8 Days of Gaming, Day 3: Rise of the Big N
With the huge disaster Atari left in the American market, home computer becoming popular in Europe and arcade machines being the norm in Japan, console gaming appeared to be gone for good, until Nintendo stepped up and made these little home entertainment machines popular once again, but how did they pull it off?
The history of this generation can be summed up into one line: the Nintendo Entertainment System was the most selling console, with its competitors being practically nonexistent and unpopular.
Rather than talking about history here, I want to talk about how Nintendo managed to revive a dead market and turn it to profit, so most of this article will be about the NES, with some minor rants at the end, so lets jump right into it.
The first thing we have to notice here is the naming scheme, Nintendo released the Family Computer in Japan and the Nintendo Entertainment System in the rest of the world. Notice how the words Video and Games aren’t present, with the Famicom being a computer for the family and the NES being an entertainment system, Nintendo omitted any reference of videogames and consoles that would have people tie up their machine with the Atari 2600, for all Nintendo cared, it was a totally different machine.
Having a different naming scheme was just the tip of the iceberg, let’s compare the NES with the Atari 2600:
Still don’t see it? let’s compare the NES with a VCR:
An uncanny resemblance. Nintendo’s strategy went so far as to make the system look like a VCR instead of a console, this is why NES cartridges are sometimes called nintendo tapes. This however lead to some design flaws, with the pins that connect to the cartridges often times bending over and causing a faulty connection. Gamers incorrectly thought that it was caused by dirt and debris on the cartridge so they resulting on blowing, but that causes more troubles than it fixes and is the primary reason for cartridges not working today. Eventually Nintendo went back to the old and much superior top-loading design as there was no reason to hide the fact that the NES was console like the Atari 2600.
Naming and design isn’t the strategy. After computers, people in the 80’s thought that the next big thing would be robots and it became an increasing popular topic. Nintendo used this as another way to differentiate their product, anyone remembers ROB?
The NES was marketed as a robot toy for kids with the system being just the control deck for the robot.
Once kids got tired of the damn robot (which they did pretty fast), Nintendo hooked them up with Super Mario Bros, which came with every system.
With a clever naming, design and introduction, Nintendo’s plans to bring new life to console gaming not only succeeded, it did it big time, with the NES breaking every records so far, but there is one last thing to dissect: the games.
Not only were they clever in how they presented the system, they knew full well that to hook gamers into their system they needed much more than the atari could have offered.
Shigeru Miyamoto had to explain his visions to developers. They thought Shigeru was making them code 4 games for the price of one, and he had to keep explaining that games with multiple screens were the future and obstacles and enemies would slow down the players as they progressed through the map.
Shigeru’s ideas were innovative and way ahead of its time, but when it worked, it paved the future of gaming and created franchises we still love today like Mario and the Legend of Zelda.
As for third party developement, Nintendo knew there has to be support, but they also wanted to prevent the shovelware disaster of the Atari 2600. They achive this by creating a licensing system: you can’t sell a game if it hasn’t been licensed by Nintendo. And to prevent shovelware, they limitted the ammount of titles a company can release to 3 per year, letting them focus on the game rather than publishing a quickly done product.
Aside from that, Nintendo had an official magazine named Nintendo Power, where they discussed and presented top-quality games that gamers could consult and thus know where to invest their money in, as opposed to go blindly like in the days of the atari.
The competition was barely nonexistent, yes there was the Sega MasterSystem, but lack of epic games, poor marketing and clear dominance on Nintendo’s part made this competition go almost unnoticed.
When it comes to gaming, the NES had it all: a good marketing strategy to win back gamers that Atari lost, a great library of launch titles that defined the childhoods of many kids, impressive graphics for its time and a great way to protect gamers from bad games and almost no competition. But not everything is sunshine and rainbows, there was a lot of problems with the system and I want to discuss them.
The design choice of the NES to make it look like a VCR was a good marketing strategy, but it was really bad for the durability and overall quality of the system. You see, unlike VCRs, the NES didn’t lock cartridges into place using the zero insertion mechanism, so you had to push down on the cartridges themselves to lock them into place. With time this causes the metal pins on the console that connect to the cartridge to bend over, and causing a faulty connection, which resulted in the system refusing to play the games due to the 10NES lockout chip not being able to authenticate the system.
Gamers back then thought that this was due to dirt and debris forming in the cartridges, so they resorted to blowing on it, which only made it worse as it moistures the metal connections, ultimately rusting them and causing a worst problem than before.
Bad design flaws wasn’t the only problem, and it wasn’t the biggest one. I’ve already talked about all the measures Nintendo took to prevent shovelware titles coming to the system, and while it prevented the system from being a failure, it didn’t prevent these type of games from coming out. First we got movie licensed games, imagine you’re in the 80’s and Terminator is the hottest movie around, and then a terminator game comes out for your favorite console, the NES, you say to yourself “wow!” and immediately buy the game, only to find out that it’s total ***, same applies to almost all, if not all, movie licensed games. Then we have games that are supposed to be platformers, shooters, rpg, etc but instead of taking inspiration from the controls, music and level design of all-time popular games like SMB, Contra or TLZ, they resort to having really unplayable and laggy controls, horrible graphics, heart attack inducing sound effects and many other problems that wouldn’t be there if they just payed attention to how popular franchises worked. A lot of people got *** off that such bad games had that “Nintendo Seal of Quality” in them to the point where that seal meant nothing at all, and was more misguiding than helpful.
