Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Oh hi, there,
Speaker 1: I almost didn't see you. Welcome to tech Stuff, amiss,
Speaker 1: Chris Ballett, and I am an editor at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot Com. Sitting across me sort of quietly suggesting
Speaker 1: that my joke was terrible, is senior writer Jonathan Strickland
Speaker 1: with my magic book. I'll shower those clumsy lizards with
Speaker 1: my power. That is perfect, He told me. I had
Speaker 1: the perfect quote for this, uh this podcast. It's from
Speaker 1: a song that I didn't even know existed until about
Speaker 1: five seconds ago. Okay, so we're going to do the uh,
Speaker 1: the whole catch you up, um if you're just tuning in.
Speaker 1: Previously on tech Stuff, Nintendo started out as a playing
Speaker 1: card company in in eight nine, gradually diversified, then got
Speaker 1: out of several other businesses, including the toy market. But
Speaker 1: that did give them the idea that possibly this whole
Speaker 1: video game thing might be an idea, and they started
Speaker 1: creating video game consoles that were only able to play
Speaker 1: a game or maybe sit up to six games. But
Speaker 1: you know, kind of like the old Odyssey system and
Speaker 1: that it was very limited. It was all hardwired into
Speaker 1: the system. You could not put a cartridge in there was.
Speaker 1: It was not cartridge cartridge based at that point. While
Speaker 1: also created the game and Watch, which was the sup
Speaker 1: portable variation of that, but again, single game. That's all
Speaker 1: it was on that system. Meanwhile, the arcade craze is
Speaker 1: taken off all over the world and Nintendo finds itself
Speaker 1: uh with a complete bomb and asks a young designer, Miyamoto,
Speaker 1: Shigeru Miyamoto, to give it a shot. Can you come
Speaker 1: up with something that we can use in the video
Speaker 1: game market? And he thinks a storyline would sell games,
Speaker 1: so he creates a simple story about a giant gorilla
Speaker 1: who hauls off a a woman named Pauline to the
Speaker 1: top of a skyscraper and challenges a young plumber well
Speaker 1: actually he was just a guy with a big mustache
Speaker 1: and overalls named Jumpman to come get her. And it
Speaker 1: defies just about everybody in the company's expectations by becoming
Speaker 1: a huge hit, inspiring several uh several follow up titles
Speaker 1: and licensing agreements with these different console manufacturers to bring
Speaker 1: them into homes. Because home video games are becoming popular
Speaker 1: in the early nineteen eighties, late seventies and early Nintendo
Speaker 1: decides to get into that market while the getting is
Speaker 1: good and I want me some of that action. They
Speaker 1: and they introduce the Nintendo Family Computer and they launched
Speaker 1: it in Japan on July fIF Famicom. Yeah, it's so
Speaker 1: great name for a console. Uh yeah, great name for
Speaker 1: the console, the Famicom. So if you're not familiar with
Speaker 1: the Famicom, that is what in America we referred to
Speaker 1: as the Nintendo Entertainment System. If you're not familiar with it,
Speaker 1: yes you are. It didn't immediately come over to America
Speaker 1: because at the same time as it was launching in
Speaker 1: Japan America, in North America, there was the video game Crash.
Speaker 1: We talked about that. If you haven't heard it, go
Speaker 1: back and listen to it. Wait, there's an entire podcast
Speaker 1: about it. But to give you the short form of that,
Speaker 1: what happened was the video game market was doing really well.
Speaker 1: Uh so many players got into the system, not not
Speaker 1: so many game players. So many companies got into creating
Speaker 1: video game systems and video game titles that the market
Speaker 1: became saturated and there were there were there were several
Speaker 1: really really good games, but there were way more crappy games.
Speaker 1: And of those, yeah, we talked about some of those
Speaker 1: in our Worst Video Games of All Time podcast. There
Speaker 1: were some of the two big ones that leaped to mind,
Speaker 1: where the licensed version of pac Man for the AT
Speaker 1: and of course the number one game on everybody's list,
Speaker 1: Et the Extraterrestrial almost everybody's, but no, a lot of that.
