Game BuzzardCyber Arcade

I have loved playing video games for the past 40 years and Nintendo has been a huge part of it. I remember playing the Classic Donkey Kong in my local arcade and listening to “The Cars” blasting over the speakers is a memory that has lasted a life time. I only wish that my kids could experience what going to an arcade was all about. That’s for a later post.

I came across this article that i found really interesting to see where Nintendo originated from. I am always fascinated with companies and what got them to where they are today. I had no idea Nintendo started out as a card company that is over 119 years old or that the name NINTENO means ” Leave Luck to Heaven”.

1889 - A card game business specialising in stylish Hanafuda (flora) cards is set up by Fusajiro Yamauchi under the name of Nintendo Koppai. The business struggles until the yakuza decide to adopt the cards for their high-stakes gambling. The yakuza would demand a new pack at the start of every game and would look to Yamauchi to supply them.

Trivia - The name Nintendo is said to mean ‘leave luck to heaven’.

1907 - Nintendo Koppai partners with Japan Tobacco & Salt Corporation and becomes the first domestic Japanese supplier of Western-style playing cards.

1927 - Hiroshi Yamauchi is born in the town of Kyoto, Japan.

1929 - Fusajiro Yamauchi retires, leaving control of the business to his son-in-law, Sekiryo Kaneda (aka Yamauchi).

1932 - Hiroshi’s father walks out on his mother and Hiroshi is sent to live with his grandparents, Tei and Sekiryo Yamauchi.

1933 - The stop-motion classic King Kong is released in cinemas by Universal Studios.

1933 - Sekiryo Yamauchi establishes a joint partnership company named Yamauchi Nintendo & Co.

1947 - Not long after the Second World War, Sekiryo sets up a distribution company named Marufuku Co Ltd to distribute Nintendo’s Western-style playing cards.

1949 - Owing to ill health, Sekiryo retires and leaves the company to his grandson, Hiroshi Yamauchi. Hiroshi renames the company Nintendo Playing Cards Co.

1952 - Hiroshi decides to expand his business and move it to a newer premises in Kyoto, Japan. He would also begin streamlining his manufacturing plants.

1952 - Shigeru Miyamoto is born in the small town of Sonebe, outside of Kyoto in Japan.

Trivia - Nintendo was the first card manufacturer in Japan to lacquer its playing cards.

1953 - Yamauchi strikes a deal with Walt Disney that allows Nintendo to produce playing cards featuring popular Disney characters.

1963 - After raising more capital on the stock market, Yamauchi tries new ventures. Some of the least successful include instant rice, burlesque ‘love hotels’ and a taxi company. However, Nintendo’s toy division begins to show promise when one of its employees, Gunpei Yokoi, creates the Ultra Hand and it proves
a huge success.

1970 - Nintendo continues to grow within the toy market. Its next big hit is The Beam Gun: an early variation of a light-gun game co-developed by Sharp and developed by Masayuki Uemura.

Trivia - The Beam Gun made Nintendo the first company in Japan to use electronic components inside toys for children.

1973 - Nintendo adapts its Beam Gun idea into electronic Laser Skeet Shooting ranges and instals them into bowling alleys across the country.

1974 - The Beam Gun technology is used again in the arcade game Wild Gunman (which would eventually be ported to the NES and later made famous in the movie Back To The Future Part II).

Trivia - According to the screenwriter Bob Gale, on his commentary for the Back To The Future Part II DVD, the Wild Gunman arcade cab that appears in the movie was especially built for the film.

1975 - Shigeru Miyamoto graduates from the Kanazawa College
of Art with a degree in Industrial Design.

1975 - Yamauchi-san negotiates a deal with Magnavox that allows Nintendo to manufacture and sell the Odyssey (the first home videogame console) in Japan.

1977 - Nintendo launches its first home videogame system: the Colour TV Game 6. It contains six variations of Pong and is later succeeded by the Colour TV Game 15. The machines are only released in Japan.

1978 - Nintendo releases the arcade games Computer Othello and Block Fever.

1979 - In a bid to capitalise on the success and popularity of Space Invaders, Nintendo releases its space shooter Radar Scope in arcades across Japan.

1979 - Yamauchi Hiroshi interviews Shigeru Miyamoto for a job as junior staff artist at Nintendo, and Miyamoto gets the job.

1980 - Nintendo of America Inc is established to oversee the distribution of arcade games for Nintendo in North America. Minoru Arakawa becomes president of Nintendo of America and proves a driving force behind its success in the US.

Trivia - The Game & Watch was the first LCD game to contain a microprocessor.

1980 - Gunpei Yokoi develops the first LCD handheld game for Nintendo: the Game & Watch. The first game released on the system is the juggling game, Ball.

1980 - Radar Scope fails to attract interest in the US. Miyamoto and Gunpei are asked to create a game that US arcade operators could install into Radar Scope cabs. Nintendo is confident that it will secure the videogame rights for the Popeye cartoon so it’s suggested that the pair develop a game around the characters.

