sega’s Master System couldn’t compete as Nintendo licensees were afraid to flirt with the opposition By 1989 Nintendo products accounted for 23% of all toys sold in the US Nintendo Power, Nintendo’s promotional magazine, became the US’s biggest-selling children’s magazine Nintendo also opened up a premium rate helpline for players wanting tips on how to beat games, taking in more than 50,000 calls a week
Nintendo’s growing success made it a target for Americans upset about the growing influence of Japan on the US After WWII, the US helped Japan gain membership of international trade associations and encouraged US companies to share technology with the Japanese At the same time, Japan was putting in place protectionist laws that kept foreign firms out of Japan Some attempts to slow Japan’s growth, such as Richard Nixon’s decision to restrict Japanese TV imports, had the opposite affect, encouraging Japanese companies to open US factories or buy out US businesses To some, Nintendo’s success was just another example how American business was being crushed by Japan’s economic steamroller For Nintendo, this came to a head when Yamauchi bought the Seattle Mariners baseball team Washington State senator Salde Gorton asked Yamauchi to buy the team so that it could stay in Seattle, and despite having no interest in baseball, Yamauchi agreed hoping to give back to the US Many baseball fans didn’t see it that way, and a poll at the time showed that 61% of Americans wanted the Japanese out of Major League Baseball Nintendo’s huge success prompted accusations that they were engaging in monopolistic practices Health campaigners blamed Nintendo for making American kids fat Eugene Provenzo Jr., a professor at the University of Miami, conducted one of the earliest studies on video games, examining the portrayal of gender and violence within the 47 best selling NES games Provenzo wrote the book Video Kids: Making Sense of Nintendo, which accused a number of NES games for promoting aggression and containing racist and sexist stereotypes Provenzo’s book marked the start of academic study of video games, which was unheard of before
Nintendo turned its attention to Europe in 1986 after the their success in Japan and the US Nintendo’s lack of a European office and patchy distribution meant the NES only really started to appear in 1987 By 1987, European gamers were more interested in new home computers such as the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST, both having better visuals than the four year old NES Most notably in the UK, computer games were much cheaper than NES cartridges, costing only about £1.99, and many computers were cheaper than the NES console Due to the more freewheeling nature of the European video game industry, Nintendo’s NES licenses were a shock to European developers Others saw Nintendo’s content rules to be too strict, such as Captain Blood creator Philippe Ulrich Nintendo hardly relied on European publishers to make games, as they had plenty from Japan and the US, so many developers avoided making games for the NES Sega did a better job of reaching out the European developers, causing the Sega Master System to sell better than the NES in Europe Alan Sugar, founder of British electronics firm Amstrad, thought his company could be the European answer to Nintendo Amstrad repackaged their successful CPC home computer as the GX4000 console and presented it to UK publishers as an alternative to the NES Sugar and Amstrad were more focused on hardware sales instead of software sales, and the GX4000 only sold 10,000 compared to the two million CPC computes sold throughout Europe Despite Nintendo’s strict rules, some European publishers made NES games, mostly for the far larger US market Philip Oliver of the Oliver Twins, who made games such as Fruit Machine Simulator, Grand Prix Simulator, and Dizzy saw that the US market was far larger than the European market In Europe, a strong selling game sold around a few 100,000 units, while Super Mario Bros. had sold nearly 28 million units at the time The Oliver Twins made the NES-only title The Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy, which was virtual unknown in the US, but still sold about 200,000 units, which was big for the Oliver Twins The Oliver Twins’ publisher, Codemasters, also tried to get into the NES market with the Game Genie The Game Genie was a device that could plug into the NES and allowed players to cheat at games Codemasters tried to get Nintendo to approve the device, but Nintendo refused, so Codemasters decided to release the Game Genie without Nintendo’s approval Nintendo took Lewis Galoob, the distributor of the Game Genie in North America to court, but was unsuccessful in preventing the sale of the device Chris and Tim Stamper, founders of Ultimate Play The Game and makers of Knight Lore, turned their backs on the UK market and created Rare, an NES developer for hire The Stamper brothers reverse engineered the NES, made games for it, and showed them to Nintendo Nintendo was impressed, and made a special deal with Rare to make games for the NES that appealed to an American audience Rare made TV and film tie-ins such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, converted arcade games such as Narc, and made original games such as Battletoads
While Miyamoto and Tezuka had worked on Super Mario Bros. together, they worked on separate versions of Super Mario Bros. 2 Tezuka made a darker version of the original featuring levels designed to challenge the best players Nintendo thought this version would be too hard for Americans, and asked Miyamoto to rework his NES game Doki Doki Panic into Super Mario Bros. 2 The original Tezuka Super Mario Bros. 2 was released in the US as Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, and Miyamoto’s version was released in Japan as Super Mario Bros. USA Miyamoto and Tezuka worked together to make Super Mario Bros. 3 Super Mario Bros. 3 introduced Chain Chomps, inspired by Miyamoto’s memories of his neighbors aggressive dog, and a range of ability-changing costumes for Mario to wear Before the North American release, Nintendo worked with Universal Studios to make The Wizard, a movie that was essentially a 100-minute ad for Nintendo, with a sneak peek of Super Mario Bros. 3 Super Mario Bros. 3 became a huge critical and commercial success, and was a culmination of Nintendo’s journey from unknown Japanese toy maker to global video game giant Super Mario Bros. 3 sold more than 17 million copies, grossing around $550 million, more than Spielberg’s E.T.The Extra-Terrestrial
A survey in 1990 showed that Mario was more famous and popular than Mickey Mouse
Spielberg and Paul McCartney both travelled to Kyoto to meet Miyamoto
In 1989, the Japanese Economic Journal named Nintendo as Japan’s most profitable company ahead of Toyota and Honda
Apple Computer’s president Michael Spindler named Nintendo as the company he feared most during the 1990s
Nintendo turned the $100 million US game industry in 1986 to a $4 billion industry in 1991