Speaker 1: That was the thing. A lot of the game The
Speaker 1: idea was these games are hit in the arcade, let's
Speaker 1: bring him to the home console. So you had games
Speaker 1: like pac Man and Donkey Kong, um stuff like Amadar
Speaker 1: Burger Time Reactor, and they tried so hard to make
Speaker 1: them work on home consoles immediately that they ended up
Speaker 1: being complete and under dogs. Yeah, they were just mean.
Speaker 1: Amad was horrible. It was such a rush to get
Speaker 1: to the market with that quality. Was was really sacrificed
Speaker 1: in order to get sacrificed in favor of speed. Well,
Speaker 1: Nintendo ended up not launching in America right away because again,
Speaker 1: this video game crash was taking place mostly through three
Speaker 1: and so it wasn't until October eighteenth five that the
Speaker 1: Famicon made its debut in the United States, and of
Speaker 1: course then it was known as the Nintendo Entertainment System.
Speaker 1: And originally Nintendo took a very very controlled approach to
Speaker 1: introducing its system. It wasn't it wasn't like a a
Speaker 1: nationwide launch. In fact, you could originally only get an
Speaker 1: inn e S if you were willing to go to
Speaker 1: New York City to get it. That was the limited
Speaker 1: market they introduced it to. And it was something like
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand units and they sold out of ninety
Speaker 1: thousand of them in a heartbeat. Um in a New
Speaker 1: York minute, Yeah, in a New York minute. And the
Speaker 1: original in as when it first came out in New York,
Speaker 1: was loaded with extras in order to tempt people to
Speaker 1: buy it, because you gotta remember, at this point, the
Speaker 1: home video game market in the United States is toast.
Speaker 1: People are starting to move to personal computers, video game
Speaker 1: consoles are it looked at his things for kids and
Speaker 1: it's and there's just no consistency in quality. So Nintendo
Speaker 1: had an uphill battle here. So when they launched it
Speaker 1: in New York, here's what it came with. This is
Speaker 1: a huge difference to the way you buy a video
Speaker 1: game console today. You got the console, you've got two games,
Speaker 1: you've got two game pads, you've got the Zapper light gun,
Speaker 1: and you got the Robotic Operating Buddy or rob for
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty five dollars. Wow, that would be
Speaker 1: about two fifty dollars in today's money. So it's still
Speaker 1: sort of affordable in terms. I mean, you think about
Speaker 1: the PlayStation three debuting at what six hundred dollars United States. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's it's you know, it was a pretty amazing
Speaker 1: deal at the time, and uh, it does very well,
Speaker 1: and then Nintendo starts to open up in other test
Speaker 1: markets places like Chicago and Los Angeles. Um, still very
Speaker 1: gradual until it goes nationwide pretty much in six. Uh
Speaker 1: and at that point the price had moved up to
Speaker 1: a hundred and ninety nine dollars, So the hundred five
Speaker 1: was kind of the introductory price to kind of get
Speaker 1: that word of mouth campaign going. And and once it
Speaker 1: went nationwide, they figured they could price it at one
Speaker 1: and that would be the right mart value for them
Speaker 1: into no entertainment system, I don't know, it might sell
Speaker 1: like hotcakes. Yeah, sure dead And in eight six that
Speaker 1: was also when in Japan Nintendo introduced a special disc
Speaker 1: system accessory in the Famicom, because I could remember in
Speaker 1: Japan it was it was built as a family computer system, right,
Speaker 1: not just a video game console, so it would allow
Speaker 1: you to actually use discs to uh play games on
Speaker 1: the Famicom. Back in Japan, you could even go and
Speaker 1: have you know, a disc made of a game or
Speaker 1: whatever at a special vendors in Japan. Now and in
Speaker 1: the United States, we were not so fortunate as to
Speaker 1: get access to this, although I'm sure there are plenty
Speaker 1: of collectors out there who have the Japanese version of it.
