Speaker 1: Tech with Technology tex Stuff from Hey there, everybody, and
Speaker 1: welcome to Tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland, and
Speaker 1: today we're gonna do another classic look at tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: We're gonna pull up an episode from the archives, actually
Speaker 1: a pair of them. Today we're looking at the story
Speaker 1: of Nintendo. Part one. I bet you can guess what
Speaker 1: next week's episode is going to be. It's gonna be
Speaker 1: Part two. But the reason why I'm doing this is
Speaker 1: that in two weeks we're gonna have Part three, an update,
Speaker 1: brand new update to this story. Now, these first two
Speaker 1: episodes were recorded back in two thousand eleven, so it
Speaker 1: has my original co host Chris Palette in there as well,
Speaker 1: and we really had fun exploring how Nintendo transformed itself
Speaker 1: from its origins into a video game giant. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know that's not how it was all way back
Speaker 1: in the early early days of Nintendo. So let's take
Speaker 1: a listen to this classic episode and find out how
Speaker 1: things got started. All right, So today we are going
Speaker 1: to talk about a company that is fairly well known
Speaker 1: in tech circles, Nintendo, but did not start out as
Speaker 1: a tech company as many a tech company has been,
Speaker 1: especially the ones that have lasted as long as Nintendo. Yeah,
Speaker 1: some of the other you know, video game companies also
Speaker 1: have their origin in something other than video games. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of Colico, Yeah, the Connecticut Leather Company. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Connecticut Leather Company that. Yeah, we've already made the joke
Speaker 1: about games coming out of the Connecticut Leather Company. And
Speaker 1: Tandy also. Yeah. So Nintendo is also one of those
Speaker 1: companies that and now they have their stree in games,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't video games because in nine when the
Speaker 1: company was founded, video games didn't exist yet because television
Speaker 1: resolution was terrible as a non existent. Yeah, you had
Speaker 1: to actually uh stop, draw the next picture, all right,
Speaker 1: and then you know, oh and this is what happened.
Speaker 1: Hold on, it's time for this. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: Dragon's Layer, but at super slow speeds. Alright, So that's
Speaker 1: a one nega hurt. Yeah. So so in order for
Speaker 1: you guys to understand we we really actually have to
Speaker 1: go back much further than even the founding of the company.
Speaker 1: Um Chris um, yes, no, I'm kietting in that. Now.
Speaker 1: You got to man, all right, the way back machine
Speaker 1: is ready to go. Go on in there. I'm right
Speaker 1: behind you. Chris. Yeah, you know, sometimes I'm afraid he's
Speaker 1: gonna shove me in here and then shut the door.
Speaker 1: But it's bigger on the inside anyway. All right, So
Speaker 1: let me just set this to U sixty thirty three Japan.
Speaker 1: Push the button, Frank, and here we are in sixteen
Speaker 1: thirty three Japan. Uh. The samurai right over there, that's
Speaker 1: UH watch out for the yakuza. Alright. So in sixty three,
Speaker 1: the Japanese, Uh, well, there was a decision made to
Speaker 1: close the borders of Japan to be front away from
Speaker 1: the outside world. And they shoved off and they pushed
Speaker 1: themselves out in the middle of the ocean. I'm kidding.
Speaker 1: It used to be Japan used to be located next
Speaker 1: to New Jersey. Uh No, that's not true, not true
Speaker 1: at all. Imagining thousands of people rowing paddles. Actually just
Speaker 1: one Godzilla pushing really hard. Um No. As it turns out,
Speaker 1: Japan had made this decision, the Japanese government made the
Speaker 1: decision to to essentially ostracize themselves from everybody else. To
Speaker 1: to the very xenophobic era in Japan, where the Japanese culture,
Speaker 1: which was very much centered on UH concepts that were
Speaker 1: UH based in things like family and honor and tradition.
Speaker 1: They saw the outside world as threats to that, and
Speaker 1: so a lot of contact was cut off from the
Speaker 1: outside world in Japan became inwardly focused. Well. At that time,
Speaker 1: the government banned the importation of all foreign playing cards.
Speaker 1: Part of the problem was that there was an issue
Speaker 1: with gambling in Japan that will come up later too.
Speaker 1: So because of the issue of gambling, and the Japanese
Speaker 1: government decided to to ban the the the importation and
Speaker 1: sale of foreign playing cards. Now, this actually created a
Speaker 1: market for domestic playing card companies um that were able
Speaker 1: to within certain parameters produced playing cards. Now we've set
Speaker 1: the scene, all right. For the rest of this, we'll
Speaker 1: just tell it from the present day. So let's get
Speaker 1: back in the way back machine. Come on, all right,
Speaker 1: assuming let me set this to present day, which was
Speaker 1: a late October, all right, and push the button, frank
Speaker 1: and back into our cozy studio, all right. So seventeenth
Speaker 1: century Japan cuts off this these ties to the outside world.
