WEBVTT - What's the Secret to Nintendo's Success? 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:00.800 Guess what, Mango? 0:00:00.920 --> 0:00:01.160 What's that? 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:03.640 Well? All right, so I've had this fact waiting to 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.120 use it, and I think today's episode is the right one. 0:00:06.360 --> 0:00:08.880 So did you know that Nintendo almost came out with 0:00:08.920 --> 0:00:10.000 a knitting machine? 0:00:10.160 --> 0:00:13.000 No? No, was that in its earliest days? Are like 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:14.159 with the Wei No? 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:16.320 No, Like in the nineteen eighties when they came out 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:19.520 with the original neees system. You remember this? Yeah? Yeah, 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:21.520 I found this old trade ad for it when they 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:23.680 were considering launching it. And here's how it reads. So 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:27.480 it says, now you're knitting with power. It's not a game, 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:30.000 not a toy, not something a young girl can outgrow 0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:32.159 in three to six months or even a year. It 0:00:32.280 --> 0:00:33.960 actually knits sweaters. 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:36.480 That's so weird and sexist. 0:00:36.600 --> 0:00:37.239 Yeah kind of. 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:39.600 I mean the technology is kind of forward thinking, I guess. 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:40.040 Yeah. 0:00:40.080 --> 0:00:42.559 I mean you could fashion your own patterns, yarn it up, 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:44.920 and have it knit for you. I guess I think 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:47.080 that's how it works. And the guy who was asked 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:49.159 to demonstrate it for Toys r Us, called it one 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:53.520 of his least genuinely enthusiastic demos and it basically got 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:57.680 zero demand. But reading about the Nintendo knitting machine made me, 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:00.840 wonder you know how long has Nintendo been around, and 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:03.640 how they survived for this long and such an incredibly 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:07.360 competitive market, and just how much running and swimming is 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:10.800 Mario doing in Super Mario Brothers. So that's what we're 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:34.480 going to find out. Let's dive in. Hey their podcast listeners, 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:37.000 welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:39.000 always I'm joined by my good friend man gesh Hot 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:41.520 Ticketer and on the other side of the soundproof glass 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:46.119 holding up a paper that says up down, up, down, left, right, left, right, 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:49.680 be a start. Wow, isn't that the Konami code from Nintendo. 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:51.520 Yeah, that's the secret code that gave you all those 0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:52.760 extra lives in contra. 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:55.440 That is just how thoughtful he is sharing a top 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:58.880 secret industry code on the airways. It's our friend and 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:03.400 producer Tristan mc so we're talking Nintendo. Now. Everybody's familiar 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:07.800 with Nintendo and its flagship characters Mario, Luigi, Zelda, the 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:10.960 list goes on, but video games are only half of 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:14.600 the company's one hundred and twenty eight year history, actually 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:17.360 less than that. So with the holiday season upon us 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:20.280 and the new Nintendo Switch console topping all kinds of 0:02:20.360 --> 0:02:22.959 hot toy and tech lists. We thought it'd be fun 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:25.440 to shed some light on the lesser known history of 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:29.200 the world's most recognizable video game maker, the Nintendo. 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:32.360 You don't know, right, And I'll do the first admit 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:35.079 there's so much I didn't know about Nintendo. For example, 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:37.440 did you know the company actually won Emmy back in 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:38.280 two thousand and seven? 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:40.720 I thought Emmy's were just TV shows, So I had 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:42.560 a video game company wind up with an Emmy. 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:45.160 Yeah, so it was actually awarded in recognition of one 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:48.320 of Nintendo's most famous tech innovations, the D pad or 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:50.680 the directional pad. Uh huh, So I'm sure you know this, 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:53.040 but the dpad is the plus sign shape button that 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:56.359 you see on video game controllers nowadays. And Nintendo introduced 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:59.639 the new output method back in I think nineteen eighty two, 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:02.919 and it quickly became a standard in the industry over 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:05.320 the old joysticks, like you know, the ones where you 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:07.079 had to use your whole hand to move the controller 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:08.639 around instead of just a free thumb. 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:11.720 Yeah, I mean that makes sense. The deepad revolutionized gaming, 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:13.840 But that doesn't say how they got an Emmy. How 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:14.680 did they win an Emmy? 