Speaker 1: In America, that's always been a hot like underground market
Speaker 1: in the United States. Yeah. Now, keeping in mind too
Speaker 1: that in the late seventies, when or the mid seventies,
Speaker 1: when consoles were starting to come into the homes, Uh,
Speaker 1: all this stuff was hardwired into the console itself, as
Speaker 1: as Jonathan was just saying a minute ago. Then they
Speaker 1: figured out that it was possible to make a connector
Speaker 1: slot so that all the ROMs would be actually in
Speaker 1: the cartridge itself and it would make a connection with
Speaker 1: that cartridge when you plugged it. You had to give
Speaker 1: it a firm push to get it snapped into the
Speaker 1: slot the right way. Also, you had to you had
Speaker 1: to breathe into the cartridge. That was that was required
Speaker 1: before you. That's what we always did, ye before you. Well,
Speaker 1: it's good to get the dust out of it. Of course,
Speaker 1: some of the Atari cartridges had a little flap they
Speaker 1: protected the guts. Not all of them, some of them, um,
Speaker 1: but yeah. They the Nintendo Entertainment System used similar cartridges too.
Speaker 1: They were they were wider than the the Atari cartridges
Speaker 1: of course, and and bigger. But yeah, they were using
Speaker 1: the same types of programmable ROM chips that you would
Speaker 1: just snap into the Uh. The game slot didn't have
Speaker 1: a disk like the game systems do now. So in
Speaker 1: eighties six they also introduced some titles that became big.
Speaker 1: Commando huge in e s game Yeah, fun one too,
Speaker 1: Ghosts and Goblins one of the most difficult games ever
Speaker 1: also fun but hard, and then um there was came
Speaker 1: out in six if that's not confusing. Uh, And in
Speaker 1: eight seven, two other big names in Nintendo franchises debuted,
Speaker 1: Castlevania and Metroid. Yeah. So a lot of the games
Speaker 1: that would become sort of emblematic of Nintendo Entertainment System
Speaker 1: started to launch right around this time, and uh, the
Speaker 1: NES does incredibly well. Now, I never owned an NES.
Speaker 1: I had a friend who lived down the street from
Speaker 1: me who did own an NES, and I used to
Speaker 1: go over to his house all the time and play.
Speaker 1: And in fact, I played one of the games that
Speaker 1: won the best Video Game of the Year for Nintendo
Speaker 1: now that that happened back in that game was punch Out.
Speaker 1: We're talking about the arcade game at that point, but
Speaker 1: man oh, the arcade game was a huge hit. I
Speaker 1: loved punch Out so much. That's one of those arcade consoles.
Speaker 1: Like you know, you always have that fantasy of some
Speaker 1: of us anyway of owning certain video game consoles, like
Speaker 1: having a special room that would just have video game
Speaker 1: consoles in it. Punch Out would be one of the
Speaker 1: consoles I would own punch Out. There there are two
Speaker 1: other titles I can think of right off the top
Speaker 1: of my head that I would have to own for
Speaker 1: that and on the one one would be the original
Speaker 1: Star Wars arcade game use the Forest Luke and also
Speaker 1: the Spy Hunter. Okay, those are the so those would
Speaker 1: be the three Elevator Action maybe. Yeah, if I had room.
Speaker 1: But if I only had room for three, it'd be
Speaker 1: Spy Hunter, it would be Star Wars, and it would
Speaker 1: be punch Out. Forget those of you keeping scored home.