Speaker 1: And then in eighteen fifty nine, a fellow by the
Speaker 1: name of Fusa Giro Yamachi was born. And uh I
Speaker 1: would like to take this opportunity to apologize to any
Speaker 1: Japanese listeners for the way I will butcher names throughout
Speaker 1: the entirety of this podcast because it's gonna happen. I
Speaker 1: am non Japanese. I've never taken Japanese. So if you
Speaker 1: will just extend me a a little slack, uh I
Speaker 1: would owe you. And Agato um so in eighteen fifty nine,
Speaker 1: he's born, Machi is born, and uh and and he
Speaker 1: would found the company in eighteen eighty nine. He called
Speaker 1: it Nintendo Copai and the company was making special playing
Speaker 1: cards uh out of out of bark actually for a
Speaker 1: game called Hanna Fuda. Now do you know what Nintendo means?
Speaker 1: What does Nintendo mean? It's it's it's translated frequently as
Speaker 1: leave luck to Heaven, which sort of goes along with,
Speaker 1: you know, playing cards, because you know, and you're talking
Speaker 1: about games, luck would be involved, sure, And the Hannafuda
Speaker 1: means flower cards. These were cards that instead of having
Speaker 1: numbers on them, which is what the gamblers were using,
Speaker 1: um had flowers on them, pictures of flowers hand painted.
Speaker 1: Actually they first came out and they became really really
Speaker 1: popular and uh and the company saw a lot of
Speaker 1: early success. UH, and in eighteen eighteen eighty nine, the
Speaker 1: same year that Nintendo was founded UH, the Japanese government
Speaker 1: began to relax some of the restrictions that they had
Speaker 1: placed around the whole industry of playing cards in the
Speaker 1: first place. So it was perfectly positioned, and so Nintendo
Speaker 1: CAPI began to UH to expand very quickly because everyone
Speaker 1: thought that the artwork on the cards was really beautiful
Speaker 1: and so they were desirable to have. And then the
Speaker 1: restrictions at the same time, We're started to slack a bit. UH.
Speaker 1: The company saw a lot of early success, and that
Speaker 1: was really what it focused on, was producing playing cards. Now,
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty nine, Fusagiro retired and he handed over
Speaker 1: the control of his company to his son in law,
Speaker 1: UH Sakiro and UH, who then took the family name,
Speaker 1: the Yamauchi family name. And in fact, all Nintendo CEOs
Speaker 1: with the exception of the current one, were related to
Speaker 1: U in some way, either by actual blood or by marriage.
Speaker 1: UM really by marriage when you get down to it.
Speaker 1: But in nineteen thirty three, that's when the company changed
Speaker 1: its name to Yamauchi Nintendo and Company. When they dropped
Speaker 1: the Kapi at that point, and they created a a
Speaker 1: second company, a card game distributor company called Marafuku Company Limited,
Speaker 1: and both of those companies at that time saw great success.
Speaker 1: So again Nintendo is already doing really, really well. Uh
Speaker 1: And of course video games are not anywhere near the
Speaker 1: picture at this point. Yeah. So in nineteen forty nine,
Speaker 1: Securio suffered a stroke and he was no longer able
Speaker 1: to control the company, and so he handed over the
Speaker 1: company to his grandson, Hiroshi. Now this caused a lot
Speaker 1: of concern within Nintendo because Hiroshi was very young. He
Speaker 1: was twenty one at the time when he was given
Speaker 1: the company, and he was a law school student. He
Speaker 1: wasn't a business student. Yeah, so he was starting to
Speaker 1: become a lawyer. He dropped out of college, out of
Speaker 1: law school in order to to take over this company,
Speaker 1: and some of the the employees of Nintendo really objected
Speaker 1: to him becoming the new head of the company, so
Speaker 1: much so that there was actually a factory strike. As
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, he uh, he went down in
Speaker 1: history for firing a lot of those employees. That was
Speaker 1: not a popular move within the company. Yeah, Hiroshi was
Speaker 1: he kind of showed everyone who was boss he took.
Speaker 1: He introduced a too corporate culture. He had the Darth
Speaker 1: Vader method of of management, and that if you if
Speaker 1: you thought that he was his decisions were not good ones,
Speaker 1: then he didn't want you working for him anymore. Yeah. Yeah, actually,
Speaker 1: uh I. Part of my research was done from a
Speaker 1: book called All Your Baser Belonged to Us UM by
Speaker 1: Harold Goldberg. He has a chapter on It's a it's
Speaker 1: a history of video games, but he has a chapter
Speaker 1: on Nintendo, which is which is pretty fascinating. And they
Speaker 1: said that that he was a really serious guy. I
Speaker 1: mean they you know, watching him crack a smile, you'd
Speaker 1: have to wait because he didn't do it very frequently.
