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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With

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Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Oh hi, there,

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Speaker 1: I almost didn't see you. Welcome to tech Stuff, amiss,

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Speaker 1: Chris Ballett, and I am an editor at how stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot Com. Sitting across me sort of quietly suggesting

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Speaker 1: that my joke was terrible, is senior writer Jonathan Strickland

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Speaker 1: with my magic book. I'll shower those clumsy lizards with

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Speaker 1: my power. That is perfect, He told me. I had

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Speaker 1: the perfect quote for this, uh this podcast. It's from

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Speaker 1: a song that I didn't even know existed until about

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Speaker 1: five seconds ago. Okay, so we're going to do the uh,

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Speaker 1: the whole catch you up, um if you're just tuning in.

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Speaker 1: Previously on tech Stuff, Nintendo started out as a playing

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Speaker 1: card company in in eight nine, gradually diversified, then got

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Speaker 1: out of several other businesses, including the toy market. But

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Speaker 1: that did give them the idea that possibly this whole

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Speaker 1: video game thing might be an idea, and they started

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Speaker 1: creating video game consoles that were only able to play

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Speaker 1: a game or maybe sit up to six games. But

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Speaker 1: you know, kind of like the old Odyssey system and

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Speaker 1: that it was very limited. It was all hardwired into

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Speaker 1: the system. You could not put a cartridge in there was.

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Speaker 1: It was not cartridge cartridge based at that point. While

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Speaker 1: also created the game and Watch, which was the sup

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Speaker 1: portable variation of that, but again, single game. That's all

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Speaker 1: it was on that system. Meanwhile, the arcade craze is

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Speaker 1: taken off all over the world and Nintendo finds itself

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Speaker 1: uh with a complete bomb and asks a young designer, Miyamoto,

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Speaker 1: Shigeru Miyamoto, to give it a shot. Can you come

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Speaker 1: up with something that we can use in the video

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Speaker 1: game market? And he thinks a storyline would sell games,

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Speaker 1: so he creates a simple story about a giant gorilla

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Speaker 1: who hauls off a a woman named Pauline to the

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Speaker 1: top of a skyscraper and challenges a young plumber well

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Speaker 1: actually he was just a guy with a big mustache

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Speaker 1: and overalls named Jumpman to come get her. And it

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Speaker 1: defies just about everybody in the company's expectations by becoming

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Speaker 1: a huge hit, inspiring several uh several follow up titles

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Speaker 1: and licensing agreements with these different console manufacturers to bring

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Speaker 1: them into homes. Because home video games are becoming popular

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Speaker 1: in the early nineteen eighties, late seventies and early Nintendo

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Speaker 1: decides to get into that market while the getting is

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Speaker 1: good and I want me some of that action. They

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Speaker 1: and they introduce the Nintendo Family Computer and they launched

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Speaker 1: it in Japan on July fIF Famicom. Yeah, it's so

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Speaker 1: great name for a console. Uh yeah, great name for

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Speaker 1: the console, the Famicom. So if you're not familiar with

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Speaker 1: the Famicom, that is what in America we referred to

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Speaker 1: as the Nintendo Entertainment System. If you're not familiar with it,

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Speaker 1: yes you are. It didn't immediately come over to America

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Speaker 1: because at the same time as it was launching in

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Speaker 1: Japan America, in North America, there was the video game Crash.

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Speaker 1: We talked about that. If you haven't heard it, go

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Speaker 1: back and listen to it. Wait, there's an entire podcast

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Speaker 1: about it. But to give you the short form of that,

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Speaker 1: what happened was the video game market was doing really well.

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Speaker 1: Uh so many players got into the system, not not

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Speaker 1: so many game players. So many companies got into creating

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Speaker 1: video game systems and video game titles that the market

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Speaker 1: became saturated and there were there were there were several

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Speaker 1: really really good games, but there were way more crappy games.

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Speaker 1: And of those, yeah, we talked about some of those

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Speaker 1: in our Worst Video Games of All Time podcast. There

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Speaker 1: were some of the two big ones that leaped to mind,

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Speaker 1: where the licensed version of pac Man for the AT

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Speaker 1: and of course the number one game on everybody's list,

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Speaker 1: Et the Extraterrestrial almost everybody's, but no, a lot of that.

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Speaker 1: That was the thing. A lot of the game The

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Speaker 1: idea was these games are hit in the arcade, let's

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Speaker 1: bring him to the home console. So you had games

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Speaker 1: like pac Man and Donkey Kong, um stuff like Amadar

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Speaker 1: Burger Time Reactor, and they tried so hard to make

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Speaker 1: them work on home consoles immediately that they ended up

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Speaker 1: being complete and under dogs. Yeah, they were just mean.

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Speaker 1: Amad was horrible. It was such a rush to get

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Speaker 1: to the market with that quality. Was was really sacrificed

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Speaker 1: in order to get sacrificed in favor of speed. Well,

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Speaker 1: Nintendo ended up not launching in America right away because again,

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Speaker 1: this video game crash was taking place mostly through three

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Speaker 1: and so it wasn't until October eighteenth five that the

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Speaker 1: Famicon made its debut in the United States, and of

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Speaker 1: course then it was known as the Nintendo Entertainment System.

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Speaker 1: And originally Nintendo took a very very controlled approach to

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Speaker 1: introducing its system. It wasn't it wasn't like a a

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Speaker 1: nationwide launch. In fact, you could originally only get an

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Speaker 1: inn e S if you were willing to go to

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Speaker 1: New York City to get it. That was the limited

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Speaker 1: market they introduced it to. And it was something like

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Speaker 1: a hundred thousand units and they sold out of ninety

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Speaker 1: thousand of them in a heartbeat. Um in a New

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Speaker 1: York minute, Yeah, in a New York minute. And the

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Speaker 1: original in as when it first came out in New York,

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Speaker 1: was loaded with extras in order to tempt people to

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Speaker 1: buy it, because you gotta remember, at this point, the

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Speaker 1: home video game market in the United States is toast.

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Speaker 1: People are starting to move to personal computers, video game

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Speaker 1: consoles are it looked at his things for kids and

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Speaker 1: it's and there's just no consistency in quality. So Nintendo

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Speaker 1: had an uphill battle here. So when they launched it

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Speaker 1: in New York, here's what it came with. This is

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Speaker 1: a huge difference to the way you buy a video

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Speaker 1: game console today. You got the console, you've got two games,

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Speaker 1: you've got two game pads, you've got the Zapper light gun,

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Speaker 1: and you got the Robotic Operating Buddy or rob for

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Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty five dollars. Wow, that would be

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Speaker 1: about two fifty dollars in today's money. So it's still

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Speaker 1: sort of affordable in terms. I mean, you think about

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Speaker 1: the PlayStation three debuting at what six hundred dollars United States. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so it's it's you know, it was a pretty amazing

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Speaker 1: deal at the time, and uh, it does very well,

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Speaker 1: and then Nintendo starts to open up in other test

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Speaker 1: markets places like Chicago and Los Angeles. Um, still very

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Speaker 1: gradual until it goes nationwide pretty much in six. Uh

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Speaker 1: and at that point the price had moved up to

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Speaker 1: a hundred and ninety nine dollars, So the hundred five

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Speaker 1: was kind of the introductory price to kind of get

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Speaker 1: that word of mouth campaign going. And and once it

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Speaker 1: went nationwide, they figured they could price it at one

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Speaker 1: and that would be the right mart value for them

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Speaker 1: into no entertainment system, I don't know, it might sell

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Speaker 1: like hotcakes. Yeah, sure dead And in eight six that

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Speaker 1: was also when in Japan Nintendo introduced a special disc

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Speaker 1: system accessory in the Famicom, because I could remember in

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Speaker 1: Japan it was it was built as a family computer system, right,

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Speaker 1: not just a video game console, so it would allow

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Speaker 1: you to actually use discs to uh play games on

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Speaker 1: the Famicom. Back in Japan, you could even go and

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Speaker 1: have you know, a disc made of a game or

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Speaker 1: whatever at a special vendors in Japan. Now and in

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Speaker 1: the United States, we were not so fortunate as to

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Speaker 1: get access to this, although I'm sure there are plenty

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Speaker 1: of collectors out there who have the Japanese version of it.