Speaker 1: Punch Out is the only one that's a Nintendo game. Yeah, anyway, yes,
Speaker 1: but there you go, one of the three games would
Speaker 1: be a Nintendo game, because when most of us think
Speaker 1: of the Pendo we don't necessarily think of the arcade
Speaker 1: games that much because they made such a huge name
Speaker 1: in the home console market. Now, Donkey Kong of course
Speaker 1: being like the big exception. Yeah, well that's how I
Speaker 1: think that's how Nintendo was able to sell the Nintendo
Speaker 1: Entertainment System was that they could say, hey, we were
Speaker 1: the guys behind Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. And
Speaker 1: Super Mario Brothers. Yeah, you don't have to worry about
Speaker 1: us taking some sort of uh uh well, especially when
Speaker 1: they were reporting games from the arcade to the console.
Speaker 1: You know, since it was the same company that was
Speaker 1: producing these hit games, theres so much more faithful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and so they you know, that could be a
Speaker 1: message they send out to the market, is like you
Speaker 1: don't have to worry about some terrible port of our
Speaker 1: game because we're the ones who made the Arcade game,
Speaker 1: We're the ones who made the console. You know that
Speaker 1: the console is gonna reflect the gameplay that you are
Speaker 1: familiar with in the Arcade. Well. One of the things
Speaker 1: that Jonathan touched on in the first episode, and again
Speaker 1: if you haven't listened to it, will wait for you
Speaker 1: to come back and listen to that first. But one
Speaker 1: of the things he touched on was that the UH
Speaker 1: the UH CEO, the CEO at that time of of Nintendo,
Speaker 1: insisted that everything go through him for approval. And that
Speaker 1: was important in a way because it ensured that there
Speaker 1: was going to be some quality in the stuff. They
Speaker 1: weren't just throwing it out the door like certain other
Speaker 1: companies that I can mention I didn't mention. Well, that
Speaker 1: was part of the problem of Video Game Crash. Yes,
Speaker 1: So Nintendo had had taken the certification process, yes, and
Speaker 1: that that was a selling point from the Nintendo Entertainment
Speaker 1: System that the other consoles didn't have at that point,
Speaker 1: because if a title was going to be on the NES,
Speaker 1: it had to meet certain criteria, It had to had
Speaker 1: to pass certification. It's frustrating for developers because the developer
Speaker 1: might have a great idea, but for some reason they
Speaker 1: run up against a barrier that to the developer seems
Speaker 1: arbitrary and then, uh, you know. We see this today
Speaker 1: with developers who developed for Apple, for example, for for
Speaker 1: apps on the iPhone and the iPad. They're developers who say,
Speaker 1: I submitted this, I thought it is a great idea,
Speaker 1: and then I'm hitting a wall. And in some cases
Speaker 1: it may seem arbitrary to an outside observer, but to
Speaker 1: Apple it may seem like, no, this is not following
Speaker 1: our rules, and this the rules are there in order
Speaker 1: for us to ensure that the user has a good
Speaker 1: quality experience. At the end of the day. That was
Speaker 1: a Nintendo's approach to with the video games, and said
Speaker 1: they did not want to fall into the same trap
Speaker 1: that Attari and Kaliko had fallen into, where they started
Speaker 1: to put out and publish games that or they allowed
Speaker 1: third party publishers to publish games that just did not
Speaker 1: measure up. Now, that did not mean that Nintendo was
Speaker 1: free of bad games, but they weren't glutted with them
Speaker 1: like the Atari was towards the end of its days. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it killed both Atari and Colico. Yeah, and if you
Speaker 1: say yes, but Atari is still around, not really different
Speaker 1: company company they purchased the name anyway. Anyway, Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was that was one of the selling points. Um.