Speaker 1: It was a very very no nonsense sort of fellow,
Speaker 1: but very business like exactly kind of like the cliche
Speaker 1: idea we have of the Japanese businessman, you know, very
Speaker 1: formal and very serious. Um. And he also instituted a
Speaker 1: policy that would become something that sort of resonates throughout
Speaker 1: Nintendo for years to come, which was that he demanded
Speaker 1: that all products that Nintendo was going to produce be
Speaker 1: cleared through him personally before the company would move on it.
Speaker 1: So you think about that. I mean, this is a
Speaker 1: CEO of a company. Now, most companies, the CEO is
Speaker 1: directing the company, you know, since he's got a hands
Speaker 1: onto involvement with the company. But you don't necessarily have
Speaker 1: every single product cleared through your CEO and every company.
Speaker 1: There are a few companies that did you know, Apple
Speaker 1: being another famous company. So Apple is another famous company
Speaker 1: where that where the CEO had a real hands on approach. Well,
Speaker 1: Hiroshi felt the same way, and and this is a
Speaker 1: strategy that would pay off for Nintendo further down the line.
Speaker 1: Not necessarily that the CEO had to clear everything before
Speaker 1: it went through, but Nintendo decided having this real focus
Speaker 1: on product quality that would become very important when Nintendo
Speaker 1: would enter the video game market. Now I'm sorry, company
Speaker 1: diversified quite a bit. Yeah. Well, first of all, nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty three they started to produce plastic playing cards, which
Speaker 1: was that was the first big move as far as
Speaker 1: technologically speaking goes. Because but up to that point they
Speaker 1: were using paper or wood cards. So in this case
Speaker 1: they're they're moving to plastic cards. And they even started
Speaker 1: to practice with some other stuff. In nineteen fifty nine,
Speaker 1: they had they signed a big licensing agreement with another
Speaker 1: huge company. Do you know which company I'm talking about?
Speaker 1: Was it the one with the mouse with the big ears? Yes,
Speaker 1: it was Disney. So in nineteen fifty nine they company, uh,
Speaker 1: Nintendo and Disney form a partnership through licenses that allowed
Speaker 1: Nintendo to prevent playing cards with Disney characters on it,
Speaker 1: which I don't know if you know this, if you're not,
Speaker 1: if you've never been to Japan and you don't know
Speaker 1: a lot about Japanese culture, you may not be aware
Speaker 1: of this. But Disney was enormous in Japan, still is,
Speaker 1: but you know, it was one of those things that
Speaker 1: really resonated with the Japanese people, and so these cards
Speaker 1: were insanely popular. Um. And then they did try to
Speaker 1: diversify because the playing card business, even at that point,
Speaker 1: Nintendo could see that that the business was starting to
Speaker 1: slow down, and so they started looking into other ways
Speaker 1: of making money. Now, you did you have a couple
Speaker 1: that you wanted to particularly mention, Um, there's one I'm
Speaker 1: sort of debating mentioning the hotel. Yes it was the hotel.
Speaker 1: It's a very special kind of hotel. Yes, it wasn't
Speaker 1: just a regular hotel. It was a hotel that didn't
Speaker 1: have windows. Well, of course not, it's an intend Oh
Speaker 1: wait never mind, all right now, so while we're dancing
Speaker 1: around here, is that and is this was gonna be
Speaker 1: something that's shocking to people who think of Nintendo as
Speaker 1: this family friendly sort of video game company. Um, it
Speaker 1: was a hotel that didn't have windows. It was meant
Speaker 1: for people who wanted a discreet place to whisk away
Speaker 1: too and have a romantic interlude. Yes see, that's that
Speaker 1: was very that was putting it. And they had a
Speaker 1: taxi company, yeah yeah, which they it did have windows
Speaker 1: because it turned out that if you had a taxi
Speaker 1: with no windows, it was very dangerous to drive on
Speaker 1: the road. Yes, so anyway, yeah, so they Nintendo, by
Speaker 1: the way, was not the only company that tried this
Speaker 1: whole hotel, this love nest hotel thing. Um, there were
Speaker 1: many other companies that tried it as well. So Nintendo
Speaker 1: tried that and the taxi service, as well as producing
Speaker 1: foods essentially foods that you would buy it a supermarket.