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Speaker 1: In America, that's always been a hot like underground market

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Speaker 1: in the United States. Yeah. Now, keeping in mind too

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Speaker 1: that in the late seventies, when or the mid seventies,

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Speaker 1: when consoles were starting to come into the homes, Uh,

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Speaker 1: all this stuff was hardwired into the console itself, as

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Speaker 1: as Jonathan was just saying a minute ago. Then they

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Speaker 1: figured out that it was possible to make a connector

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Speaker 1: slot so that all the ROMs would be actually in

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Speaker 1: the cartridge itself and it would make a connection with

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Speaker 1: that cartridge when you plugged it. You had to give

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Speaker 1: it a firm push to get it snapped into the

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Speaker 1: slot the right way. Also, you had to you had

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Speaker 1: to breathe into the cartridge. That was that was required

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Speaker 1: before you. That's what we always did, ye before you. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's good to get the dust out of it. Of course,

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Speaker 1: some of the Atari cartridges had a little flap they

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Speaker 1: protected the guts. Not all of them, some of them, um,

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Speaker 1: but yeah. They the Nintendo Entertainment System used similar cartridges too.

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Speaker 1: They were they were wider than the the Atari cartridges

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Speaker 1: of course, and and bigger. But yeah, they were using

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Speaker 1: the same types of programmable ROM chips that you would

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Speaker 1: just snap into the Uh. The game slot didn't have

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Speaker 1: a disk like the game systems do now. So in

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Speaker 1: eighties six they also introduced some titles that became big.

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Speaker 1: Commando huge in e s game Yeah, fun one too,

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Speaker 1: Ghosts and Goblins one of the most difficult games ever

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Speaker 1: also fun but hard, and then um there was came

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Speaker 1: out in six if that's not confusing. Uh, And in

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Speaker 1: eight seven, two other big names in Nintendo franchises debuted,

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Speaker 1: Castlevania and Metroid. Yeah. So a lot of the games

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Speaker 1: that would become sort of emblematic of Nintendo Entertainment System

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Speaker 1: started to launch right around this time, and uh, the

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Speaker 1: NES does incredibly well. Now, I never owned an NES.

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Speaker 1: I had a friend who lived down the street from

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Speaker 1: me who did own an NES, and I used to

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Speaker 1: go over to his house all the time and play.

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Speaker 1: And in fact, I played one of the games that

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Speaker 1: won the best Video Game of the Year for Nintendo

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Speaker 1: now that that happened back in that game was punch Out.

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Speaker 1: We're talking about the arcade game at that point, but

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Speaker 1: man oh, the arcade game was a huge hit. I

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Speaker 1: loved punch Out so much. That's one of those arcade consoles.

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Speaker 1: Like you know, you always have that fantasy of some

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Speaker 1: of us anyway of owning certain video game consoles, like

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Speaker 1: having a special room that would just have video game

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Speaker 1: consoles in it. Punch Out would be one of the

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Speaker 1: consoles I would own punch Out. There there are two

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Speaker 1: other titles I can think of right off the top

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Speaker 1: of my head that I would have to own for

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Speaker 1: that and on the one one would be the original

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Speaker 1: Star Wars arcade game use the Forest Luke and also

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Speaker 1: the Spy Hunter. Okay, those are the so those would

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Speaker 1: be the three Elevator Action maybe. Yeah, if I had room.

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Speaker 1: But if I only had room for three, it'd be

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Speaker 1: Spy Hunter, it would be Star Wars, and it would

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Speaker 1: be punch Out. Forget those of you keeping scored home.

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Speaker 1: Punch Out is the only one that's a Nintendo game. Yeah, anyway, yes,

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Speaker 1: but there you go, one of the three games would

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Speaker 1: be a Nintendo game, because when most of us think

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Speaker 1: of the Pendo we don't necessarily think of the arcade

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Speaker 1: games that much because they made such a huge name

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Speaker 1: in the home console market. Now, Donkey Kong of course

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Speaker 1: being like the big exception. Yeah, well that's how I

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Speaker 1: think that's how Nintendo was able to sell the Nintendo

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Speaker 1: Entertainment System was that they could say, hey, we were

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Speaker 1: the guys behind Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. And

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Speaker 1: Super Mario Brothers. Yeah, you don't have to worry about

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Speaker 1: us taking some sort of uh uh well, especially when

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Speaker 1: they were reporting games from the arcade to the console.

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Speaker 1: You know, since it was the same company that was

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Speaker 1: producing these hit games, theres so much more faithful. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and and so they you know, that could be a

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Speaker 1: message they send out to the market, is like you

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Speaker 1: don't have to worry about some terrible port of our

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Speaker 1: game because we're the ones who made the Arcade game,

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Speaker 1: We're the ones who made the console. You know that

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Speaker 1: the console is gonna reflect the gameplay that you are

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Speaker 1: familiar with in the Arcade. Well. One of the things

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Speaker 1: that Jonathan touched on in the first episode, and again

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Speaker 1: if you haven't listened to it, will wait for you

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Speaker 1: to come back and listen to that first. But one

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Speaker 1: of the things he touched on was that the UH

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Speaker 1: the UH CEO, the CEO at that time of of Nintendo,

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Speaker 1: insisted that everything go through him for approval. And that

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Speaker 1: was important in a way because it ensured that there

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Speaker 1: was going to be some quality in the stuff. They

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Speaker 1: weren't just throwing it out the door like certain other

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Speaker 1: companies that I can mention I didn't mention. Well, that

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Speaker 1: was part of the problem of Video Game Crash. Yes,

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Speaker 1: So Nintendo had had taken the certification process, yes, and

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Speaker 1: that that was a selling point from the Nintendo Entertainment

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Speaker 1: System that the other consoles didn't have at that point,

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Speaker 1: because if a title was going to be on the NES,

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Speaker 1: it had to meet certain criteria, It had to had

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Speaker 1: to pass certification. It's frustrating for developers because the developer

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Speaker 1: might have a great idea, but for some reason they

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Speaker 1: run up against a barrier that to the developer seems

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Speaker 1: arbitrary and then, uh, you know. We see this today

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Speaker 1: with developers who developed for Apple, for example, for for

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Speaker 1: apps on the iPhone and the iPad. They're developers who say,

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Speaker 1: I submitted this, I thought it is a great idea,

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Speaker 1: and then I'm hitting a wall. And in some cases

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Speaker 1: it may seem arbitrary to an outside observer, but to

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Speaker 1: Apple it may seem like, no, this is not following

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Speaker 1: our rules, and this the rules are there in order

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Speaker 1: for us to ensure that the user has a good

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Speaker 1: quality experience. At the end of the day. That was

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Speaker 1: a Nintendo's approach to with the video games, and said

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Speaker 1: they did not want to fall into the same trap

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Speaker 1: that Attari and Kaliko had fallen into, where they started

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Speaker 1: to put out and publish games that or they allowed

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Speaker 1: third party publishers to publish games that just did not

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Speaker 1: measure up. Now, that did not mean that Nintendo was

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Speaker 1: free of bad games, but they weren't glutted with them

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Speaker 1: like the Atari was towards the end of its days. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it killed both Atari and Colico. Yeah, and if you

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Speaker 1: say yes, but Atari is still around, not really different

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Speaker 1: company company they purchased the name anyway. Anyway, Um, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that was that was one of the selling points. Um.

