This Month In Nintendo History: October 1985

By Shane Jury 03.10.2011 4

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This Month in Nintendo History: October 1985


As 2011 enters its twilight months, we cast an eye back to a console’s beginning in the latest This Month in Nintendo History, back to a time when gaming was revolutionised and changed forever. This one machine revitalised the industry after the Atari-blamed industry crash of 1983, introduced the now-standard practice of licenced third party games on another manufacturer’s machine, and became the starting point for many of the greatest franchises and games that continue to this very day. In Japan we knew it as the Famicom, or Family Computer, but on October 18th, 1985, the rest of the world would come to know it by another name, the Nintendo Entertainment System.


To get a better perspective of the machine, we need to take a gander at the background of its maker, Nintendo Co., Ltd (translating roughly to “leave luck to heaven”). Since back in 1889 televisions had the notable handicap of not being invented yet, so - then known as Nintendo Koppai and led by Fusajiro Yamauchi - Nintendo’s business began with Hanafuda cards. These small rectangular cards were of such intricate design and widespread use at the time they might as well have been the videogame equivalent. Their production continues to this day, though in reduced form. Nintendo bigwig Hiroshi Yamauchi - Fusajiro Yamauchi’s grandson - experimented with other moneymaking venues, too, including a cab company, a TV network, a food production venture and, of all things, a love hotel chain (perhaps an inspiration for Birdo’s appearance?). These avenues did not pay off, however, and so Nintendo turned to toys for bored minds young and old. Their first was of the physical variety: the Ultrahand.


The ultimate lazy-boy accessory. Grab a book from a bookshelf, or a beer from a table - the possibilities are endless!

This toy, created by a certain Mr Gunpei Yokoi, kickstarted Nintendo’s new business medium. Until 1974 they created a host of popular toys, including Love Tester and Ultra Machine, many of which still get referenced in Nintendo games nowadays. Their final, most notable toy was the Laser Clay Shooting System, a light gun arcade toy, and arguably Nintendo’s crucial first step into their present day charge.

1974 was the turning point, when Nintendo made its first step into the young videogame market by distributing the very first home games console, the Magnavox Odyssey, in its homeland. From there they created their own machine, the Color TV Game machine in 1977. Four variations were made, each with a different game built in.


Just try to imagine a modern-day equivalent of new game = new console purchase. There’d be riots!

Nintendo entered the gaming arcades with EVR Race a year after breaking into their new market, a game where players bet on one of six horses to win a race. EVR is the title that Nintendo formally acknowledge as their entry point into videogames. A small Japanese man with a huge grin was hired and commissioned to create the casing for these TV game machines, and that same Mr Miyamoto went on to create the Mario and Zelda franchises. It was he who designed Nintendo’s breakthrough arcade game, Donkey Kong, in 1981. This game was enormously popular with the Japanese public, and received several ports to home consoles of that time, boosting Nintendo’s profits enough for them to try making portable devices.

Repeating the previous idea of a machine with an in-built game, this time making it much more affordable and portable, Nintendo created the Game & Watch series in 1980 as an experiment, and expanded the range in the months after. These machines were to be the precursor to the Game Boy, and the profits they generated - together with the success of Donkey Kong - gave Nintendo the push needed to create their first true games machine with swappable software.


Skinny is the Famicom, Tubby is the NES. Makes you wonder...

Released in July of ‘83 in Japan, Famicom arrived to market with three arcade ports of Nintendo games. Things really took off once recalls and repairs solved a chip set issue that caused unfavourable crashes; this hurdle out of the way, Atari and other rivals were left in the sales dust. Encouraged by this success, the big N decided to release their new baby upon the proud nation of America. It would have to wait a couple of years, though, as the great videogame market crash of 1983 wouldn’t soon be forgotten in the United States.

Atari briefly entered negotiations with Nintendo to jointly distribute the Famicom as it was to regions outside of Japan, but the deal fell through due to Nintendo having released their games on a competitor’s machine. As such, Nintendo went it alone, and on October 18th 1985, New York City played host to the birth of a phenomenon.

Except, it didn’t quite start off that way. At that point retailers were rightfully weary of stocking anything remotely associated with a videogame machine, and thus Nintendo had to get smart. Yamauchi’s son-in-law and the head of Nintendo’s American branch, Minoru Arakawa, informed the stores they had selected to carry their product that Nintendo themselves would set up the displays and provide them with the products for free, and they would only have to pay for the units sold and could return everything else. Many were convinced by this proposition as it was risk-free, but the videogame stigma was still evident. Nintendo’s counter-attack to this was borderline genius.


 

Cringeworthy now, but a novel approach then.

As Nintendo re-learnt with Wii’s presentation, marketing is key for sales of the unknown. The company had two cards up its sleeve for their machine, newly christened as the Nintendo Entertainment System, to give off a sophisticated tech vibe. One is that little fella, ROB the Robot, an accessory for certain games, and an eye-catching extra for those dismissing the machine as simply another games console. The second was the NES Zapper, the gun accessory used with Duck Hunt, and probably on some real life wildlife too by some disappointed kids. By focusing the advertising on these, Nintendo sidestepped the aftershock that the 1983 crash caused, and together with a new machine design that looked less like a toy, managed to sell through half their initial stock.


Kids back then must have had impressive lungs to blow into this lot.

To be specific, Nintendo shifted around 50,000 units for that Christmas holiday; far from breaking records or equalling the millions that their machines are capable of today. Undeterred, Nintendo kept the machine on the market, and thanks to a little title called Super Mario Bros., and a number of game-and-machine bundles that arrived shortly after, the rest is, as they say, history.

Nintendo began to invade TV sets across European living rooms in September of '86, and throughout the rest of the civilized world not long after. Having had time to establish itself in the States, and partly due to the crash having little effect in Europe, NES set in ground its foundations and became a runaway success. Worldwide it would go on to sell 61.91 million units - compared to SEGA’s rival Master System’s 13 million - over the course of its 20 year production run, which only came to an end in Japan in September 2003. NES helped to establish Japan as a leading force of creativity in the videogame market, and Nintendo’s appreciation for their system is still reflected in their output. NES games are regulars on their download services, crop up in mini-game collections and its form is even reflected in hardware special editions such as the Famicom Game Boy Advance.

With the Nintendo Entertainment System now over a quarter of a decade old in most markets, do Cubed3’s older members still reminisce over Nintendo’s grey block of brilliance? And for the youngsters looking into the company’s roots, do you enjoy certain NES games over the products of today?

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Comments

wolvesgod (Forgot pw) (guest) 03.10.2011#1

I always loved Super Mario 3 it was amazing to see such crisp colors and detail in something so... old and low tech/.

Chuckpras (guest) 03.10.2011#2

Bbrilliant article Phoenix, I have an infinite amount of retro fondness fir the old Famicom, so many awesome games and way way ahead of it's time <3

Our member of the week

Good stuff Shane, it's always nice to read about the NES, though I was a born a bit too late to really appreciate it in all its glory when it was leading the market. I have fond memories of Metroid, Duck Hunt and Super Mario Bros though Smilie.

Cubed3 Limited Staff :: Review and Feature Writer
Urchinsub (guest) 04.10.2011#4

The old grey brick had some problems connecting right with the cartridges sometimes but those were special days. Spending too much time gaming on a newer machine today doesn't quite equate with doing the same in those days. Also, the abstractness of the games' graphics challenged the imagination (contrary to what some people have claimed). Seeing 3D Mario grab big floating coins on Wii seems a little odd but seeing him do it 25 years ago in 2d 8-bit graphics was creatively stimulating along with all the other odd things done in 8-bit graphics.

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