Speaker 1: But none of these lines of business really panned out,
Speaker 1: and these were all failures for Nintendo, and Hidroshi had
Speaker 1: sort of a black eye for kind of pushing the
Speaker 1: company into these areas. But as it turns out, um
Speaker 1: it was important for for the company to try and
Speaker 1: diversify because in nineteen sixty four, the the game card
Speaker 1: industry in Japan crashed. Just like you know, we've talked
Speaker 1: about the video game crushure, we'll talk about it again
Speaker 1: in a in a little bit, but we've talked about
Speaker 1: that in the past. The same sort of thing happened
Speaker 1: in Japan with playing cards, and oddly enough, it was
Speaker 1: for the same reasons that are largely the same reasons,
Speaker 1: and one of the big reasons was saturation. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: you got to a point where these cards were really
Speaker 1: really popular for a really long time, so everyone owned them.
Speaker 1: But if everyone owns them, why would you go out
Speaker 1: and buy another one. You've already got them. You don't
Speaker 1: need anymore. So because of that, the whole industry started
Speaker 1: to suffer because you know, no one needed to buy
Speaker 1: more cards. Uh. And this was right around the same
Speaker 1: time that Tokyo was hosting the Olympics. So it was
Speaker 1: weird because you had this huge influx of money coming
Speaker 1: into the country, but you also had this industry failed.
Speaker 1: This this historically relevant industry failing, yes, at the same time,
Speaker 1: but Ninteno manages to um skirt the shoals of bankruptcy.
Speaker 1: Uh to quote Monety Python. Um. Well they got into
Speaker 1: toys for a while too. Yeah. Well, in nine five
Speaker 1: they hired a guy named gun Pay Yuki, and gun
Speaker 1: Pay was a fellow who was very inventive. Um. He
Speaker 1: worked in one of the playing card factories, and there
Speaker 1: he happened to be working there on a day when
Speaker 1: Hiroshi came through, and Hiroshi sees Gunna Pay playing around
Speaker 1: with something that he had invented that was essentially do
Speaker 1: you remember those in in cartoons that happens all the time.
Speaker 1: There's a character that picks up a a boxing glove
Speaker 1: that's on like an accordion hnt uh accordion sort of
Speaker 1: lattice thing. Then if you pull a trigger, it extends
Speaker 1: out and punches someone who's twenty feet away. So one
Speaker 1: of those at home, well, that's essentially what gun Pay
Speaker 1: had invented. He had invented this thing that was a
Speaker 1: claw on the end of one of those, so you would, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, you pull these two levers together and it
Speaker 1: would extend out this accordion arm and at the end
Speaker 1: of the accordion arm was the claw, and the very
Speaker 1: last action is that claw would close, so it allow
Speaker 1: you to pick stuff up that was slightly inconvenient for
Speaker 1: you to get up and pick up yourself. And Um
Speaker 1: and Hiroshi came to the conclusion that perhaps what Nintendo
Speaker 1: could do is diversify and get into the toy business. Yes,
Speaker 1: and that that invention became the ultra hand. That's, you know,
Speaker 1: very typical and in my head Japanese name for something
Speaker 1: like that, I'm probably thinking of ultraman at that point.
Speaker 1: So um. But yeah, it actually came with h with
Speaker 1: some plastic balls that you could pick up. Um you know,
Speaker 1: well anything like that, you got to include the thing
Speaker 1: to pick up. So they did that for a little while.
Speaker 1: But that wasn't the only thing they didn't. They didn't really,
Speaker 1: from my research, get into toys wholesale like where you know, oh,
Speaker 1: this is what we're gonna do in the future. It
Speaker 1: was more like a um, a trial thing that they
Speaker 1: sort of experimented with for a little bit. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: there were other there were several examples of toys that
Speaker 1: they got into UM, some of which gave a hint
Speaker 1: at what they would be doing in the future, like
Speaker 1: they had a love tester. Ah, yes, the old the
Speaker 1: old love testers, which you know, just sort of measure
Speaker 1: the um, the your compatibility with another person. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: hold a little handle and it tells you how red hot, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: or or a cold fish cold fish yeah, stuckies. Oh man,
Speaker 1: that's taking me back to a comedy album anyway. But yeah,
Speaker 1: the the Yeah, I was just looking at looking it up,
Speaker 1: and it's a little slower to do this in uh,
Speaker 1: in a non electronic format. But Goldberg's got He's got
Speaker 1: the Dead Tree edition. Actually had the Dead Tree Edition.
Speaker 1: Wine checked it out from the library. Um, apparently they
Speaker 1: sold about one point two million Ultra hands. So and
Speaker 1: the the Love Tester came out in nine nine, but
Speaker 1: both of them we're going with uh with the company's
Speaker 1: philosophy of because Yo Koi apparently said, and this is
Speaker 1: a quote, the Nintendo way of adapting technology is not
Speaker 1: to look for the state of the art, but to
Speaker 1: utilize um mature technology that can be mass produced cheaply. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I feel like this is going to come up again. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's that's a very it was a very
Speaker 1: responsible way of doing things because it enabled them to
Speaker 1: put something together using existing technology no R and D.