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Speaker 1: And the other was, in addition to good marketing, they

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Speaker 1: had something that they could market around, and that was

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Speaker 1: Miamoto's characters. Um, Donkey Kong had made a name, well

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Speaker 1: not literally because his name wasn't his name at that point,

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Speaker 1: but had a name character in Mario, and they were

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Speaker 1: able to use those characters in successive games. And so, uh,

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Speaker 1: they basically had exclusivity. You didn't see Mario on games

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Speaker 1: that weren't licensed by Nintendo. Nintendo was was uh, basically

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Speaker 1: ensuring a future for itself by creating a storyline in

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Speaker 1: its games that could be carried from game to game. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they really started to protect their intellectual property. They were

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Speaker 1: very protective of it. So and still still are. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you still are not going to find Mario pop up

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Speaker 1: on say an iPhone game, which that'll come into play

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Speaker 1: and at the end of our conversation today, but uh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: so Nintendo has taken this approach and it's working well

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Speaker 1: for them now in n uh so, this is ninety

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Speaker 1: years into the company's history for those kind of scores.

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Speaker 1: Ninety nine years in the company's history, Nintendo makes an

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Speaker 1: agreement with another company called Sony. I think I've heard

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Speaker 1: of them too. Yeah, they were going to work together

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Speaker 1: and put out a new video game console system that

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Speaker 1: would use optical disks instead of cartridges to store games. Hey,

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Speaker 1: that seems like a great idea because Sony is really

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Speaker 1: good with this electronics stuff, I hear. Now, unfortunate as

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Speaker 1: Nintendo doesn't take them off. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened.

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Speaker 1: Nintendo and Sony could not see eye to eye on

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Speaker 1: many aspects of the deal, and ultimately the deal fell apart.

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Speaker 1: Now this this collapse. Yeah, the collapse of this deal

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Speaker 1: would later lead Sony to develop its own video game

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Speaker 1: console system called the PlayStation. I think I've heard of

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Speaker 1: that too. You may very well have heard of that.

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Speaker 1: Wishes it hadn't. Yeah, PlayStation ended up causing a big

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Speaker 1: headache for Nintendo, particularly in Japan in a couple more years.

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Speaker 1: But we'll get into that in so on the company's centennial,

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Speaker 1: which is so hard to think of, Like, there's so

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Speaker 1: many companies out there, and you're like, how many of

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Speaker 1: them are a century old or older. Not many, not

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Speaker 1: many are still around. Nintendo's one of them. Uh. In

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Speaker 1: the company introduces the game Boy. Yes now, the game

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Speaker 1: Boy sold for eighty nine dollars in the United States,

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Speaker 1: which is about a hundred and fifty dollars hundred fifty

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Speaker 1: six dollars today. Uh and the game Boys sold very well,

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Speaker 1: partially because it was marketed not just two kids, but

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Speaker 1: to adults who would spend time doing things like writing

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Speaker 1: the train or the bus. If you were one of

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Speaker 1: those people who was commuting on a system like that,

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Speaker 1: then you would want something to occupy your time. And uh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: Chris is humming the theme song to the game that

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Speaker 1: was packaged with the game Boy that became like it was.

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Speaker 1: If you want to call about talk about a killer

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Speaker 1: app or a killer title, this is like one of

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Speaker 1: the top killer titles of all time. We're talking about Tetris,

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Speaker 1: which was not a video game develops specifically by Nintendo,

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Speaker 1: actually came from a Russian developer. But Tetris was such

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Speaker 1: a compelling puzzle game and it still is today that

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Speaker 1: it it was probably responsible for selling more Game Boy

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Speaker 1: units than just about anything else. I played Tetris for

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Speaker 1: so long on my game Boy that I could see

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Speaker 1: when I turned off. You could tell this this is

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Speaker 1: a good game. When you turn off the game and

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Speaker 1: you close your eyes to go to sleep and you're

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Speaker 1: still seeing those little shapes drift into place. Or when

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Speaker 1: you are moving and you're packing up the moving van

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Speaker 1: and at the time you're going do do do do

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Speaker 1: do do crooked space piece? I don't I needed an

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Speaker 1: L shape? Uh yeah, so why did I get that sectional? Um? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: I spent many many hours with my game Boy. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was a very popular device, and that was my

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Speaker 1: first Nintendo system. And game Boy also was developed by

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Speaker 1: It was designed by gumpay Yakoit who we talked about

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Speaker 1: in the last podcast. He was the fellow who was

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Speaker 1: hired and had had turned Nintendo's fortunes around by introducing

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Speaker 1: a toy that became the Ultra Hand, basically an extendable

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Speaker 1: claw that would grip uh toy balls or you know,

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Speaker 1: that was what came with it, but you could use

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Speaker 1: it for all kinds of other games. Harassing the family

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Speaker 1: cat but yeah, the twice often than not probably. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So he he was the fellow who designed the game Boys.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, very popular design, very simple design, you know,

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Speaker 1: unlike his first portable uh for a this was this

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Speaker 1: was basically they hundred of portable games because before that

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Speaker 1: they were all hardwired, like the Mentel games with the

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Speaker 1: little led s that would go you know yeah, and

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Speaker 1: even even Nintendo's UH game games were all hardwired at

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Speaker 1: that point. So this was the first cartridge based one

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Speaker 1: that really started to take off huge. So in nineteen nine,

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Speaker 1: into No introduces the Super Famicom, which in the United

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Speaker 1: States a year later in ninety one was known as

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Speaker 1: the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Yeah, the NES was starting

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Speaker 1: to near the end of its lifecycle, although it was

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Speaker 1: still supported for a few years after this. UM and

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Speaker 1: the NES was an eight bit video game system, the

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Speaker 1: S and E S. The Supernintendo was a sixteen bit

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Speaker 1: game system, twice the bits and UM. At that time,

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Speaker 1: Nintendo boasted an ownership a market share of about eight

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Speaker 1: percent of the United States game industry and nine of

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Speaker 1: the worldwide game industry, so truly a dominant company at

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Speaker 1: this point. Also, this is a good time to mention

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Speaker 1: the character designs that Miyamoto came up with. The reason

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Speaker 1: why the characters look the way they do is because

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Speaker 1: the eight bit gaming era was so low resolution that

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Speaker 1: you had to pick a very simple yet iconic design

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Speaker 1: to be able to show people what your character look like.

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Speaker 1: So he has Mario has a giant nose, so you

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Speaker 1: could see that he Mario has a mustache because it

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Speaker 1: was easier to see than a mouth. His his his overalls,

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Speaker 1: his hat, all of that was designed because in order

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Speaker 1: for him to show up well against multiple backgrounds, he

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Speaker 1: had to have a very simple design. And we're talking

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Speaker 1: all the way back to the Donkey Kong days, so

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Speaker 1: um yeah. Even in the sixteen bet the designs get updated,

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Speaker 1: of course because now you've got higher resolution, but they're

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Speaker 1: still based on that very simple premise and it was

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Speaker 1: something that guided Miyamoto's design for for many years. Uh

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Speaker 1: yeah yeah. So now, right around the same time in Japan,

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Speaker 1: Nintendo starts to face down lawsuits brought against it by

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Speaker 1: competitors who are accusing Nintendo of fixing prices with retailers

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Speaker 1: so that essentially the Nintendo products would stay on store

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Speaker 1: shelves and and and keep selling while the competitor petitors

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Speaker 1: would end up getting pushed aside. Um, Nintendo was no

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Speaker 1: stranger to lawsuits in the century which makes sense. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you know, if you're the eminent player, than the antitrust

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Speaker 1: lawsuits are gonna start popping up. Because really, for a while,

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Speaker 1: Nintendo was, and no pun intended, the only game in town,

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Speaker 1: or so it seemed. Now we're gonna I'm gonna skip

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Speaker 1: ahead a little bit. So SNDS is really popular. A

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Speaker 1: lot of really popular titles come out on the SNS.

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Speaker 1: But I don't think I need to go into all

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Speaker 1: of those. Um, let's let's talk about one of Nintendo's

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Speaker 1: major missteps, not the power Glove, which was its own problem.

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Speaker 1: Nintendo hasn't always succeeded when it's come up with some

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Speaker 1: innovative products, and one of those innovative products that really

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Speaker 1: bombed by Virtual Boy. But what could be wrong with that?