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:17.040 Well, most video games are played on TVs, so there's 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:19.400 one connection there. But the real reason is that the 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:21.959 dpad got utilized by most of the remotes in your house, 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:25.120 whether for your DVD player or streaming device or the 0:03:25.160 --> 0:03:25.919 TV itself. 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:28.920 That's pretty crazy, all right. Well, it's clear Nintendo isn't 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:32.080 your typical video game company, and as I was saying earlier, 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:36.480 Nintendo actually predates video games themselves by almost one hundred years. 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:38.600 So I've read a little of this before that. Nintendo 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:41.360 started out as a playing card manufacturer, and this was 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:43.880 back in eighteen eighty nine when a twenty nine year 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:47.720 old businessman named Fuzlajiro Yamachi. He saw the chance to 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:51.320 jumpstart this dormant industry. And as you might know, Japan 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:53.480 had cut most of its ties with the Western world 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:56.600 during the seventeenth century. It was like this highly protected 0:03:56.720 --> 0:04:00.240 society and the royalty didn't want invading cultures to the 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:04.320 country's values and traditions. But as part of this isolationist stance, 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:07.520 there was this ban on all foreign playing cards, and 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:09.880 this was to curb the rise in the legal gambling 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:12.680 and when the Japanese devised their own card games in 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:15.640 the ensuing centuries, those two became used for gambling, and 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:17.120 the government banned those as well. 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:19.640 Pretty interesting art. So it's a bit of a game 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:21.360 of kind of whack a mole, now right. I mean, 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:23.960 games pop up, they get extinguished, then they pop up 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:26.640 somewhere else, and then they get extinguished again, exactly. 0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:28.640 And so this back and forth rise and fall of 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:30.840 Japanese card games goes on for more than two hundred 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:33.960 and fifty years, and then in eighteen eighty six, a 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:37.200 new game called hanafuda and I'm going to mispronounce every 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:40.680 single Japanese word of this, but it's finally permitted by 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:44.479 the government. And this game loosely translates as flower cards, 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:47.320 and they used flowers and animal pictures instead of numbers. 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:50.800 So it was a little harder to use for gambling, harder, 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:52.400 I'm guessing, but not impossible. 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:55.359 Yeah, that's right. So wiley gamblers still found ways to 0:04:55.360 --> 0:04:59.200 make money playing Hanafuda. And I mean, the general public 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:01.600 isn't that interested in playing card games since it's had 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:03.880 such a bad rep for so long, but this new 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:06.120 game did catch on quickly among this group of near 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:08.200 duells known as the yakuza. 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:11.560 Wait, so it's just like an organized crime syndicate, is 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:14.479 it there? The early customers of Nintendo were they actually 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:15.840 like Japanese gangster or. 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:19.000 Something sort of. So the term yakuza actually started as 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:21.440 this reference to a losing hand in this game that 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:24.480 wasn't worth any points. And since the game was popular 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:29.320 mostly with unsavory types, Yakuza game slang for like useless individuals, 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:31.599 And we should do a whole episode on the Yukuza 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:34.880 down the road, But at this point, these useless individuals 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:37.440 are just kind of outcasts in society. And the wider 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:40.440 connection to organized crime that comes later. But the moniker 0:05:40.480 --> 0:05:43.839 itself does have a connection to Nintendo, and specifically they're 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:44.880 Hanafuda cards. 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:47.400 Huh. All right, well, let's talk a little bit about 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:51.720 how Ourmanyamachi rises above this shady designation, and basically it 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:55.080 all comes down to design. The cards of the company 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:58.640 Nintendo produced included hand painted images, you know, made from 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:01.640 the bark of mulberry trees, and because they were so 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:06.120 ornate and super high quality and frankly just eye catching, 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:08.719 it it actually helped free the cards from that back 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:12.039 alley stigma, and it wasn't long before Nintendo became the 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:14.320 top card game company in all of Japan. 