Speaker 1: But at the same time it's sold very well, so
Speaker 1: that's that's a good way to make money. In fact,
Speaker 1: the toys really turned Nintendo around. Without without that that
Speaker 1: serendipitous uh discovery where Roshi saw Yokoi's work, really the
Speaker 1: company may not have survived because that the playing card
Speaker 1: industry it was in such such a such dire straits,
Speaker 1: and uh the other attempts of Nintendo to diversify had
Speaker 1: failed pretty dramatically that without that, it may not have
Speaker 1: been able to stay afloat long enough to get into
Speaker 1: the video game era. But moving ahead a couple of years,
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy three, Nintendo developed a technology called the
Speaker 1: Laser Clay Shooting System, which was clay. It was it
Speaker 1: was a light gun game. Because I was trying to
Speaker 1: figure out what laser clay was, Well, you know, it's yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a skeet shooting system, a skeet shooting game.
Speaker 1: Like if you've ever been to one of those giant
Speaker 1: arcades that has like the rifle that's really a light gun,
Speaker 1: and then you're you're firing at the image of a
Speaker 1: of a clay pigeon duck hunt. Yeah, yeah, like duck
Speaker 1: Hunt eventually would become. But then this case, it was
Speaker 1: stuff that was projected on the wall. It wasn't necessarily
Speaker 1: it wasn't like a screen screen. Um, they installed these
Speaker 1: and old bowling alleys that had gone out of business.
Speaker 1: So this is kind of creating an entertainment destined nation.
Speaker 1: It wasn't. It was still a little too early for
Speaker 1: the arcade era. We're talking nineteen seventy three here in
Speaker 1: The arcade era really started to take off in the
Speaker 1: late seventies. It was heading into that period though. The Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's when you started seeing them pop up. And of
Speaker 1: course in Japan arcades are still incredibly popular. In in
Speaker 1: the United States, they are a rare breed. Uh So.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy four, Nintendo formed a partnership and arranged
Speaker 1: to become the distributor in Japan of the Magna Vox Odyssey.
Speaker 1: I yes, I remember it well, unfortunately. Yeah, so the
Speaker 1: Honesty was a a home video game console, very limited.
Speaker 1: We talked about it on our home video Games podcast,
Speaker 1: The Crash of the Video Game. Yeah, so this is
Speaker 1: one of the first actually it was the first video
Speaker 1: game home video game console that really reached wide distribution,
Speaker 1: and so Nintendo became the Japanese distributor for this. Now
Speaker 1: Nintendo did not develop the Odyssey, but they the companies
Speaker 1: saw the the potential for that in Japan, and actually
Speaker 1: it did very well. And then in uh moving up,
Speaker 1: over the next few years, Nintendo storty to market its
Speaker 1: own game consoles. The game and Watch oh that was
Speaker 1: one of them. Yeah, the game that was the first
Speaker 1: portable system that was back in that that I officially
Speaker 1: launched the nineteen eighty but just before that, in the seventies,
Speaker 1: Nintendo had some game consoles that were similar to the Odyssey,
Speaker 1: and that they were not. It wasn't the kind of
Speaker 1: game console where you would put a cartridge in and
Speaker 1: play a game. It was had had games hardwired onto
Speaker 1: the console, so you couldn't switch between games or you could,
Speaker 1: you know, if there were like multiple games on that console,
Speaker 1: you could, but you couldn't put a new game into it. Yes,
Speaker 1: and and and that really endeared Nintendo to Magnavox. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and by endeared, I mean completely ticked off and inspired lawsuits. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because again Nintendo had come the distributor of this device.
Speaker 1: And then starts to come out with its own competing products,
Speaker 1: and Magnavox says, hey, but Nintendo didn't stump Nintendo. They
Speaker 1: had they lost the lawsuit and had to pay licensing,
Speaker 1: but they put out their own version of games like Pong.
Speaker 1: Uh and this is also yeah Pong ninety seven. That's
Speaker 1: also when Nintendo hired a certain young artist who would
Speaker 1: become instrumental in the company's success, Shighetto Miyamotoomoto, Yes, a
Speaker 1: famous name in video games. If you do not know
Speaker 1: who Miomotosan is, then you are not a known Nintendo fan. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it's safe to say that if if there
Speaker 1: is a polar opposite to the company's CEO, Miyamoto San,
Speaker 1: would have been that guy. Miyamoto is like a rock star,
Speaker 1: and he really is treated like a rock star. Well,
Speaker 1: he wasn't at first see that. When he was first hired,
Speaker 1: he was just an artist, a no name artist. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And as a matter of fact, he uh he got
Speaker 1: the job because of his parents connections. Um. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: again is according to uh Goldberg's book. But apparently um
Speaker 1: he he had his uh he he wanted to be
Speaker 1: a manga artist. Um and his parents happened to know. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, when your parents know the CEO of a company, um,
Speaker 1: you know there, they may very well try to get
Speaker 1: you a job, which is what happened in this case.