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Speaker 1: Virtual reality was the wave of the future. We were

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Speaker 1: all going to be walking around with these things on

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Speaker 1: our heads that would show us these amazing immersed in

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Speaker 1: a computer world that would be uh indistinguishable from our

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Speaker 1: real world all around us, as long as our real

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Speaker 1: world all around us is a monochromatic vector graphic as

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Speaker 1: in terms intation. As it turns out, there's a glitch

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Speaker 1: in the matrix. Yeah, so the virtual boy comes out.

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Speaker 1: It's a head no display that's actually on a little

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Speaker 1: stand and you lean forward. It's almost like a pair

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Speaker 1: of binoculars. You you lean your head forward and you

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Speaker 1: have a screen for each eye. And it if only

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Speaker 1: it didn't have to be hardwired into your neural network.

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Speaker 1: It relied on something that we call parallax. And parallax

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Speaker 1: we've talked about on this podcast before, but in general,

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Speaker 1: parallax is the phenomenon we experience because our eyes are

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Speaker 1: not located in the exact same spot in our head,

404
00:22:32,840 --> 00:22:37,600
Speaker 1: or else we'd all be cyclops. Uh. Yeah, yeah, there's

405
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Speaker 1: a there's a difference between uh, the way an object

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Speaker 1: appears in your left eye and the way it appears

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Speaker 1: in your right eye, and your brain assimilates the information

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Speaker 1: from these two images, and that helps you judge things

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Speaker 1: like depth. It's not the only thing that lets you

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Speaker 1: judge depth. And there are people who have trouble with

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Speaker 1: parallax who can still tell generally how far something is away.

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Speaker 1: And of course the further away something is, the less

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Speaker 1: parallax matters, because the the converging points become closer and

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Speaker 1: closer to being parallel instead of converging on a single point. Um.

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Speaker 1: But anyway, it used these two screens one f e

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Speaker 1: chi to give the illusion of depth, and it was

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Speaker 1: monochromatic and used red graphics, which mean you know, you

418
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Speaker 1: were staring at a at a black screen with red

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Speaker 1: graphics on it. I remember Warrio showed up in ah

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Speaker 1: in Virtual Boy, and at first I thought Warrio was

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Speaker 1: introduced in Virtual Boy, but that's not true. Warrior Warrio

422
00:23:33,680 --> 00:23:36,360
Speaker 1: actually predates Virtual Boy by a few years. He first

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00:23:36,400 --> 00:23:39,679
Speaker 1: appeared on a Game Boy title. But I remember there

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Speaker 1: was a Warrior title on Virtual Boy and a friend

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Speaker 1: of mine, Um, no one, actually, I guess none of

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Speaker 1: my friends actually owned a Virtual Boy. I remember testing

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Speaker 1: it out in in various toy stores, toy stores, not

428
00:23:51,000 --> 00:23:54,280
Speaker 1: toy stories. Um, you got a friend in me, thank you?

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Speaker 1: And it launched and around a hundred and eighty bucks

430
00:23:57,280 --> 00:24:00,520
Speaker 1: when it came out in Uh. It did not do well.

431
00:24:00,880 --> 00:24:04,119
Speaker 1: People were disappointed in the graphics quality, They did not

432
00:24:04,200 --> 00:24:07,080
Speaker 1: feel that it was particularly compelling, and there were a

433
00:24:07,119 --> 00:24:10,160
Speaker 1: lot of reports of people suffering massive headaches while trying

434
00:24:10,160 --> 00:24:12,959
Speaker 1: to play this thing. I can't imagine why. And there

435
00:24:12,960 --> 00:24:16,399
Speaker 1: and there just weren't that many compelling titles either. It

436
00:24:16,440 --> 00:24:18,880
Speaker 1: was kind of like a triple threat. Really, you had

437
00:24:19,040 --> 00:24:22,520
Speaker 1: a system that just didn't feel like it was fully baked,

438
00:24:22,760 --> 00:24:24,679
Speaker 1: you didn't have a lot of really great titles, and

439
00:24:24,680 --> 00:24:28,000
Speaker 1: you had reports of people having headaches while playing it.

440
00:24:28,119 --> 00:24:32,080
Speaker 1: So uh, yeah, the Virtual Boy ended up being a bomb,

441
00:24:32,240 --> 00:24:35,640
Speaker 1: a non virtual bomb. Yeah. Um. And apparently I think

442
00:24:35,760 --> 00:24:38,680
Speaker 1: eight hundred thousand of them were produced, so they're now

443
00:24:39,040 --> 00:24:42,679
Speaker 1: collector's items. There aren't that many that ever hit the wild.

444
00:24:42,920 --> 00:24:44,520
Speaker 1: At least they didn't bury them in the desert. No,

445
00:24:44,560 --> 00:24:46,600
Speaker 1: they didn't grind them up and bury them under the

446
00:24:46,640 --> 00:24:52,040
Speaker 1: desert like a certain video game titles. So they didn't

447
00:24:52,040 --> 00:24:53,480
Speaker 1: put them on top and I want to put them

448
00:24:53,480 --> 00:24:57,439
Speaker 1: next to et um. Yes. So, how how do you

449
00:24:57,480 --> 00:25:00,240
Speaker 1: recover from a flop like that? Well, they weren't. Would

450
00:25:00,359 --> 00:25:04,200
Speaker 1: argue that that the company's name wasn't damaged to the

451
00:25:04,240 --> 00:25:08,040
Speaker 1: point where Nintendo was hurting, but that was certainly, uh

452
00:25:08,160 --> 00:25:10,680
Speaker 1: a thorn in its side. It wasn't like the Virtual

453
00:25:10,720 --> 00:25:13,480
Speaker 1: Boy ruined the reputation entirely. It was just that it

454
00:25:13,600 --> 00:25:16,960
Speaker 1: was not a success. But in nineties six they did

455
00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:20,840
Speaker 1: bounce back quite a bit. They introduced their next video

456
00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:25,000
Speaker 1: game console. Now this was during the you know, we

457
00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:27,040
Speaker 1: we had the eight bit systems, we had the sixteen

458
00:25:27,040 --> 00:25:29,760
Speaker 1: bit systems. A few thirty two bit systems came out,

459
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:33,880
Speaker 1: but Nintendo did not jump on that bandwagon. Instead, Nintendo

460
00:25:34,040 --> 00:25:37,000
Speaker 1: bided its time for a sixty four bit system and

461
00:25:37,040 --> 00:25:39,920
Speaker 1: surprise the world when the Nintendo sixty four came out.

462
00:25:40,480 --> 00:25:43,439
Speaker 1: And I say surprised because they decided to stick with

463
00:25:43,560 --> 00:25:46,439
Speaker 1: the cartridge based games as opposed to moving to an

464
00:25:46,440 --> 00:25:49,760
Speaker 1: optical disc system. Yeah. So let's see who who were

465
00:25:49,800 --> 00:25:53,080
Speaker 1: their competitors. Atari had basically, uh, you know, they had

466
00:25:53,080 --> 00:25:55,359
Speaker 1: come out with the links. Yeah, we had it was

467
00:25:55,880 --> 00:25:58,800
Speaker 1: not doing well. You had Sega, which we if you've

468
00:25:58,800 --> 00:26:01,320
Speaker 1: listened to our podcast about Sega, you realized that Sega,

469
00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:04,280
Speaker 1: although it was always an also ran when it came

470
00:26:04,359 --> 00:26:09,520
Speaker 1: up against Nintendo, except Nintendo really kind of rebuilt the

471
00:26:09,640 --> 00:26:14,720
Speaker 1: home digital video game market and uh and Sega came

472
00:26:14,760 --> 00:26:17,840
Speaker 1: along about that time, and they gave they they were

473
00:26:17,840 --> 00:26:22,200
Speaker 1: the uh, the Apple to Nintendo's Microsoft in this world

474
00:26:22,240 --> 00:26:26,800
Speaker 1: because they pushed Nintendo harder and we're a good competitor.