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:17.799 Absolutely so. Over the years and generations, as the government 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:21.120 relaxed their rules, Nintendo started releasing new types of cards 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:23.919 and card games. But it's only in the nineteen fifties, 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:28.279 when Yamuchi's great grandson took over the reins, that Nintendo 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:30.360 started experimenting with some odd ball ideas. 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:31.320 So what did they do? 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:34.000 Well, there are a few smart things, like Hiroshi signed 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:36.400 this deal to feature Disney characters on the card decks, 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:39.200 specifically to market them to children and families. But he 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:41.760 also did a few super strange things as well, like 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:45.039 he dabbled in starting a taxi service and a line 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:47.960 of instant rice, and for a little while he even 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:51.720 invested in love hotels, where businessmen could rent rooms by 0:06:51.760 --> 0:06:53.560 the hour, no questions. 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:57.880 Asked, Oh my gosh, card Shark, gangsters, CD motels. I mean, 0:06:57.920 --> 0:06:59.440 I have to be honest, like this is not the 0:06:59.480 --> 0:06:59.960 house mark. 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:04.000 Definitely not, definitely, not yet. And while none of those 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:08.039 ventures worked, they all went belly up quickly. Hiroshi knew 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:10.480 that playing cards and the playing card market had reached 0:07:10.480 --> 0:07:13.640 the saturation, so if Nintendo was going to survive into 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:16.600 the nineteen seventies, they'd need to branch out well. 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:19.160 And also by this point they were already dabbling in 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:20.800 at least board games, right. 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:24.000 Mm hm, that's right. But toy companies like Tomy and Bandai, 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:25.360 Like do you even remember those? 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:26.720 I mean only vaguely? 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:30.080 Yeah, me too, So it's worth googling Tomy and Bandai 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:32.480 games from the nineteen seventies because the titles and photos 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:35.600 are amazing, like they've got one called the Hamburger Game 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:40.600 and Run Yourself Ragged and NATSI Tennis like, honestly are 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:44.560 so intricate and plastic, but they really look fun. But 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:47.720 Nintendo needed an inn and this they needed some sort 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:51.000 of new product to catch people's attention and help establish 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:53.840 it as like a place for fun, not just like 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:55.000 card and board games. 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:57.240 I love those names, and I was like, what even 0:07:57.320 --> 0:08:01.720 is like NATSI Tennis run Yourself Ragged? Well, this is 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:03.760 the part of the Nintendo story that I really love 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:05.920 because you know, at first, you think, okay, all right, 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:08.280 here's where video games come in, and the company we 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:11.840 know starts to take shape. But no, you know, instead, 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:15.120 the company's first foray into the untapped toy market. It's 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:18.920 this wacky extending arm thing called the ultra Hand, and 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:23.080 there's nothing electronic about it. Basically, it's the invention of 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:26.680 Gunpay Yokoi. He's this low level Nintendo factory worker. He's 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:28.760 got a little bit of a background in engineering, and 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:32.800 it's kind of an innovation on Ben Franklin's long arm grabber, 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:34.839 you know, which he invented in his old age that 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:37.280 would help him get books high off of shelves. 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:40.200 Yeah. So Ben Frank's version was obviously just this long 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:42.720 pull with the tiny gratty thing at the end of it, right. 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:45.920 Yeah, that's it. But Gunpay designed a prototype grabber claw 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:49.240 that frankly, you'd almost picture kind of like an inspector 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:52.160 gadget's hands or something like. It expanded out across the 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:55.480 room with sort of a metal crisscross pattern, but it 0:08:55.559 --> 0:08:59.040 collapses to a tiny shape. And when Heirohi saw it, 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:01.000 he fell in love with the idea and got gun 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:03.640 Paid a mass produce a plastic version by the end 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:06.720 of that year, and the thing was dubbed the Ultra Hand, 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:09.319 as I mentioned, and the toy was a massive success 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:12.640 for Nintendo. They sold over a million of them between 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:16.720 nineteen sixty six and nineteen seventy and with that initial success, 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:20.360 Nintendo made the transition to toy manufacturer, and honestly, they 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:21.600 never looked back after that. 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:24.640 So I was just on my phone and I looked 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:27.520 up the box of the Ultra Hand and it is amazing. 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:29.920 There's like one version that's a cartoon box and it's 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:32.720 got two kids happily stealing some sort of money person 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:33.480 from businessman. 