Speaker 1: And uh it wasn't It wasn't like it was a
Speaker 1: high level job. Now he was a basic artist for
Speaker 1: this company. Yeah, basically. Uh. During the interview process, you
Speaker 1: Wanta was asking him questions like why should I hire you? Um,
Speaker 1: and and and told him, you know, if I hire you,
Speaker 1: it won't be because I know your parents, It'll be
Speaker 1: because you're good enough to work here. Uh here Again,
Speaker 1: he's a no, no nonsense kind of guy. He's a
Speaker 1: real business person. Um. But he said yeah, okay fine
Speaker 1: uh and hired him after about a month of waiting
Speaker 1: and came on as a just as a uh card artist.
Speaker 1: He actually asked him if he had an idea for
Speaker 1: a revolutionary card game. We're looking for something that's gonna
Speaker 1: revolutionize the card game industry. What do you got? You
Speaker 1: got the next Pokemon? Well not yet, yeah, but at
Speaker 1: the time he was really looking for something big. And
Speaker 1: he said, well, okay, fine, you can work as an artist.
Speaker 1: And that's what he did for a couple of years
Speaker 1: and and Miamoto is the guy who would eventually launch
Speaker 1: some of Nintendo's most popular series, including the Mario series,
Speaker 1: uh and the legend of Zelda Star Fox. Lots of those,
Speaker 1: not all of them do a barrel role. Uh there, Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of the games that became the big, big
Speaker 1: sellers and still the big names. I mean, you know
Speaker 1: Nintendo and Mario. That's that's Mario is like the Nintendo mascot.
Speaker 1: So Miamoto is the the man who responsible for the
Speaker 1: creation of that character. And in fact, like I said, now,
Speaker 1: when he appears at um at conferences and stuff, he's
Speaker 1: treated like like rock star, like they're standing ovations when
Speaker 1: he comes up on stage, which is a pretty phenomenal.
Speaker 1: So so the question is, how does a guy from
Speaker 1: the mail room, not literally, how does a guy from
Speaker 1: the mail room end up being the rock star of
Speaker 1: the company? Please explain, Well, we've got the book. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: that's because um they had started trying to get into
Speaker 1: the arcade game business. Yeah. Uh, they're one of their earliest.
Speaker 1: In fact, their very first arcade game was the sexily
Speaker 1: titled computer Othello, which never got outside of Japan. Um
Speaker 1: I was produced in night but we loved those games
Speaker 1: and saying that's not not not terribly exciting. Uh, And
Speaker 1: like Chris was saying, the Game and Watch portable games
Speaker 1: came out and those were pretty popular. Yeah, those were
Speaker 1: games that, like the video game consoles we were talking about,
Speaker 1: those played a specific game. It's not like a game
Speaker 1: system where you could play multiple games. But some of them,
Speaker 1: some of the Game and Watch actually looked like the
Speaker 1: later Nintendo DS system. So it's interesting because if you
Speaker 1: look at some of those old Game and Watch games,
Speaker 1: you can see where the design elements that would later
Speaker 1: come into the Nintendo d S would come into play.