1980 - The Popeye licence falls through, but an unperturbed Miyamotoswitches the characters for his own creations: Jump Man would replace Popeye; Lady/Pauline, Olive Oyl; and Donkey Kong, Bluto.

1981 - Donkey Kong is released in North America and earns Nintendo $180 million in its first year and $100 million in its second.

Trivia - Donkey Kong is the first videogame to ever have an attract screen – Donkey Kong is seen grabbing Pauline and carrying her to the top of the stage.

1982 - Nintendo vs Universal
Donkey Kong’s success caught the eye of Universal Studios, which felt the character was a direct infringement of its film King Kong. Nintendo was taken to court by the studio, but the judge ruled in Nintendo’s favour after it was brought to light that in a previous court case Universal fought to prove that the character of King Kong was within the pubic domain so it could make its movie. Nintendo was awarded $1.8 million from Universal.

1983 - Nintendo releases the Famicom (Family Computer) in Japan priced at 54,800 yen. Designed by Masayuki Uemura, it is released with 20 software titles, including a home port of Donkey Kong. The machine was originally beige and maroon and its game cartridges had to be slotted in through the top.

1985 - Yamauchi decides to rejig the internal structure of Nintendo and split its internal development teams into four groups: R&D1, R&D2, R&D3 and R&D4.

1985 - The Famicom is released in the US and Europe as the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System). Selling for $300, it would sell 60 million units worldwide. Trivia - To stop the NES from playing unlicensed software – anything without Nintendo’s Seal of Quality badge – Nintendo fitted each machine with the 10NES lockout system, much to the annoyance of many developers of the time.

Famicom/NES
In the box
CPU: Ricoh Custom 8-Bit
6502 NMOS (Negative Channel Metal Oxide Semiconductor)
CPU Speed: 1.79MHz
RAM: 16Kbit (2Kbyte)
Resolution: 256 x 240
Colours: 52
Maximum Sprite Size: 8 x 16 Pixels
Maximum Sprites : 64 Sprites
Maximum Colours Displayed At Once: 16
Sound: 5 Channel Mono PSG

1986 - The Legend Of Zelda is released in Japan and is the first game to make use of the FDS (Famicom Disc System), a disc add-on for the machine that used rewritable discs to allow saving in games.

Inspired by a love for exploring, Miyamoto’s intention for The Legend Of Zelda was always to create a ‘virtual garden’, a game the player could nurture and watch blossom gradually. Similar in his approach to Super Mario Bros, Miyamoto would also look to outmode the notion of high-score chasing and replace it with the idea of completion and finishing the game.

Playing the role of Link, it was left to the player to explore an ‘open world’ that gave little direction. Despite some initial concerns by Miyamoto soon after the game’s release – he feared that this new style of gameplay could alienate some people – The Legend Of Zelda would prove a huge success and go on to become arguably Nintendo’s most well-loved creation.

Trivia - The Legend Of Zelda was a launch title for the NES in North America. It came encased in special gold cartridges containing an internal battery to facilitate save games – the first game cartridge to offer this.

1987 - Nintendo vs Blockbuster Entertainment
When Nintendo discovered that Blockbuster was renting out NES games to its customers, it would threaten the rental giant with legal action. The case was eventually settled out of court, but when it later transpired that Blockbuster was also supplying its customers with photocopied instruction manuals, the companies would again clash in the courts, and Blockbuster would later agree to supply its own instruction cards with rental games.

1989 - Tengen Inc vs Nintendo
In 1989, Tengen (an arm of Atari) would drag Nintendo into the courts on the grounds it felt the company was conducting monopolistic business practises – essentially using bully-boy tactics to dominate the market. Nintendo would later repay the favour by taking Tengen to court over the latter’s NES version of Tetris (which Nintendo had just won the licence for). Nintendo won the case and Tengen was forced to pull all copies of the game from shop shelves.

1989 - Nintendo releases the Power Glove. The accessory is designed by Mattel and, similar to the WiiRemote, allows players to recreate hand movements on screen using motion sensors attached to televisions.

1989 - The Wizard movie is released in the US. Starring Fred Savage, Christian Slater and Beau Bridges, it chronicles the story of a young boy with a talent for videogames who enters a Nintendo tournament in Florida. Nintendo uses it as a vehicle to promote the NES and unveil Super Mario Bros 3 in the West.

1989 - Nintendo launches its most successful console of all time: the Game Boy. Thanks to its impressive battery life, and it being packed with Tetris, it would go on to dominate the handheld market.