Something else that I didn’t like about the NES was the huge category of peripherals and accessories, some are third party, but most were first party nintendo accessories like the powerglove, the dancing mat (whatever it’s called), the zapper or that damn robot ROB. Some of them are quite good like the zapper and continued to appear on other consoles later on, but most of them are horrible, specially since most of them relied on emulating the button presses of the controller rather than having its own set of controllers and specific games that could make use of them. I am glad they forgot about most of these bad products as some were a real pain, even in games made with them in mind, but Nintendo wasn’t stopping there with all the “revolutionary” bull****, 20 years later we got the Wii, a godaweful console that I consider a slap in the face to the GameCube, and later the Wii U, a badly made and expensive gimmick that nobody wants and the 3DS that is now destroying kids eyes all around the world. Thanks Nintendo!
My relationship with Nintendo products is always a love or hate one, either I love the console or I don’t. The NES falls into that love category, and I advise you to try it out, it has beloved franchises, as well as many hidden gems that weren’t as popular, but beware of gimmicks and shovelware, they didn’t get rid of that at all.
I know this 3rd generation has been all about the NES, but that’s because there’s barely anything else to talk about, the MasterSystem wasn’t that great and it wasn’t until they released the MasterSystem II that the console got popular and started to have some good games, unfortunately, that happens in the 4th generation, not this one.
Stay tuned, there will be more consoles to talk about in the generation.
l0l guise I’m furst, am 1 k00l nao?
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“Power Pad”. Took me about five seconds in Google to figure that out. Searching and typing “Power Pad” took fewer keystrokes than “the dancing mat (whatever it’s called)”.
Congratz, u win petty of the year award
I don’t give two sh*ts what that thing is called, it’s irrelevant to the point of the article.
Then why even include it in an article? heck, why write an article when you can’t be bothered to even to check your facts? Your half-*** “research” negates anything else you have to say that may be of value. I’ll be sure not to click any links with your name on them in the future.
Go ahead. Is that supposed to be a threat? Why should he care if you read or don’t read anything? Go ahead and don’t read his articles if you really feel that way, but don’t phrase it as a threat as if he owed you his time.
It’s you who need to do your research. In the very first day of consoles I made it clear that this is not a history lesson, this is me pricking up apart the different console from a subjective point of view and this is what I’ve done. The historical part is minor and only a small introduction. I can give two *** about that freaking dancing mat, if you want historical *** go to the millions upon millions of articles and videos scattered through the entire internet.
Quality’s much better than that Atari tragedy. Keep improving mate, just do me a favor and try cut down on the praising a bit, get’s a little fanboyish at times.
no need to be rude dumb idiot acid_snake
I think Nintendo is just going to fizzle out in the next 10 years. They really didn’t have much success with the Wii U. The only thing keeping them afloat, i think, is the kids that have their parents buy them 3DS ***. I have a 3DS but I haven’t bought a game for it since Kingdom Hearts DDD came out. There are something interesting games I’d like to try, but I just feel like they’d end up being lame.
The 3ds ain’t so bad. Rather it’s really good, the only thing bad about is sh*tendo’s greediness!!!
40€ for one PORTABLE games is too much. A month ago I bought castlevania mirror of fate for 10€ new. That was a reasonable and good pricing.
Nothing will kill Sh*tendo except their own GREED!!
Example:
Secret Agent Files: Miami -> EU-eshop 6,99€ (reduced price)
Secret Agent Files: Miami -> Brazil-eshop 3,00 Real (reduced price)
***…? 1€ is about 3,13 Real, and those price differences keep to pop up through the whole eshop library.
Best invest in last year was the purchcase of an US 3ds!!! It already retaliated its shipment plus import fees plus price of the device itself!!
Get over yourself dude. That’s a perfectly fine price given how portables are becoming more and more complex. Nintendo only gets a 30% cut on games not made by them. The rest goes to the developers that deserve the money if the game is worth playing.
Don’t like your market, move to a better country.
Only an idi*t would be okay with an utopic price tag.
Or is it that you’re filthy rich?
If so, pls gimme your bank account data, so that I can deduct a few grands.
Don’t like my market. So I hurt them by importing.
If any dev or branch dies in the process due to this, I can care less.
Nicely done im sure the big N will pull something out of there a** they have been around for over 100 years. Im sure we will be seeing things from them for the rest of our lives lets hope they give us something worth playing and remembering for years to come not just the suck that they have pulled out before “cough” Virtual Boy “cough” “cough” lol. All joking aside i love Nintendo and Im not afraid to say it!!!!!