475
00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:30,080
Speaker 1: And in fact, their marketing slogan was Sega does what

476
00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:34,280
Speaker 1: Nintendo don't because they had Sonic Sonic was designed to

477
00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:40,160
Speaker 1: show off the speed of the Genesis UH system and Home,

478
00:26:40,280 --> 00:26:42,680
Speaker 1: and it did a great job of showing that off

479
00:26:42,720 --> 00:26:46,040
Speaker 1: because he moved very quickly. The graphics sixteen bit system

480
00:26:46,160 --> 00:26:51,800
Speaker 1: looked very nice. Um, and then you had Sony. Yeah,

481
00:26:51,840 --> 00:26:55,800
Speaker 1: the PlayStation. Really in Japan, the Nintendo sixty four did

482
00:26:55,840 --> 00:26:58,960
Speaker 1: not do so well, and it's because it's main competitor

483
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:02,080
Speaker 1: was the Sony PlayStation and which just seemed much more compelling.

484
00:27:02,119 --> 00:27:04,639
Speaker 1: The graphics seemed better, um, and they were using an

485
00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:06,720
Speaker 1: optical disc system, which meant that the games could be

486
00:27:06,760 --> 00:27:09,920
Speaker 1: far more complex. The cartridge had a limited amount of

487
00:27:10,400 --> 00:27:14,560
Speaker 1: space that you could hardwire a game onto, and also

488
00:27:14,640 --> 00:27:17,639
Speaker 1: it meant that there were limitations with a cartridge based

489
00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:20,879
Speaker 1: game that you didn't necessararily have with an optical system game. However,

490
00:27:21,400 --> 00:27:24,440
Speaker 1: there were also positive sides to go with cartridge based

491
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:26,480
Speaker 1: the big one being that you didn't have to worry

492
00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:29,040
Speaker 1: about loading times. Yes, and you also don't have to

493
00:27:29,040 --> 00:27:31,960
Speaker 1: worry nearly as much about ruining the cartridge as you

494
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:34,400
Speaker 1: did about scratching it, and it's much more robust than

495
00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:37,200
Speaker 1: the disc was. But yeah, the big one being loading times,

496
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:39,600
Speaker 1: because you know, with an optical based one, the laser

497
00:27:39,640 --> 00:27:41,679
Speaker 1: had to find the right track on the CD in

498
00:27:41,800 --> 00:27:44,080
Speaker 1: ordered for it to start playing the right information, and

499
00:27:44,359 --> 00:27:48,080
Speaker 1: then load that information into the the console's memory so

500
00:27:48,119 --> 00:27:51,119
Speaker 1: that you could start playing, whereas with a cartridge based system,

501
00:27:51,200 --> 00:27:54,560
Speaker 1: it just because everything's hardwired, it's never changing. It goes

502
00:27:54,600 --> 00:27:56,520
Speaker 1: straight to where it needs to go, and you didn't

503
00:27:56,560 --> 00:27:59,560
Speaker 1: have to have these loading screens. And Nintendo thought that

504
00:27:59,720 --> 00:28:02,639
Speaker 1: was an advantage. And uh, in the United States, it

505
00:28:02,720 --> 00:28:05,280
Speaker 1: did quite well. In fact, some of the best games

506
00:28:05,440 --> 00:28:08,280
Speaker 1: some people would argue of all time came out during

507
00:28:08,320 --> 00:28:11,920
Speaker 1: the Nintendo sixty four era. But that controller. I liked

508
00:28:11,960 --> 00:28:14,760
Speaker 1: the controller. I actually enjoyed that controller. Uh. And it

509
00:28:14,800 --> 00:28:18,240
Speaker 1: was the first one to have a thumbstick in Nintendo's history. Uh,

510
00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:20,840
Speaker 1: not the first, not the first one to have a

511
00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:23,560
Speaker 1: thumbstick ever, but the first one for Nintendo, yes, before

512
00:28:23,560 --> 00:28:26,240
Speaker 1: they were using the D pad. Yeah. So yeah, that,

513
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:28,800
Speaker 1: like Gold and I, came out for the Nintendo sixty

514
00:28:28,840 --> 00:28:30,600
Speaker 1: four and that was a big hit. That was a

515
00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:33,159
Speaker 1: big hit, one of the one of the games that

516
00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:35,400
Speaker 1: people still will refer to as one of the best

517
00:28:35,480 --> 00:28:38,240
Speaker 1: video games of all time. Um. Oddly enough, I think

518
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:42,960
Speaker 1: it's probably arguably more favorite of people, uh than the

519
00:28:43,000 --> 00:28:46,560
Speaker 1: actual movie. Yeah, and then's just personal observation, not based

520
00:28:46,560 --> 00:28:48,960
Speaker 1: on anything other than that, So don't write me and

521
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:51,840
Speaker 1: say but no. And there were other games like Mario

522
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:55,880
Speaker 1: sixty four really kind of reinvented Mario quite a bit. Um.

523
00:28:55,920 --> 00:28:58,720
Speaker 1: People thought that was pretty innovative. I was a huge

524
00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:01,160
Speaker 1: fan of the rest playing games that came out for

525
00:29:01,200 --> 00:29:04,240
Speaker 1: the Nintendo sixty four. They were very deep, They allowed

526
00:29:04,560 --> 00:29:08,320
Speaker 1: incredible customization. You could create your own wrestler. Um. There

527
00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:12,200
Speaker 1: were phenomenal games, and the Japanese games were even more

528
00:29:12,680 --> 00:29:15,160
Speaker 1: robust than the American ones. I had all the American

529
00:29:15,200 --> 00:29:18,920
Speaker 1: titles because I didn't have the Japanese system. You couldn't

530
00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:21,719
Speaker 1: play Japanese games on an American system unless you had

531
00:29:21,720 --> 00:29:25,080
Speaker 1: an adapter um or in Japanese, you know, or you

532
00:29:25,200 --> 00:29:27,600
Speaker 1: just went ahead and bought a Japanese game system. R

533
00:29:27,760 --> 00:29:30,720
Speaker 1: two systems were not compatible. They were region locked for

534
00:29:30,840 --> 00:29:33,560
Speaker 1: the you know, that's the easiest way of saying it.

535
00:29:33,640 --> 00:29:36,080
Speaker 1: But I loved a lot of the games in the

536
00:29:36,120 --> 00:29:39,800
Speaker 1: in sixty four. Well in sixty four does well in

537
00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:41,960
Speaker 1: the United States, doesn't do so well in Japan. And

538
00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:45,480
Speaker 1: two thousand one, uh, they hit they introduced the game

539
00:29:45,480 --> 00:29:50,920
Speaker 1: Boy Advance, but they also introduced then into no game Cube. Yes,

540
00:29:51,120 --> 00:29:53,240
Speaker 1: so there's a five years have passed since the in

541
00:29:53,360 --> 00:29:56,120
Speaker 1: sixty four debut. Nine six and sixty four comes out

542
00:29:56,120 --> 00:29:58,440
Speaker 1: two thousand one. You get the game the game cube,

543
00:29:58,480 --> 00:30:00,760
Speaker 1: and this is when Nintendo moves to the poptical discs,

544
00:30:01,080 --> 00:30:05,000
Speaker 1: except they don't use the big optical discs the same

545
00:30:05,040 --> 00:30:06,880
Speaker 1: size as a CD or d v D. No, these

546
00:30:06,880 --> 00:30:10,520
Speaker 1: are smaller. So yeah, that kind of part of that

547
00:30:10,600 --> 00:30:13,160
Speaker 1: is a d r M thing. But anyway, it was

548
00:30:13,240 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 1: one of those things where where people were, oh, so

549
00:30:15,400 --> 00:30:18,400
Speaker 1: now Nintendo is getting on the the disc train as

550
00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:21,440
Speaker 1: opposed to cartridge is on the train. They did not

551
00:30:21,480 --> 00:30:24,400
Speaker 1: look back from that point forward. Uh No. They had

552
00:30:24,400 --> 00:30:29,320
Speaker 1: removable storage yep, and uh and a very nice game controller. Actually,