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:34.559 That's good marketing. 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:37.200 And there's this other that's like a real life pick 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:39.719 and it's got a boy in the background using this 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:43.120 ultrahnd to like maybe grab something off a top shelf, 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:46.079 while this girl in the foreground seems to be, I 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:48.720 don't know, passing a tomato across the room to her dad. 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:53.160 It's amazing. Also, why would you get this for your kids? 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:56.720 Like it only encourages like theft and mischief. 0:09:56.480 --> 0:09:58.400 I mean, but it does look kind of fun. Those 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:02.480 pictures are ridiculous though, But thankfully Nintendo brought Gunpay along 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:05.120 for the ride as they developed more and he was 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:08.720 promoted from this maintenance engineer to the head of product development, 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:12.640 and that's where he helped create all these different unusual toys, 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:16.800 and that includes Nintendo's first feature electronics, and that first 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:17.920 one was called the. 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:21.480 Love Tester, so I thought we were past the more 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:23.200 questionable bits of Nintendo's history. 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:26.199 Well, you know, although this was aimed at a slightly 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:29.080 older crowd, the Love Tester was a whole lot tamer 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:31.640 than those pay by the hour hotels you mentioned earlier. 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:34.839 That's just so discussing. Was this small device that kind 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:37.240 of looked like a vault meter with two wires sticking 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:39.920 out of it, and there was this small silver disc 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:42.280 at the end of each wire, and the idea was 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:45.520 that a couple would hold hands while each person held 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:48.520 one of the discs, and so they had this resulting 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:51.160 level of love that would then be displayed on the screen. 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:53.960 And it used the scale from zero to one hundred. 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:57.560 So, I mean, it's clearly a cute, gimmicky item. But 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:00.720 when'd the love Tester actually test love Mango? 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:03.040 You don't believe this really worked. I mean, it was 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:06.080 most likely the electric conductivity of the couple. I don't know, 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:08.600 like if their palms were sweaty, it would affect it. 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:11.600 But you know, the specifics really didn't matter that much, 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:14.360 at least not to the target customers. There's this great 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:16.360 site I found as we were doing our research called 0:11:16.640 --> 0:11:20.160 Before Mario, and it explains that dating culture in Japan 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:23.800 during the nineteen sixties was actually still pretty strict, so 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:27.280 really any excuse to hold hands and strike up conversation 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:28.400 was welcome. 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:29.160 That's interesting. 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:31.439 Yeah, yeah, And so that's why the Love Tester was 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:34.720 such a success. It was a really smart idea for 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:38.000 that time, and because it made Nintendo so much money, 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:40.840 the company continued to dabble in electronic toys, you know, 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:43.600 when video games were just starting to make their debut. 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:46.719 Sure, so, I mean we're talking about the late seventies here, 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:48.559 when our kids just started to take off. 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:51.600 That's right. But you know, gun Pays an extraordinary thinker 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:54.600 because he actually had his sight set on a different market. 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:57.360 The one day, while riding a commuter train to work, 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:00.360 he noticed this other businessman playing with his calcul later 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:03.200 just to kind of keep himself busy, I guess, and 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:05.760 this gave Gunpay the idea for a new line of 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:08.400 handheld video games. You know that maybe would use the 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:12.920 same LCD screen and that display technology that a calculator 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:15.640 would use, except in this case the graphics would be 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:18.360 used to create characters and then maybe objects that could 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:21.760 be set against this pre printed background. Scene, and so 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:24.360 you'd have this built in controller buttons on either side 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:26.160 of the screen that would allow the player to move 0:12:26.160 --> 0:12:29.280 a character around, you know, to complete basic task, I guess. 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:32.240 And so one early model of these Nintendo game and 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:35.040 watch systems had the player control this deep sea diver. 