I just turn the 3D effect off since glassless 3D give me nausea. Same goes for Active Shutter Glasses. The only glasses type that don’t are the Polarized 3D glasses like in the Movies.
My mom and dad liked the fact that Nintendo had educational games. Also Super Mario Bros. 3 was a game that we all played. Even my mom played it. We bought the Joystick Controller as my dad had big hands and couldn’t use the small controller. When my sister was old enough, she played SMB3 as well. We used to play so much the console would overheat and cause some pretty funky graphics. That and since you couldn’t save we had to leave the system on until we beat the game.
The NES is a great system.
I loved the Wii and Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. I also liked it when Nintendo ported over Pikmin 1 and 2 to the Wii as it was so much easier to play with the Wii Remote which made it more fun to play. Then you had the Virtual console which was nice as my N64 broke and I could once again play Pokémon Puzzle League.
NES so many memories, I can relate with this article growing up in the 80’s play the games & not being able to save your progress! The rage! Lol Rob the damn robot!
Am I the only one who thinks the Wii U isn’t all that bad? It does have all those Virtual Console games, after all. Golden Sun, Ocarina of Time, Tactics Ogre, Advance Wars, all good stuff. And some of the new games aren’t too bad either. EDGE and The Cave, for example.
Don’t get me wrong I love the WiiU but the lack of games is it’s downfall which is unfortunate, I use my WiiU for Wii games and VC and the Wind Waker HD that’s
literally it
That’s pretty much all I ever use it for, but without the WWHD.
I don’t think the wii u is bad, but it’s a console that should be sold at 150€, 200€ at most, but the *** tablet controller is expensive and really only useful when you have friends over, imo they should just make that thing optional and lower the price by 100€, otherwise they will be making the same mistake as Microsoft with the kinect.
though the gamepad is very useful for off-tv play which i always do in my home (i can play console games in the very dark light while my baby is asleep and can play with headsets on)
though yeah gamepad should be bought separately like other controllers heehe
famicom is the first console that I hacked…. well technically it just like cheating. like jumping from 1st stage to the final stage in star wars or highest score in kage and swapping chips on smb 3. and using gyromite cartridge as an adapter to play classic game from famicon to nes. back then this kind of mods or cheats doesn’t travel that far compare today.
the funny thing is i started gaming at PS1 era.
i want PS1, but in the end my parent bought me the wrong one, NES in PS1 clothing which is Polystation. ***!!!
i had no choice and playing super mario bros, i’m not really into it. until i found PS1 rental, i immediately tried out FF7, that was great.
i never been a nintendo fan from the start, their style and my DNA just doesn’t match.
after reading the part of the 3ds i investigated and its more like nintendo taking precautions rather then been actually true, anyways i think you shuld follow the advice, i found this:
http://ds.about.com/od/nintendods101/a/Can-The-Nintendo-3ds-Harm-My-Childs-Eyesight.htm
“What do medical professionals say about the Nintendo 3DS?”
Though there are no definitive answers about the effects of 3D imagery on developing eyes, and though Nintendo is being cautious with its warnings, the American Optometric Association (AoA) believes 3D imagery will not harm kids’ vision–and might in fact prove beneficial.
In a statement that was published in January of 2011, the AoA declared that 3D displays from movies, televisions, and video game systems like the Nintendo 3DS are not likely to have any negative impact on the long-term eyesight of kids under the age of six. The report also pointed out that children who do have trouble viewing 3D images may in fact have an underlying vision problem that should be dealt with right away.
there are some great tittles for the wii / wii u for grounups and kids and they can be played pretty well and have a lot of fun with them, i really hope nintendo doesnt end, because i would preffer my kids to play more family games
Thanks for the great read.
Back in those days the comon people in my country (Chile) have to exchange the games with his friends or people in your street if you want to play more than 3 or 4 games because buy a new one cost a lot to buy… I really don’t know if the prices are too much expensive or if the people have less money in that day compared with nowdays maybe both, but now I have a vita and in less than 4 months I buy about 16 games and don’t have a PS Plus… the times are changing but I still remember that times and smile, if nintendo wasn’t exist non of the modern videogames could happen.
It is true that some of the peripherals that nintendo sells like ROB are very shity but the also sell a lot of good stuffs like the NES Advantage, and for games, a lot of third partys make his history in the NES with great games that started a saga like castlevania and megaman from konami or dragon warrior (dragon quest in japan) from enix (I own each of this games in cartridges and my NES with manuals and box… those are my treasures of chilhood).
This article was much better than the other one about the second generation of consoles, I understand you are from the fifth generation acid_snake and wikipedia it’s not allways a good source to find good information, if you want a good source I recommend you a book called insert coin from mcgraw hill, it’s a enciclopedic compendium of information about the history of games and consoles from the beginings to the playstation era, you can buy it or download it from the web, if you can’t find it send me a PM (same nick on the forums) and i send you the link.
see ya and keep the good work in your articles.