553
00:30:29,280 --> 00:30:33,280
Speaker 1: the GameCube was my first Nintendo home console, not counting

554
00:30:33,280 --> 00:30:35,480
Speaker 1: the game Boy because that's a portable. And it also

555
00:30:35,560 --> 00:30:38,920
Speaker 1: had some compatibility stuff with game Boy Advance, so you

556
00:30:38,960 --> 00:30:42,080
Speaker 1: started to see some convergence here where you could you

557
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:45,160
Speaker 1: could have the two systems interact with one another, which

558
00:30:45,200 --> 00:30:47,280
Speaker 1: I like, yeah, that was kind of cool. And then

559
00:30:47,360 --> 00:30:52,200
Speaker 1: in two thousand two, uh to Iwata becomes the first

560
00:30:52,280 --> 00:30:56,880
Speaker 1: Nintendo CEO who was not related to the founder Yamachi

561
00:30:57,680 --> 00:30:59,960
Speaker 1: um by marriage or by blood, so he was the

562
00:31:00,120 --> 00:31:02,440
Speaker 1: first time is the first time Nintendo had a CEO

563
00:31:02,600 --> 00:31:06,000
Speaker 1: that was not part of this legacy and um he

564
00:31:06,040 --> 00:31:09,440
Speaker 1: took over at that point. In two thousand three, Nintendo

565
00:31:09,480 --> 00:31:12,160
Speaker 1: introduced the Game Boy Advanced sp which was a thinner

566
00:31:12,200 --> 00:31:15,120
Speaker 1: and lighter version of the Game Boy Advance and UH.

567
00:31:15,120 --> 00:31:18,080
Speaker 1: In two thousand five and two thousand six, Nintendo starts

568
00:31:18,120 --> 00:31:22,200
Speaker 1: to launch their DS line, which interestingly looked a lot

569
00:31:22,320 --> 00:31:25,960
Speaker 1: like some of the old the the old game and

570
00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:31,320
Speaker 1: watch UM systems that had the clamshell designed to double screens,

571
00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:34,640
Speaker 1: but in this case they included a touch screen with stylus,

572
00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:36,920
Speaker 1: and so that was kind of a differentiator in the

573
00:31:36,960 --> 00:31:41,280
Speaker 1: home or the handheld market at the time, because remember

574
00:31:41,520 --> 00:31:44,120
Speaker 1: in two thousand five and two thousand six, smartphones and

575
00:31:44,240 --> 00:31:46,640
Speaker 1: not really become a thing in the United States, and

576
00:31:46,880 --> 00:31:49,440
Speaker 1: games for smartphones were pretty much unheard of at that point,

577
00:31:49,840 --> 00:31:53,480
Speaker 1: at least in the US. UM and then the Nintendo

578
00:31:53,560 --> 00:31:56,000
Speaker 1: launches the d s I in April of two thousand six,

579
00:31:56,680 --> 00:31:59,880
Speaker 1: and then we have to you know, the we also

580
00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:02,800
Speaker 1: comes out in that around that time, the we console,

581
00:32:02,840 --> 00:32:06,080
Speaker 1: which is the current Nintendo console on the market, introduces

582
00:32:06,080 --> 00:32:09,240
Speaker 1: the Wii Remote, where you've got the motion gaming, and

583
00:32:09,400 --> 00:32:13,880
Speaker 1: Nintendo kind of surprises people by taking aim at the

584
00:32:13,960 --> 00:32:18,320
Speaker 1: casual gaming market. Yeah. See, Um, if you'll remember, at

585
00:32:18,360 --> 00:32:22,600
Speaker 1: that point, Microsoft had released the Xbox and the Xbox

586
00:32:22,600 --> 00:32:27,840
Speaker 1: three sixty um, and Sony and PlayStation three. Yeah, I

587
00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:31,600
Speaker 1: mean they PlayStation two was a huge success. Uh, the

588
00:32:31,760 --> 00:32:34,600
Speaker 1: Xbox was a huge success, and basically Nintendo was taking

589
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:36,840
Speaker 1: it on the chin with the GameCube. Although the GameCube

590
00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:42,080
Speaker 1: was sophisticated, um, and it had again the the uh

591
00:32:42,360 --> 00:32:46,880
Speaker 1: brilliant licensing maneuvers of Nintendo by keeping Mario and the

592
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:50,800
Speaker 1: Zelda franchise and some of the others Metroid h alive

593
00:32:50,880 --> 00:32:54,160
Speaker 1: on the console and locked into the Nintendo console the

594
00:32:54,200 --> 00:32:58,160
Speaker 1: fans of the franchise. Again, Miamoto's thinking that there should

595
00:32:58,200 --> 00:33:01,800
Speaker 1: be a story is playing into Nintendo's success because without

596
00:33:01,800 --> 00:33:06,800
Speaker 1: that storyline and the fans want the storyline, Um, Nintendo probably.

597
00:33:07,280 --> 00:33:11,080
Speaker 1: I think you could argue, um that Nintendo may not

598
00:33:11,160 --> 00:33:14,520
Speaker 1: have survived past that because, uh, there was an onslaught

599
00:33:14,600 --> 00:33:17,600
Speaker 1: from Sony and Microsoft and they needed again, they needed

600
00:33:17,600 --> 00:33:20,200
Speaker 1: something to differentiate them from the mark and from the

601
00:33:20,200 --> 00:33:22,560
Speaker 1: rest of the market, and then we did that. Yeah,

602
00:33:22,600 --> 00:33:24,600
Speaker 1: and it was when the Week came out, it really

603
00:33:24,640 --> 00:33:27,440
Speaker 1: did make a big splash. I mean, it had huge

604
00:33:27,480 --> 00:33:30,960
Speaker 1: sales figures and it was leading the video game console

605
00:33:31,040 --> 00:33:33,440
Speaker 1: sales in the United States for for ages. I mean

606
00:33:33,480 --> 00:33:36,080
Speaker 1: for the longest time. It was Uh, the question wasn't

607
00:33:36,160 --> 00:33:38,200
Speaker 1: who's in the lead, it was who's in the second place?

608
00:33:38,680 --> 00:33:41,120
Speaker 1: Because he knew that Nintendo was in the lead. But

609
00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:46,920
Speaker 1: Nintendo sales have slowed down more recently because we well

610
00:33:46,920 --> 00:33:50,160
Speaker 1: a lot of reasons. The game consoles several years old now,

611
00:33:50,680 --> 00:33:54,240
Speaker 1: and um as are the Xbox in the PlayStation models

612
00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:57,120
Speaker 1: the current models. But Nintendo also has the problem of

613
00:33:57,160 --> 00:34:00,000
Speaker 1: it aimed for casual gamers, and casual gamers don't tend

614
00:34:00,120 --> 00:34:03,080
Speaker 1: to be the kind of people who rush out and

615
00:34:03,120 --> 00:34:06,440
Speaker 1: buy the next new title. Necessarily, they might be satisfied

616
00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:09,800
Speaker 1: with just a few handful of titles because they gain casually.

