In 1952, Professor A.S. Douglas created what is probably one of the worst console ports of Tic-Tac-Toe, "OXO".
When he died in 2010, he probably thought to himself "How the hell did we go from X's and O's to Call of Duty, holy crap" (ok maybe not, but he did invent videogames, so its his own fault)
What does this have to do with anything? Nothing really, aside from pointing out that videogames as a whole will turn 72 in December - a lot older than most people think. That's really funny too, because Nintendo, by comparison, is about twice as old. If you're reading this, you probably already know that, and routinely tell people this to try and impress them, before they remind you that you already told them (and then you laugh about it while holding back tears.) However, did you ever question *how* exactly Nintendo got to where they are today? What amazing (and hilariously awful) decisions got them there?
1889-1929: The Hanafuda Era
By now, most people already know how it all started: A playing card company starts shifting towards toys in the 60s, then follows trends until suddenly Donkey Kong happens. However, for those likeminded fellows who like to ask "how" and "why" too much, I have decided to go a bit more in-depth regarding the company history. Nobody in the states had ever really heard of them until the 1980's, so it might come as a surprise to learn what all they had been up to until then, which admittedly wasn't a lot at first, but don't worry - we'll get there.
Let's wind the clock back to about 1885. While Doc Brown and Marty McFly were trying to get a train up to 88 miles per hour, a Japanese teen named Fusajiro Fukui was marrying into wealth and business experience. Taking the prestigious "Yamauchi" surname, he would learn enough from this to start a business all his own a few years later, which dealt in printing playing cards for a local type of card game called Hanafuda. Perhaps trying to remain humble, he named the plant after an abbreviated phrase meaning "We leave luck to the heavens", or, in Japanese, "Nintendo".
Now, let's talk about this for a moment: Fusajiro was living right in the middle of the Meiji Restoration. He would have been a toddler when the samurai were dissolved, and was just coming into business in time to take advantage of some very relaxed gambling laws. It was illegal, still, to sell or possess Western-style playing cards, but the authorities decided that Hanafuda cards were perfectly ok. Fusajiro, obviously very smart for a teenager, put his craftsman background to work and started manufacturing them. "Strike while the iron's hot", as they say.
1929-1966: The First Hurdles
Fusajiro would continue running the company up until the late 1920s, when his son-in-law Sekiryo Kaneda (later Yamauchi) took over. Since his tenure would lead Nintendo through some very interesting world history, it is a little inevitable to mention that, well... ...it was Japan. While they mostly avoided adding any kind of political flavor to their products, they did have to make a few deals with the government in order to avoid bankruptcy in a rapidly tanking economy (If you have never seen Grave of the Fireflies, trust me: it was bad.)
Sekiryo wasn't the only Yamauchi to be impacted by this: his grandson, Hiroshi, was all set to attend law school when the war put his plans on hold. After Japan signed the treaty (and Nintendo almost got vaporized), he eagerly resumed his plans for higher education. It wouldn't last long, though: in 1948, Grandpa Sekiryo suffered a severe stroke and, practically on his deathbed, quickly recalled Hiroshi to inherit the family business (he would have left it to Hiroshi's dad, but that guy sorta "just went out for cigarettes, he'll be back he promised" when Hiroshi was like five.)
Now, if the name Hiroshi Yamauchi sounds at all familiar to you, it's because this is the man who would see the company through to the rest of the century. He would personally watch and contribute as Nintendo went from 52-Card Pickup all the way to Luigi's Mansion. Approaching the 1950's, he probably didn't realize the kind of success he was going to lead the company to. Actually, the future was looking pretty bleak: The economy still hadn't healed, and Hiroshi had pretty much set Hanafuda aside completely in order to cater to stationed US soldiers (the best economy they had).
No worries, though! Eventually the company was saved by a more "family-friendly" approach and a licensing agreement with Disney. This inspired Hiroshi to venture abroad to figure out how all the other card companies were conducting themselves. His big takeaway was that Nintendo was wasting their time and money where they could be pursuing things like (terrible) rice, (underpaid) taxis, or (yes) love hotels. The fact that they once again faced bankruptcy afterward (now on their own merit) says a lot about the success of this venture.