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:37.120 He just had to go from one side of the 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:39.360 screen to the other side of the screen and he 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:42.520 would claim a sunken treasure chest there and all the 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:45.960 while he was avoiding the moving tentacles of this grabby octopus. 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:47.280 How captivating is this game? 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:47.520 Though? 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:50.360 I mean, I actually vaguely remember those games as kids 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:53.520 and really wanting one, but they were so expensive. And 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:55.839 of course that actually brings us full circle because it's 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:58.800 actually these game and watch systems where the dpad was 0:12:58.920 --> 0:12:59.880 used for the first time. 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:02.040 Yeah, that's right, although I just had a memory. Do 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:04.480 you remember when we took that computer science one oh 0:13:04.480 --> 0:13:06.440 one class and we had to make a fish tank 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:08.680 where the fish would just go one side the other. 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:13.280 We're basically computer science geniuses, that's right. But back to 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:15.640 the D pad, you know, it was another little master 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:19.000 stroke from Gunpay, and he'd run into problems while trying 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:22.280 to adapt Nintendo's successful Donkey Kong arcade game for the 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:25.880 handheld market, and unlike most handheld games at the time, 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:28.600 which only had the player moving left to right, Donkey 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:31.000 Kong was pretty different because it had them moving along 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:34.000 both the X and the Y axis, which we both 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:35.840 understand what that means as computer science. 0:13:37.040 --> 0:13:39.680 Yeah, I mean, it is funny, like you run along 0:13:39.720 --> 0:13:41.720 the platforms, but you also have to climb the ladders 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:44.840 and reach the top where Donkey Kong's keeping your kidnapped girlfriend, 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:47.640 right right. But I went to a pizza place this 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:49.840 weekend with my kids in town here and they had 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:52.720 a few old school nesas setup while you're waiting, and 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:55.040 my four year old was actually trying to play Donkey 0:13:55.120 --> 0:13:57.720 Kong and she had no idea what she was doing, 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:00.760 and she was really angry that this ape was like 0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:01.760 tossing barrels. 0:14:03.559 --> 0:14:06.560 That's pretty great, all right. Well, here's where I'm gonna 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:09.040 hand the baton off to you, because it sounds like 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:12.160 Gunpey was the guy at the forefront of electronic gaming, 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:15.560 but actually someone else came up with the games like 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:17.880 Donkey Kong and Mario and Zelda. 0:14:17.960 --> 0:14:20.600 Right, Yeah, that's true. So credit for those goes to 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:24.920 Shigeru Miyamoto, also known as the father of modern video games. 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:28.440 Like his creativity and attention to detail was this massive 0:14:28.440 --> 0:14:31.640 part of Nintendo's success when it transitioned into home consoles 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:32.400 in the eighties. 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:35.000 All right, well, we should definitely talk about what he 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:37.200 brought to the table and how it affected the video 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:40.240 game industry going forward from there. But before we do that, 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:55.400 why don't we take a quick break. You're listening to 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:58.200 Part Time Genius and we're talking about how Nintendo made 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:02.120 the transition from Playing card manifest to video game icon. 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:06.240 All right, Mango, So, Shagero Miyamoto is the mastermind behind 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:09.480 Super Mario Brothers and that whole series and really kind 0:15:09.480 --> 0:15:12.200 of a gaming legend. But how did he wind up 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:13.720 working at Nintendo in the first place? 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:16.320 So, I mean, to be honest, there might have been 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:19.800 a little nepotism involved, because Miyamoto's father was able to 0:15:19.840 --> 0:15:22.000 line up an interview for him right out of college 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:25.560 and he had some connections with Nintendo. But once Miyamoto 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:28.640 had his foot in the door, the young designer impressed everyone, 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:31.080 like he had all these great toy ideas, and he 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:33.240 started out as kind of a staff artist for the 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:36.080 company's planning department. And this was in nineteen seventy seven, 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:39.720 and he's still with the company today. I mean, that's 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:43.400 forty years since Nintendo hired him, and he's never worked 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:45.760 a single day for any other company. It's pretty incredible. 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:46.800 That is pretty incredible. 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:49.400 And obviously he's an insane talent, and we'll find out 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:52.000 why the company wanted to keep him. But what kind 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:54.000 of stuff was he working on in those early days. 