Game Boy
In the box
CPU: Z80 8-bit CMOS
CPU Speed: 4.19MHz
RAM: 64 Kbit (8Kbyte)
Resolution: 160 x 144
Pixels
Colours: n/a
Maximum Sprite Size: 8 x 16 Pixels
Maximum Sprites: 40 Sprites
Maximum Colours Displayed at Once: n/a
Sound: 4 Channel

1990 - Trailing behind in the home console market because of the development of the Game Boy and a reluctance to stop software support for the NES, Nintendo releases the Super Famicom in Japan. Developed and designed by Masayuki Uemura, such is the wave of anticipation that leads up to the machine’s launch, the console would sell out in just three days.

1991 - After a collaboration with Sony to help develop a CD add-on for the SNES turns sour, Nintendo decides to partner with Sony’s rivals, Philips Electronics NV. Nintendo grants the company permission to use Mario and Zelda in a series of games for the Philips CD-i console, and in exchange Philips agrees to work on a CD add-on for the SNES. But the add-on is later dropped.

1991 - The Super Famicom is released in the US as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES).
1993- Gunpei Yokoi and his R&D1 team begin researching Virtual Reality technology.

SNES
In the box
CPU: 65c816 (16-bit)
CPU Speed: 2.68–3.58MHz
RAM: 1Mbit (128Kbyte)
Resolution: 512 x 448 Pixels
Colours: 32,768
Maximum Sprite Size: 64 x 64 Pixels
Maximum Sprites: 128 Sprites
Maximum Colours Displayed at Once: 256
Sound: 8-bit Sony SPC700

Trivia - Star Fox, released in the US in 1993, was the first 3D polygon game to ever appear on a home console. It made use of the cartridge’s Super FX chip to create 3D effects. The chip and game were developed in the UK, by Argonaut Software.

1995 - Nintendo partners with Satellite Digital Audio Broadcasting Co to release the Satelleview-X (BS) in Japan. Comparable to The Virtual Console, it’s a modem add-on for the SNES that allows gamers to listen to music, watch television shows and play games by tuning into a service called ST GIGA.

1995 - Nintendo releases the Virtual Boy in Japan. With its cumbersome looks, high asking price and lack of software support by other developers, sales for the machine prove slow and the project would eventually be considered a flop
by Nintendo.

1996 - The Virtual Boy is released in the America. It never finds a release in Australia.

Trivia - Only 22 games were ever released for the Virtual Boy, most by Nintendo. It’s reputed that the machine was always intended to ship in a different – less bulky – form but was rushed out of production by an impatient Nintendo which wanted to focus its time and efforts on the N64.

1996 - Nintendo releases Pokémon Red and Green for the Game Boy in Japan.

1996 - The N64 is released in Japan alongside the first ‘true’ 3D platform game: Mario 64.

N64
In the box
CPU: NEC VR4300
CPU Speed: 93.75 MHz
GPU: SGI 62.5 MHz 64-bit RCP
RAM: 4.5MB
Resolution: 640 x 480 Pixels
Colours: 16.8 million (palette), 32,000 (on-screen at once)
Sound: Handled by
the CPU

1996 - Following the failure of the Virtual Boy, Gunpei Yokoi resigns from Nintendo and establishes his own company: Koto Laboratory. The latter collaborates with Bandai to create the WonderSwan console.

1997 - Gunpei Yoko is killed in a tragic car accident at the age of 56.

1998 - Nintendo launches the Game Boy Color. It’s released with two new hardware add-ons: the Game Boy Camera and Game Boy Printer.

1999 - Bandai releases the WonderSwan in Japan.

Trivia - The Game Boy Color game Kirby Tilt N Tumble was released in Japan in 2000. It was the first game to make use of ‘motion sensor technology’ as it allowed the player to control the movements of Kirby by simply tilting the Game Boy.

2000 - Nintendo decides to move its headquarters to the Minami ward of Kyoto.

2001 - Nintendo launches the Game Boy Advance (GBA) worldwide and the Nintendo GameCube in Japan and the US.

2002 - Hiroshi Yamauchi steps down as president of Nintendo. His successor is Satoru Iwata, marking the first time that the presidency would leave the hands of the Yamauchi family.

2003 - Nintendo establishes The Tokyo Software Designing Department in Tokyo, Japan.

2004 - Nintendo launches the DS, a two-screen handheld that uses touch-screen and Wi-Fi technology.

2005 - Nintendo rejigs the structure of its R&D departments. All internal development is now produced under the Nintendo EAD banner.

2006 - Nintendo releases the Wii. It’s the first games console to be specifically built around motion-sensor technology. It’s also the first Nintendo console to offer internet access and downloadable content through the Virtual Console service.

Wii
In the box
CPU: IBM Broadway 729MHz
Internal Storage: 512MB Flash Memory
GPU: ATI Hollywood
Optical Disc Drive: 8cm GameCube/12cm Wii
Resolution: Up to 480p
12cm Disc Capacity: 4.7GB (single) /
8.5GB (dual)

This article originally published in Ultimate Nintendo Magazine