...But hey, sometimes you have to step out of your comfort zone.
1966-1980:The Toy Era
Nintendo would once again be saved, this time by one of its engineers - None other than the future inventor of Metroid and Gameboy, Mr. Gunpei Yokoi. Yamauchi realized that Yokoi's penchant for tinkering could propel them into the toy industry, and quickly promoted the man to his own toy department when that venture panned out to enormous success. This was the era of products like the Ultra Hand, the Love Tester, and N&B - Nintendo's off-brand Legos.
This was also the era of the beam gun - Yokoi's brilliant idea to have guns that shoot light at solar-sensitive targets. Throughout the 1970's, Nintendo was exploring relatively low-tech options for breaking into the arcade scene. This was deliberate, as Yokoi felt it was best to explore new uses for tried-and-true technology. Unfortunately, the oil crisis led to complications that put a lid on that, and Nintendo once again found themselves staring death right in the eye, unless they could somehow make it into the videogame market proper. This was around the time when the Atari 2600 had released, making history in home entertainment. Nintendo quickly realized that the answer to their success was to stand on the shoulders of giants and personally create the videogame console of the future...
All joking aside, their efforts were modestly successful, and it was around this time that one Shigeru Miyamoto came to work for the company. Although he majored in industrial design, Yamauchi felt he could be useful in helping to design arcade games. Regardless of whatever success he would later bring the company, his first real project with them was a Space Invaders clone named Radar Scope, and while it did modestly well in Japan, it bombed atrociously in the states. Worse yet, Yamauchi had reached out to his son-in-law, Minoru Arakawa, to head Nintendo's North American branch in 1980, taking a huge gamble on the hope that Radar Scope would be a success. When it wasn't, Yamauchi's response was for Miyamoto and his team to create something new and original for the Western arcade market. Something with construction sites and platforming.
...Something with big gorillas and little Italian men.
1981-1985: Not Quite a Household Name Yet
The success of Donkey Kong was unlike anything Nintendo had ever seen before. They had finally achieved their big break, gaining a future mascot in the process - the portly plumber (to be) named Mario. When Shigeru Miyamoto designed the iconic character, he wanted him to appear as human as possible. To this end, the man wore overalls so that his arms could be distinguished from his body. He also had a mustache, so his nose could clearly be seen. As for the hat, well... Miyamoto just wasn't good with hair. As for the name... originally Miyamoto just called him "Jumpman". However, multiple Nintendo of America employees drew similarities between the protagonist and their landlord, Mr. Mario Segale. Thus, the name "Mario" stuck.
Donkey Kong was getting Nintendo attention of all sorts, and Yamauchi was convinced it was time for Nintendo to take a serious stab at a competing videogame console. When the Family Computer finally debuted in 1983, it saw runaway success. Graphics and sound for the console were arcade-quality, and the software was far more stable (following a minor hiccup early on.) All signs were pointing to an American release, and Nintendo was eager to oblige, figuring Atari would be the best company to partner with on this.
...Hiroshi Yamauchi and Minoru Arakawa nearly made the biggest mistake of their lives.
See, by the time the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) rolled around, the Great Videogame Market Crash was in full swing. Nobody at Nintendo realized this, because A: Japan was not affected, and B: Nintendo of America (NOA) only dealt with arcades up to now (which also were not affected.) Atari was, of course, largely responsible for the whole thing, but Nintendo didn't need to know that - in fact, an obviously threatened Atari tried to tangle Nintendo up in red tape, by demanding exclusive marketing rights they had neither the money nor resources to do anything with. The whole thing fell apart though, for the most hilarious of reasons. No, seriously - one of the Atari reps at the show saw Donkey Kong running on a Coleco Adam computer and flipped out, accused Nintendo of going behind their backs, and cancelled the whole deal. Nintendo, for their part, were completely bewildered - Coleco had licensing rights for Donkey Kong, but didn't bother to tell Nintendo they would be showing it off at CES that year. Yamauchi was absolutely livid, threatening Coleco with legal action for costing them the deal, but eventually he and the rest of Nintendo came to realize they had actually dodged a bullet.