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:55.720 I mean, he couldn't have come up with Mario right 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:56.560 out of the gate. 0:15:56.440 --> 0:15:59.320 Right well, I mean yes and no. So in the 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:02.320 early nineteen eighties, Nintendo tried to expand into the North 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:05.520 American arcade scene, but one of their earliest efforts, which 0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:09.360 was this sci fi shooting game called Radarscope, it failed 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:11.680 to find an audience outside of Japan. So one of 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:15.080 Miyamoto's first assignments was to build a new, low cost 0:16:15.120 --> 0:16:18.640 game using the existing tech and this engine of Radarscope. 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:22.200 And that way the company could you know, rejigger and 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:25.160 convert the thousands of arcade cabinets they already had into 0:16:25.200 --> 0:16:28.880 something fresh. And Miyamoto was eager to prove himself, so 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:31.480 under the mentorship of gunpay. He came up with this 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:34.800 idea for Donkey Kong. Wow, and you should explain what 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:37.640 that has to do with Mario though, right, so nothing 0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:39.760 at first. Originally the game was going to be based 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:42.760 on Popeye the Sailorman, but when the license for that 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:46.800 property fell through, Miamoto redesigned the game to include original characters. 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:49.960 So the British villain of Bluto became this gorilla named 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:53.760 Donkey Kong, their perpetual damsel in distress, Olive Oil, became 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:56.720 a woman named Pauline, and Popeye got turned into this 0:16:56.760 --> 0:17:00.840 carpenter named Jumpman. And since Jumpman is the catchiest of 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:02.800 names today, he goes by Mario. 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:05.160 And so it's the same character definitely. 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:07.280 So according to the story, the president of Nintendo of 0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:11.160 America noticed the similarity between the Italian landlord they had, 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:14.239 the one they'd been renting warehouse space from, and the 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:18.359 mustachio Jumpman, and the Nintendo crewe nicknamed the character Mario 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:20.600 in his honor, and by the time the carpenter turned 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:23.160 a plumber and was ready for his breakout role into 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:24.879 his own series, the nickname it stuck. 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:27.240 Oh that's pretty great, and it actually reminds me of 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:29.920 another story about early Nintendo, or at least the video 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:32.960 game phase. So apparently, Donkey Kong was a big hit 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:35.480 for the company, pulling in over one hundred and eighty 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:39.640 million dollars in just a year after its release. Eighty 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:41.760 million dollars then, I mean, that's a lot of money. 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:45.080 But with all that success came the attention of Universal Studios, 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:47.040 who now believed that the game was infringing on its 0:17:47.119 --> 0:17:50.920 King Kong copyright, and the studio made some pretty tough demands, 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:54.280 insisting that Nintendo destroy all unsold copies of the game 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:57.640 and hand over every penny they had made along the way. 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:00.720 So I mean, I'm guessing Nintendo didn't go for any 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:00.919 of that. 0:18:01.359 --> 0:18:03.800 No, not so much. Instead, they lawyered up and proved 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:05.960 that not only did the game have nothing to do 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:09.320 with the events of the movie, but Universal's copyright had 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:13.240 long since expired. Anything that actually meant King Kong was 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:16.280 now in the public domain. How crazy is That's amazing 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:18.960 which we had snapped it up, But that isn't the 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:21.760 craziest part. Actually, it turns out that Universal had allowed 0:18:21.760 --> 0:18:25.040 Tiger Electronics to create this game based on King Kong, 0:18:25.480 --> 0:18:28.000 and it was actually kind of a knockoff of Donkey Kong. 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:31.480 So in the end, the court ruled in Nintendo's favor 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:35.160 and Universal was made to pay the company millions in damage. 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:36.000 That's amazing. 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:40.280 Yeah. So, actually, Nintendo's lawyer, John Kirby, he was given 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:42.600 this brand new sailboat as a thank you gift, and 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:45.440 of course he christened it the Donkey Kong. But that 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:48.080 name may sound familiar, because the best part is he 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:50.840 also got a character named after him, and that is 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:52.080 the character Kirby. 0:18:52.240 --> 0:18:54.400 Oh I love that. I like that. Not only did 0:18:54.400 --> 0:18:56.160 he get this new boat, but he also got video 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:57.120 game immortality. 0:18:57.200 --> 0:18:57.919 Yeah, no kidding. 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:00.520