617
00:34:09,840 --> 00:34:12,480
Speaker 1: They're not that they're not as heavily invested in the

618
00:34:12,560 --> 00:34:15,680
Speaker 1: system as a hardcore gamer is. Yeah, I mean, they're

619
00:34:15,880 --> 00:34:20,279
Speaker 1: gamers will replay games even on older consoles. They will

620
00:34:20,360 --> 00:34:24,000
Speaker 1: keep older consoles and older computers around to play classic

621
00:34:24,080 --> 00:34:27,080
Speaker 1: games that they really love. Case in point, the newer

622
00:34:27,200 --> 00:34:30,640
Speaker 1: versions of Golden I. Long after the movie franchise has

623
00:34:30,680 --> 00:34:35,240
Speaker 1: moved on several films, Um, Golden I is sticking around

624
00:34:35,280 --> 00:34:39,920
Speaker 1: on newer consoles. And so you've got with the Nintendo we'

625
00:34:39,960 --> 00:34:44,000
Speaker 1: you've got this issue with saturation again, just like with

626
00:34:44,080 --> 00:34:47,799
Speaker 1: the video the playing cards back in the sixties, you've

627
00:34:47,840 --> 00:34:51,480
Speaker 1: got uh, you know, the argument is just about everyone

628
00:34:51,480 --> 00:34:54,359
Speaker 1: who wants a we has a wee, and so there's

629
00:34:54,400 --> 00:34:56,080
Speaker 1: not a whole lot of reason to go out and

630
00:34:56,120 --> 00:34:58,359
Speaker 1: buy more. So of course sales figures are gonna start

631
00:34:58,400 --> 00:35:02,640
Speaker 1: to falter us. I'm sorry, go ahead. Plus Microsoft now

632
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:05,560
Speaker 1: has to connect and Sony has the move, so now

633
00:35:05,640 --> 00:35:10,480
Speaker 1: they're control. Motion control is not as big a deal anymore. Um.

634
00:35:10,760 --> 00:35:15,480
Speaker 1: And so also the smartphone revolution and the gaming on

635
00:35:15,600 --> 00:35:18,520
Speaker 1: smartphones and social networks has taken a big bite out

636
00:35:18,520 --> 00:35:21,840
Speaker 1: on Nintendo because Nintendo was taking aim at that casual gamer.

637
00:35:22,239 --> 00:35:24,600
Speaker 1: Well back in two thousand and six when the Week

638
00:35:24,640 --> 00:35:27,440
Speaker 1: comes out, the casual gamer wasn't really being catered to

639
00:35:27,600 --> 00:35:32,279
Speaker 1: that way. But today you've got everything from phones to

640
00:35:32,800 --> 00:35:36,200
Speaker 1: uh to uh, you know, set top boxes in some

641
00:35:36,280 --> 00:35:40,359
Speaker 1: cases to um, you know, the social networks that all

642
00:35:40,440 --> 00:35:43,520
Speaker 1: have these casual games that are available. Nintendo has no

643
00:35:43,600 --> 00:35:48,280
Speaker 1: longer got a lock on that, So it's they're actually

644
00:35:48,480 --> 00:35:50,720
Speaker 1: in a way, you could say their competition is way

645
00:35:50,760 --> 00:35:53,040
Speaker 1: more fierce in that area than it would be if

646
00:35:53,040 --> 00:35:56,480
Speaker 1: they were competing against Microsoft and Sony. Well, now I

647
00:35:56,480 --> 00:36:00,000
Speaker 1: would argue that that Nintendo is finding itself at a crossroads.

648
00:36:00,680 --> 00:36:03,560
Speaker 1: Um it has announced the Wii U, which is the

649
00:36:03,600 --> 00:36:08,680
Speaker 1: next version of the Wi um Yukoy had said, as

650
00:36:08,760 --> 00:36:11,520
Speaker 1: you will recall from the last podcast, that Nintendo was

651
00:36:11,560 --> 00:36:15,080
Speaker 1: the kind of company that takes mature technology and utilizes

652
00:36:15,120 --> 00:36:17,839
Speaker 1: it to create new products, which is exactly what they

653
00:36:17,880 --> 00:36:19,880
Speaker 1: did with the WE that enabled them to hit a

654
00:36:19,920 --> 00:36:23,520
Speaker 1: lower price point out of the out of the gate. Um.

655
00:36:23,640 --> 00:36:27,640
Speaker 1: And people criticize the hardcore gamers who liked the Xbox

656
00:36:27,680 --> 00:36:30,080
Speaker 1: three sixty, who liked the PlayStation three because it had

657
00:36:30,640 --> 00:36:35,520
Speaker 1: uh full on her high definition graphics, uh, criticized the

658
00:36:35,560 --> 00:36:40,160
Speaker 1: WE because it only had the lower definition. Um, well,

659
00:36:40,200 --> 00:36:43,520
Speaker 1: it's still high deaf, but it's uh DVD resolution, not

660
00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:47,640
Speaker 1: the ten A DP. It was seven UM and or

661
00:36:48,280 --> 00:36:55,640
Speaker 1: seven or seven twenty anyways, seven lines of resolutions. Then yeah,

662
00:36:55,719 --> 00:36:58,719
Speaker 1: and uh, the WE U is aimed at the high

663
00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:03,080
Speaker 1: deaf market, and it has a Again, they've reinvented the controller.

664
00:37:03,719 --> 00:37:06,000
Speaker 1: It has a it's a much bigger controller that has

665
00:37:06,080 --> 00:37:09,839
Speaker 1: an additional functionality, has its own screen UM. So they're

666
00:37:09,880 --> 00:37:15,719
Speaker 1: also like combining the d S I with the UM

667
00:37:15,760 --> 00:37:17,759
Speaker 1: And some people really like it, some people really don't.

668
00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:19,360
Speaker 1: We'll have to see when it actually gets out on

669
00:37:19,400 --> 00:37:22,280
Speaker 1: the market whether it succeeds or not. But the DS

670
00:37:22,400 --> 00:37:25,719
Speaker 1: is competing with smartphones and other devices, and people have

671
00:37:25,800 --> 00:37:29,280
Speaker 1: pointed out, and rightfully, so why would I pay thirty dollars,

672
00:37:29,320 --> 00:37:31,359
Speaker 1: which is sort of the price point for a new

673
00:37:31,440 --> 00:37:34,640
Speaker 1: DS game, when I can get the same exact game

674
00:37:34,760 --> 00:37:39,279
Speaker 1: for my smartphone for five dollars, And and my smartphone

675
00:37:39,280 --> 00:37:42,000
Speaker 1: does stuff other than play games. So some people say

676
00:37:42,000 --> 00:37:44,640
Speaker 1: that perhaps Nintendo should get into the smartphone business, or

677
00:37:44,640 --> 00:37:49,319
Speaker 1: perhaps Nintendo should re reevaluate it's it's line on not

678
00:37:49,520 --> 00:37:53,520
Speaker 1: licensing out it's it's prime core material to other companies.

679
00:37:53,719 --> 00:37:56,400
Speaker 1: We should also point out the three DS, which launched

680
00:37:57,480 --> 00:38:01,120
Speaker 1: is another Nintendo slow starter at is not done nearly

681
00:38:01,160 --> 00:38:02,960
Speaker 1: as well in the market as they had hoped. That,

682
00:38:03,040 --> 00:38:05,720
Speaker 1: of course, is the d S system, the handheld gaming

683
00:38:05,719 --> 00:38:10,080
Speaker 1: system that has the glasses free three D effect, using

684
00:38:11,040 --> 00:38:14,600
Speaker 1: essentially a variation on a lenticular display. If you'd like

685
00:38:14,680 --> 00:38:16,560
Speaker 1: to see one taking apart, you can see that on

686
00:38:16,600 --> 00:38:20,400
Speaker 1: our website. Yeah, I I we bought one specifically for

687
00:38:20,480 --> 00:38:23,520
Speaker 1: me to demolish, and I did, and there was much

688
00:38:23,719 --> 00:38:26,719
Speaker 1: wailing and nashing of teeth. But the Yeah, the three

689
00:38:26,800 --> 00:38:29,160
Speaker 1: D S was sort of Nintendo's approach to try and

690
00:38:29,200 --> 00:38:33,359
Speaker 1: combat the smartphone casual gaming market by introducing this new

691
00:38:33,400 --> 00:38:36,760
Speaker 1: element three D, which was not available on most other systems.