Speaker 1: And Yakoi, uh gonna pay Yukoi was the guy who
Speaker 1: was responsible for those that line of games. So he
Speaker 1: his influence lasted far beyond just the Game and Watch
Speaker 1: series and uh, we'll talk more about him in a
Speaker 1: in a later podcast. This is actually gonna be a
Speaker 1: two partter by the way, because we're coming up on
Speaker 1: twenty seven minutes and we still haven't even introduced the
Speaker 1: first true video game console. But don't worry, we're gonna
Speaker 1: cover all of Nintendo we just we knew from the
Speaker 1: start was going to be a two partter U. So
Speaker 1: now that they've introduced the computer Othello, they've decided that
Speaker 1: they want to get into this. The arcade atmosphere is
Speaker 1: really exploding world. Why arcades are just that's the place
Speaker 1: to be. So in nineteen eight one, Nintendo develops a
Speaker 1: video game that would become one of the most popular
Speaker 1: video games out there. It's right up there with Space
Speaker 1: Invaders and pac Man. Yes, but the problem was in
Speaker 1: nineteen eight and then this they're linked haha linked. Um. Sorry,
Speaker 1: it was a Nintendo Joe. Um. They came out with
Speaker 1: a game in nineteen eighty that was just the opposite
Speaker 1: of a hit. It was called Radar Scope and it
Speaker 1: did really, really badly. So if you don't know about it,
Speaker 1: that's why there's a reason. Um. And the thing is, um,
Speaker 1: watching knew that Miamoto had good ideas. He could see that,
Speaker 1: you know well, I mean, he wouldn't have hired him
Speaker 1: if he didn't think he was he had promise. Um,
Speaker 1: he was good at identifying talent and bringing it into
Speaker 1: the company. Um, you could argue. And the thing is
Speaker 1: he came up to uh, to Miamoto and said, what
Speaker 1: do you do you like video game himes and he said, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I've I've played Breakout and I've played Ponged
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, I like him just fine. He's like,
Speaker 1: we'll do something with this because they had all this
Speaker 1: this hardware and these cabinets that they had built for
Speaker 1: Radar Scope, and they wanted to do something else. And
Speaker 1: he said one of the problems was and again this
Speaker 1: is gonna come up again. Miamoto said, there's no story here.
Speaker 1: The game needs a story. He wanted it to tell
Speaker 1: a story. See, he was fascinated with stories and it
Speaker 1: still is, and with nature and animals and plants and things,
Speaker 1: and he said, this is this is something that will help.
Speaker 1: So um. The game that Jonathan was talking about, the
Speaker 1: one that came out in was built on the failure
Speaker 1: of Radar Scope. And they said, okay, well we've got
Speaker 1: this hardware, let's what can we do with this. And
Speaker 1: most of the people in Nintendo didn't like what Miamoto
Speaker 1: sign came up with, which was, of course the classic
Speaker 1: arcade game Donkey Kong. Oh man, and uh yeah, how
Speaker 1: many quarters. I don't know how much of my parents
Speaker 1: money I squandered on Donkey Kong. Probably have bought a house.
Speaker 1: Uh I probably did buy a house just for someone else.
Speaker 1: But Donkey Kong, of course, was that The story is
Speaker 1: that our hero jump Man, yes, as he was known
Speaker 1: at the time. Actually he was Mr Video to Mr Miamoto. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: he would eventually become Mario, but right now, the time
Speaker 1: Donkey Kong came out, he was Jumped Man. A matter
Speaker 1: of fact, it was in the instructions. He was the
Speaker 1: hero who was rescuing his girlfriend. Do you know the
Speaker 1: girlfriend's name? It wasn't Princess Peach at the time, No,
Speaker 1: I mean she's known that way now. Pauline. Pauline he
Speaker 1: had to rescue from from Donkey Kong, who was, of
Speaker 1: course a giant ape gorilla my dreams, Donkey Kong essentially
Speaker 1: means stubborn gorilla. Yeah that the name still doesn't make
Speaker 1: a lot of sense. So take off a film studio, Yeah,
Speaker 1: nothing like ticking off King Kong anyway. So yeah, Donkey Kong,
Speaker 1: you know you your job was to try and rescue
Speaker 1: Pauline from Donkey Kong, and Donkey Kong would try and
Speaker 1: stop you by throwing barrels at you. And it's a
Speaker 1: very simple story. Climb to the top to rescue the
Speaker 1: girl and as soon as you get to the top,
Speaker 1: he the the gorilla gets angry, grabs her and takes
Speaker 1: off for the next floor. So you're gradually climbing up
Speaker 1: the construction of a giant building. Yeah, and which the
Speaker 1: construction takes different forms to depending on the level. Yes,
Speaker 1: and considering you take down part of the construction, it's
Speaker 1: amazing that he could still climb up get into that
Speaker 1: ruining the magic. Also also weird that parts of the
Speaker 1: upper part of the building are more complete than the
Speaker 1: lower parts. But that messing with it. This isn't This
Speaker 1: isn't about shoddy construction practices. This is about it was
Speaker 1: a brilliant construction practice on the part of Nintendo. Now,
Speaker 1: they said, a lot of the Nintendo people, we're thinking
Speaker 1: that this would never sell the idea. This is just
Speaker 1: too weird, especially for people in America. Yeah, how wrong
Speaker 1: they were. Donkey Kong was an enormous hit everywhere, so
Speaker 1: much so that Nintendo immediately saw the potential once the
Speaker 1: the figures started coming in, and they then went on
Speaker 1: to develop Donkey Kong Junior, which came out in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty two. So just a year later. How much money
Speaker 1: did I spend on that game. Yeah, this one, you're
Speaker 1: playing Junior, and your your job is to rescue Donkey Kong.
