nintendopodcast-blog

[nintendopodcast-blog]

Aaron: Nintendo. A company that has molded the gaming industry since the beginnings of the home console era. Even in its early days, their focus on creating fun and unique experiences for people of all ages to enjoy has been the cornerstone that has separated them from their competitors time and time again. Nintendo has never lost touch with the childlike sense of wonder and excitement that can often come from playing a videogame, and as a constantly growing company even in this day and age, they’ve established themselves as a household name within the global entertainment industry.

But, how did it start? And where will it go next? Find out now, in this special podcast: The History of Nintendo!

BEGINNINGS

Cat: It’s a lovely day outside today, isn’t it Aaron?

Aaron: Why yes, it is. But more importantly, Nintendo! Let’s talk about that.

Cat: Right. The Nintendo Company actually started out a lot more differently than you might have thought. It was first founded in 1889, when Fusajiro Yamauchi decided to begin manufacturing handmade Hanafuda cards in Kyoto.

Aaron: Hanafuda? What’s that?

Cat: They’re japanese playing cards! It’s like American playing cards, except they’re not.

Aaron: Right, that makes sense.

Christian: Hey, I’m also here. What’s up.

Aaron: Oh, hey Christian. Do you have any hot, juicy facts about Nintendo you’d like to serve up for us today?

Christian: I’m glad you asked, Aaron. As Cat was saying, Selling Hanafuda cards is where the company began. Over time, it grew larger, soon needing a warehouse and additional employees to help produce and distribute their product. Eventually, the company was taken over by Fusajiro’s grandson, Hiroshi, and the company began creating other kinds of products.

Aaron: If I recall, Hiroshi attempted to bring the company into the toy business by utilizing the company’s existing distribution network, yes?

Christian: Exactly. And thanks to some innovative toy designs, the company eventually made a name for itself in the production of children’s toys and entertainment products.

Cat: Fascinating stuff, Christian.

Aaron: You sure know your stuff.

GETTING INTO THE GAMING MARKET

Aaron: In the 1970’s, Nintendo began to test Japan's video game market with arcade games. One of Nintendo’s first ventures, an arcade game called Radar Scope, only sold about a third of its inventory; as they were not a name brand in the business, they had trouble getting the game distributed over those of companies like Namco or Atari.

Christian: That must have hurt their confidence in breaking into the industry.

Cat: Not quite, actually! They were still eager to find new ideas and change their strategy. With the intention of utilizing the popularity of Popeye, two employees in the company, Shigeru Miyamoto and Gunpei Yokoi, attempted to create a game based off of Popeye using the unbought Radar Scope machines.

Aaron: That’s what they *wanted* to do, anyway. Turns out, they couldn’t get the licensing. Instead, they ended up changing the characters into a certain plumber, princess, and kong.

Christian: Wow... So Mario’s origins came from a failed Popeye game?

Aaron: Seems like it.

BREAKING INTO THE HOME ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY

Cat: Nintendo eventually expanded into the home entertainment industry, something that they became very well known for. In the beginning, these games were produced and sold on cartridges. Nintendo created special chips that had to be installed in the cartridges for them to run, making it so that Nintendo was in charge of which games third party developers could create for their system. This was especially important when they were trying to expand into America, since the American video game market had crashed in the early 80s as game developers pumped out underdeveloped games to the market.

Christian: Did these chips have any adverse effects on production in the company?

Aaron: Well, while the use of these chips allowed Nintendo to keep complete control over their company and the material being produced for their system, they also brought about some problems. Shortages in chips lead to forceful negotiations with the third party programmers where Nintendo held pretty much all the power and capital. Ultimately, this created tension in their relations. Eventually, Nintendo released a system that ran using discs, although they were careful to keep piracy at bay by using a smaller, unique disk that could only be run on their new home console, the Gamecube.

Christian: Ah, I’ve heard about those! Because of their size, they couldn’t be recreated like other disks could. While these smaller disks cut down on the size of storage for the game, it did not seem to be too big of a deal since not many games at the time went over that size.

FAMILY VALUES

Christian: As Nintendo grew, you could see their focus being put into continuing to be a far reaching, family friendly, global company that can not easily be stolen from. Each new game system has nontraditional and not easy to steal material created to be run on the system. The games are also fairly family friendly compared to the competition. Although there are some first person shooters and fighting games, Nintendo definitely does it differently in terms of violence in games. You could see it when Sega released Mortal Kombat for the home console at the same time as Nintendo. Nintendo’s version had cleaned up Fatalities, even changing the name so they were called Finishing Moves instead. The blood was also replaced with a dark grey sweat-like liquid and compared to the Sega version of the game, deaths were less gruesome. While the Sega version of Mortal Kombat outsold the Nintendo version by a 4-to-1 ratio, this showed where Nintendo’s values continued to lie.

Aaron: Do you you think that their values hurt them in the long run ? I noticed you said that the Sega version outsold them 4-to-1.

Christian: Believe it or not, it did not harm them in the long run. Customers actually appreciated the fact that they did not put their beliefs aside for profit.

NINTENDO TODAY

Cat: While it may seem hard to please a global audience while also innovating and creating, Nintendo continues to try, and even succeed! When they released the Wii console 2006, it sold extremely well, bringing in casual gamers and hardcore gamers alike with its innovative motion controls. Riding along this wave of success, Nintendo then released another console a few years later under the Wii’s name, called the Wii U.

Christian: The Wii U didn’t sell very well, though.

Aaron: No, it did not. I actually distinctly remember the time when it came out, and how confused journalists and gamers alike seemed to be regarding this console. The marketing made the Wii U look like an add-on to the Wii instead of its own system, and poor initial sales led to third parties dropping out.

Cat: However, it wasn’t all bad! The Wii U, while one of Nintendo’s worst-selling home consoles, still managed to pump out incredible first-party games like Mario Kart 8 and Splatoon, which sold well despite the low install base of the console.

Aaron: Then... After two iterations of the Wii had passed, and Nintendo had learned from its failures, the company moved on to the console they’ve been advertising all of last month, the Nintendo Switch. The idea for this console centers around the combination of portable gaming and the home console experience; the general public seemed excited, yet cautious, worried that if Nintendo screwed anything up, the Switch would end up like the Wii U. However, a month and a half after its launch, sales seem to be going incredibly well for the company, and Nintendo seems to have gotten itself out of the rut it was in when the Wii U was released.

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Looking to the future, it’s never clear what steps Nintendo is going to take. But whatever they are, we can be assured that Nintendo will try as hard as they can to create the latest innovation in the gaming industry.

Link to write up with works cited: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11_zD29iclBdwOKA8Pa5ujbYobyGOAjzs0DFkIlobcUg/edit?usp=sharing