Yamauchi walked away from the whole experience convinced that Nintendo could market their console on their own, single-handedly resurrecting the dead industry by carefully disguising the console and its software. The first step in this process would be to repackage existing Famicom games as arcades in America - That way, when people saw them on a home console later on, they'd think "oh wow this looks just like the arcade!" (This was also an opportunity for Nintendo to test-market some of their existing games in the states.) Pleased with the results, they renamed their product the Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES. Designer Lance Barr quickly began drafting a new design for the western system, taking as much emphasis as possible away from the fact that this was a videogame console. Nintendo was very adamant about this: ROB was included to sell the NES as a toy, the main deck would load sideways (like a VCR), and consumers weren't buying cartridges, but rather "Game Paks".
1985-1989: Nintendo Takes Over The World
It did not work very well. Most stores could see easily through the facade, and many were skeptical at best. Still, Nintendo convinced them to stock the product, and on October 18th, 1985, the NES released to a select test market in New York. Business was slow at first, as many could easily see it was just another videogame console, but others were intrigued by the robot and the light gun. In the end, Nintendo didn't care - they knew that as long as they got some of their product into households, those same households would inevitably try to justify the investment by adding games to their library. They would then stumble upon what, at the time, was Nintendo's hidden gem: Super Mario Bros.
It's a bit odd to point out that Super Mario Bros. did not have any kind of dedicated commercial - Japan lauded the quirky new adventure with plenty of advertisements when it released there a month prior, but the American release was rather quiet. Most likely, this was due to Nintendo not wanting to advertise a videogame console. The game would appear in commercials, sure, but only in brief. Nintendo relied purely on people curiously picking up the game (as it did not come packaged with the NES at first) and then telling their neighbor "Hey, you've gotta get this thing!!" Pretty soon, it became the console's killer app - so much so, in fact, that Nintendo actually got letters from people in other parts of the country all asking about it, and wanting to know where they could pick one up. Nintendo had to write back, explaining that the NES would make a nationwide release late in the summer of 1986.
A year ago in October, people approached the NES in New York like skittish wild animals, ready to run at a moment's notice. Now, they were beating down Nintendo's door, ready to pay good money for it! Nintendo had successfully conquered the market crash, but could they keep it away? Could they promise their consumers better than Atari? That was Yamauchi's goal: He specifically called for the Famicom's American counterpart to have a 10NES Lockout Chip, specifically to prevent unlicensed games from being played. In other words, every videogame released on the NES (in theory) had to go through Nintendo themselves for approval first. They had to be stable, playable, of decent length, and of course appropriate for American sensibilities (in other words, everything Atari had failed to do.)
This was all great for consumers, but when Nintendo announced their third-party development plan later that year, they had some unusual and rather strict policies. Companies like Capcom and Konami did not take well to the idea that they were limited to publishing only five games per fiscal year, or that they had to purchase a minimal bulk order of 10,000 copies from Nintendo (who handled cart production.) Coupled with the alleged chip shortage which occurred shortly after the NES release of The Legend of Zelda, the experience left a bad taste in some people's mouths (and inspired Tengen to get up to all sorts of shenanigans.) Truthfully, by the end of 1987, Nintendo knew that they were sitting at the top of an empire and had effectively monopolized the industry. This led to a lot of legal battles, not all of which Nintendo won. In addition to trying to control the market (for good reasons or otherwise), Nintendo was engaging in shady practices. They would later be accused of price-fixing and intimidating storefronts out of selling competing product (holy crap), and end up having to pay dearly for it (by issuing coupons to households across the country.)
The NES wouldn't begin to feel dated until around 1989, when Sega unveiled some serious competition. However, it still had quite a few years left in it - Yamauchi, again citing the crash, felt that Americans needed the NES as an option for as long as possible before adopting the soon-to-release Super Nintendo Entertainment System, or SNES. In the end, Nintendo would close out the decade, and the first 100 years of its existence, with the ability to say that it overcame great hardship, time and again, in order to establish itself as a titan in the videogame industry. Moving forward, it would find rivals left and right, ready to challenge that position...