692
00:38:37,040 --> 00:38:39,080
Speaker 1: But it just has not taken off. And a lot

693
00:38:39,160 --> 00:38:42,439
Speaker 1: of people who have enjoyed the three DS have told

694
00:38:42,520 --> 00:38:44,960
Speaker 1: me this is anecdotal, but they have told me that

695
00:38:44,960 --> 00:38:47,239
Speaker 1: they just turned the three D off because it's just

696
00:38:47,320 --> 00:38:50,520
Speaker 1: more of a problem than than Uh. It doesn't it

697
00:38:50,560 --> 00:38:54,120
Speaker 1: doesn't enhance the gameplay for them. So the XL, however,

698
00:38:54,160 --> 00:38:57,279
Speaker 1: has done reasonably well. It's D S with a larger screen. Yeah,

699
00:38:57,320 --> 00:38:59,920
Speaker 1: and uh, I we need to start wrapping up the

700
00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:02,480
Speaker 1: uh this episode, But I did want to point out

701
00:39:02,560 --> 00:39:04,600
Speaker 1: one other thing. We we've been talking about lots of

702
00:39:04,600 --> 00:39:06,400
Speaker 1: different people, and I do have a kind of a

703
00:39:06,400 --> 00:39:10,520
Speaker 1: tragic ending for one of the folks involved in this story.

704
00:39:10,920 --> 00:39:14,239
Speaker 1: Um Yakoi, the guy who was the designer who came

705
00:39:14,320 --> 00:39:16,520
Speaker 1: up with the game Boy design. He also designed the

706
00:39:16,560 --> 00:39:18,919
Speaker 1: Virtual Boy, so not everything he touched turned to gold.

707
00:39:19,760 --> 00:39:24,399
Speaker 1: He decided to leave Nintendo in nine and he went

708
00:39:24,480 --> 00:39:29,840
Speaker 1: to found his own company, but unfortunately, tragically, he died

709
00:39:30,239 --> 00:39:33,239
Speaker 1: as a result of a car accident in n He

710
00:39:33,640 --> 00:39:36,719
Speaker 1: his car rear ended a truck on a highway and

711
00:39:36,760 --> 00:39:38,600
Speaker 1: when he got out to inspect the damage, he was

712
00:39:38,640 --> 00:39:41,920
Speaker 1: struck by another driver and died as a result. H

713
00:39:42,040 --> 00:39:44,319
Speaker 1: So that was something I thought i'd mentioned. It was

714
00:39:44,520 --> 00:39:48,080
Speaker 1: a person who really was instrumental in the design of

715
00:39:48,120 --> 00:39:50,880
Speaker 1: a lot of early Nintendo products, and his design elements

716
00:39:50,920 --> 00:39:55,319
Speaker 1: carried over into current generation Nintendo products, and I thought

717
00:39:55,320 --> 00:39:58,879
Speaker 1: it was it was important to remember him. And Uh,

718
00:39:58,920 --> 00:40:01,520
Speaker 1: it's sad, of course, is the way, um the way

719
00:40:01,520 --> 00:40:03,960
Speaker 1: that all turned out. But I thought it was something

720
00:40:03,960 --> 00:40:07,680
Speaker 1: that we should definitely touch on. So it'll be interesting

721
00:40:07,680 --> 00:40:10,120
Speaker 1: to see what happens, don't know, in the future. Recently,

722
00:40:10,200 --> 00:40:13,640
Speaker 1: as of eleven, the company has been struggling financially. Uh,

723
00:40:13,719 --> 00:40:16,240
Speaker 1: it's just it's one of those things where the video

724
00:40:16,239 --> 00:40:19,200
Speaker 1: game console market saturation has caused problems. The three DS

725
00:40:19,320 --> 00:40:23,680
Speaker 1: sales have caused problems, but the company has returned from

726
00:40:24,080 --> 00:40:27,040
Speaker 1: setbacks in the past, so we can't we can't just

727
00:40:27,080 --> 00:40:29,319
Speaker 1: discount Nintendo and say that they're out of the game

728
00:40:29,400 --> 00:40:31,960
Speaker 1: like they're they're also ran. At this point, there's always

729
00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:35,560
Speaker 1: the chance that they're going to reinvent the home video

730
00:40:35,560 --> 00:40:39,720
Speaker 1: game market yet again. Yeah, and it's and it's uh well,

731
00:40:39,840 --> 00:40:42,719
Speaker 1: just before we recorded this a few days ago, they

732
00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:45,759
Speaker 1: announced that their earnings were going to be less even

733
00:40:45,760 --> 00:40:49,840
Speaker 1: than they had predicted before um, which has caused some

734
00:40:50,320 --> 00:40:53,560
Speaker 1: um mumblings of doom and gloom around the industry. But

735
00:40:53,800 --> 00:40:57,440
Speaker 1: um uh you know, they could also end up as Saga.

736
00:40:57,520 --> 00:41:01,320
Speaker 1: Did you wonder what the creators of Mario and Link

737
00:41:01,400 --> 00:41:04,200
Speaker 1: and and all those other characters Kirby and so many

738
00:41:04,239 --> 00:41:07,759
Speaker 1: of the others that we love, um would would do.

739
00:41:08,160 --> 00:41:10,960
Speaker 1: I mean, Saga found as it got out of the

740
00:41:11,080 --> 00:41:14,240
Speaker 1: video game console business that it still could make great

741
00:41:14,320 --> 00:41:18,080
Speaker 1: video games, uh some not so great, um, but still

742
00:41:18,080 --> 00:41:21,399
Speaker 1: sell them to uh markets and reach out through other

743
00:41:21,440 --> 00:41:24,120
Speaker 1: people's hardware. And I think they've been somewhat successful in

744
00:41:24,239 --> 00:41:28,200
Speaker 1: partnering with Nintendo UM to do that. Uh. So it

745
00:41:28,320 --> 00:41:30,400
Speaker 1: is possible that even if Nintendo gets out of the

746
00:41:30,400 --> 00:41:33,399
Speaker 1: hardware business. They could still end up making fantastic games

747
00:41:33,440 --> 00:41:38,080
Speaker 1: around their their wonderful characters. UM. So hopefully, uh, you know,

748
00:41:38,120 --> 00:41:40,839
Speaker 1: if they find a way to um that they'll find

749
00:41:40,840 --> 00:41:42,600
Speaker 1: a way to continue one way or the other. But

750
00:41:42,880 --> 00:41:44,680
Speaker 1: they're still not they're still not out of it yet,

751
00:41:44,680 --> 00:41:46,600
Speaker 1: and I'm interested to see what happens when when the

752
00:41:46,640 --> 00:41:50,160
Speaker 1: WEIU comes out, um, you know, in the market and

753
00:41:50,160 --> 00:41:52,799
Speaker 1: the and they're not too terribly distant future. Yeah, yeah,

754
00:41:52,840 --> 00:41:55,000
Speaker 1: we'll have to keep our eyes open and uh, we'll

755
00:41:55,040 --> 00:41:57,359
Speaker 1: be sure to report on it of course. So that

756
00:41:57,400 --> 00:42:00,759
Speaker 1: wraps up this discussion about the two partner episode. If

757
00:42:00,760 --> 00:42:03,000
Speaker 1: you guys have any companies you would like us to

758
00:42:03,000 --> 00:42:05,600
Speaker 1: focus on, or even other topics have nothing to do

759
00:42:05,680 --> 00:42:08,680
Speaker 1: with the company whatsoever, let us know. Send us a message.

760
00:42:08,719 --> 00:42:11,680
Speaker 1: You can email us that addresses tech stuff at how

761
00:42:11,760 --> 00:42:14,520
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com or let us know on Facebook

762
00:42:14,600 --> 00:42:17,279
Speaker 1: or Twitter. Are handled there is tech stuff hs W

763
00:42:18,080 --> 00:42:20,799
Speaker 1: and Chris and I will taught to you again really soon.

764
00:42:22,880 --> 00:42:25,440
Speaker 1: Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff

765
00:42:25,520 --> 00:42:28,120
Speaker 1: from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we

766
00:42:28,200 --> 00:42:33,000
Speaker 1: explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The

767
00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:36,040
Speaker 1: house Stuff Works iPhone app has arrived. Download it today

768
00:42:36,280 --> 00:42:43,360
Speaker 1: on iTunes, Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand

769
00:42:43,440 --> 00:42:45,600
Speaker 1: twelve camera. It's ready, are you