Speaker 1: At this point, Mario has captured Donkey Kong and has
Speaker 1: in any age, Mario is Mario at this point, and
Speaker 1: so you have to rescue Donkey Kong from Mario. And
Speaker 1: then three they introduced Donkey Kong three, which had the
Speaker 1: other protagonist, Stanley the bug man oh and how much money?
Speaker 1: Oh wait, I don't think I ever saw one of those. Man.
Speaker 1: I love Donkey Kong three. I love Donkey Kong three
Speaker 1: because it was a lot like Galagha. You know, instead
Speaker 1: of shooting uh and shooting, instead of shooting spaceships, you
Speaker 1: shot bugs that were coming down to steal flowers. And
Speaker 1: at the same time, you had to manage how low
Speaker 1: Donkey Kong was getting on these this pair of vines,
Speaker 1: as Donkey Kong would gradually scoot lower and lower on
Speaker 1: the vines, and your job was to spray Donkey Kong
Speaker 1: frequently enough to push them up to the next level.
Speaker 1: And meanwhile you're also trying to fend off the bugs.
Speaker 1: They're trying to steal your flowers. And I loved this game.
Speaker 1: I don't think I even saw it on Starcade, and yes,
Speaker 1: I used to watch that. I was really good at it. Well,
Speaker 1: right around three is when Nintendo's looking into getting into
Speaker 1: another related market, which is the home video game system market.
Speaker 1: Not just not just a console that can play a
Speaker 1: game or two games or six games, but one that
Speaker 1: can play and uh, indefinite number of games because you
Speaker 1: can interchange cartridges with this system. Again, we covered this
Speaker 1: in another podcast, but this was popular at this point.
Speaker 1: Atari was going gangbusters. They had competition from Um, from Mattel,
Speaker 1: they had competition from Colico, and in fact, Collico's launch
Speaker 1: of the Colico Vision and game console came with Donkey Kong. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: they had licensed Donkey Kong to the other game manufacturer.
Speaker 1: I'm oversimplifying for the sake of hurrying this up, um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean it was a hit for them.
Speaker 1: They they were realizing that this was possible and hey,
Speaker 1: maybe we could make money on the consoles ourselves. Yep.
Speaker 1: So that's when Nintendo decided to try and get into
Speaker 1: the video game market. Uh. It was funny because just
Speaker 1: as Nintendo was positioning itself to enter the video game market,
Speaker 1: the video game was market was starting to crash. But
Speaker 1: you know what. Originally I thought that we would get
Speaker 1: through a Nintendo Entertainment System and then pick up from there,
Speaker 1: But I think this is a good place to stop
Speaker 1: for our first episode. And what we'll do is in
Speaker 1: the History of Nintendo Part two, we will pick up
Speaker 1: with the debut of the Famicon also known as the
Speaker 1: Nintendo Entertainment System, and walk through Nintendo's history with home
Speaker 1: video games. Yeah, and we've we've seen though the seeds
Speaker 1: have been sown. People who who made a Nintendo and
Speaker 1: in the name that we all know today are with
Speaker 1: the company. They've realized, um that a story can propel
Speaker 1: a video game to to stardom, and they've identified their
Speaker 1: company mascot yep. So when we pick up, we will
Speaker 1: start in Uh, well, I think July Fife is just
Speaker 1: as good a day as any, So we'll pick up
Speaker 1: and we'll explain the significance of that. Yes, so guys
Speaker 1: be sure to tune into Part two, which we will
Speaker 1: be recording almost immediately after we finished this, and we
Speaker 1: will complete the story of the history of Nintendo and
Speaker 1: bring it up to present day and kind of explain
Speaker 1: where the company is right now, which is a position
Speaker 1: that it was then not you know, more than a
Speaker 1: little bit more than fifty years ago. Uh. They're they're
Speaker 1: back there again in some troubled times. I hope you
Speaker 1: enjoyed that look back at Nintendo. That was obviously just
Speaker 1: part one. We're going to continue with Part two next
Speaker 1: week and talk more about some of its video games
Speaker 1: system ums leading up to some of the most recent technologies.
Speaker 1: And then of course the following week I will come
Speaker 1: out with part three and we will talk about what
Speaker 1: Nintendo has been up to since two thousand eleven. Uh,
Speaker 1: And I hope you guys will join me for those
Speaker 1: episodes as well. If you have any suggestions for future
Speaker 1: episodes of tech Stuff, please let me know. My email
Speaker 1: address is tech stuff at how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: or drop me a line on Facebook for Twitter, the
Speaker 1: handle of both of those is text stuff H s W.
Speaker 1: And I'll talk to you again really see for more
Speaker 1: on this and bathands of other topics. Is it how
Speaker 1: staff works dot com.