Speaker 1: And the other was, in addition to good marketing, they
Speaker 1: had something that they could market around, and that was
Speaker 1: Miamoto's characters. Um, Donkey Kong had made a name, well
Speaker 1: not literally because his name wasn't his name at that point,
Speaker 1: but had a name character in Mario, and they were
Speaker 1: able to use those characters in successive games. And so, uh,
Speaker 1: they basically had exclusivity. You didn't see Mario on games
Speaker 1: that weren't licensed by Nintendo. Nintendo was was uh, basically
Speaker 1: ensuring a future for itself by creating a storyline in
Speaker 1: its games that could be carried from game to game. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they really started to protect their intellectual property. They were
Speaker 1: very protective of it. So and still still are. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you still are not going to find Mario pop up
Speaker 1: on say an iPhone game, which that'll come into play
Speaker 1: and at the end of our conversation today, but uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: so Nintendo has taken this approach and it's working well
Speaker 1: for them now in n uh so, this is ninety
Speaker 1: years into the company's history for those kind of scores.
Speaker 1: Ninety nine years in the company's history, Nintendo makes an
Speaker 1: agreement with another company called Sony. I think I've heard
Speaker 1: of them too. Yeah, they were going to work together
Speaker 1: and put out a new video game console system that
Speaker 1: would use optical disks instead of cartridges to store games. Hey,
Speaker 1: that seems like a great idea because Sony is really
Speaker 1: good with this electronics stuff, I hear. Now, unfortunate as
Speaker 1: Nintendo doesn't take them off. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1: Nintendo and Sony could not see eye to eye on
Speaker 1: many aspects of the deal, and ultimately the deal fell apart.
Speaker 1: Now this this collapse. Yeah, the collapse of this deal
Speaker 1: would later lead Sony to develop its own video game
Speaker 1: console system called the PlayStation. I think I've heard of
Speaker 1: that too. You may very well have heard of that.
Speaker 1: Wishes it hadn't. Yeah, PlayStation ended up causing a big
Speaker 1: headache for Nintendo, particularly in Japan in a couple more years.
Speaker 1: But we'll get into that in so on the company's centennial,
Speaker 1: which is so hard to think of, Like, there's so
Speaker 1: many companies out there, and you're like, how many of
Speaker 1: them are a century old or older. Not many, not
Speaker 1: many are still around. Nintendo's one of them. Uh. In
Speaker 1: the company introduces the game Boy. Yes now, the game
Speaker 1: Boy sold for eighty nine dollars in the United States,
Speaker 1: which is about a hundred and fifty dollars hundred fifty
Speaker 1: six dollars today. Uh and the game Boys sold very well,
Speaker 1: partially because it was marketed not just two kids, but
Speaker 1: to adults who would spend time doing things like writing
Speaker 1: the train or the bus. If you were one of
Speaker 1: those people who was commuting on a system like that,
Speaker 1: then you would want something to occupy your time. And uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: Chris is humming the theme song to the game that
Speaker 1: was packaged with the game Boy that became like it was.
Speaker 1: If you want to call about talk about a killer
Speaker 1: app or a killer title, this is like one of
Speaker 1: the top killer titles of all time. We're talking about Tetris,
Speaker 1: which was not a video game develops specifically by Nintendo,
Speaker 1: actually came from a Russian developer. But Tetris was such
Speaker 1: a compelling puzzle game and it still is today that
Speaker 1: it it was probably responsible for selling more Game Boy
Speaker 1: units than just about anything else. I played Tetris for
Speaker 1: so long on my game Boy that I could see
Speaker 1: when I turned off. You could tell this this is
Speaker 1: a good game. When you turn off the game and
Speaker 1: you close your eyes to go to sleep and you're
Speaker 1: still seeing those little shapes drift into place. Or when
Speaker 1: you are moving and you're packing up the moving van
Speaker 1: and at the time you're going do do do do
Speaker 1: do do crooked space piece? I don't I needed an
Speaker 1: L shape? Uh yeah, so why did I get that sectional? Um? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I spent many many hours with my game Boy. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a very popular device, and that was my
Speaker 1: first Nintendo system. And game Boy also was developed by
Speaker 1: It was designed by gumpay Yakoit who we talked about
Speaker 1: in the last podcast. He was the fellow who was
Speaker 1: hired and had had turned Nintendo's fortunes around by introducing
Speaker 1: a toy that became the Ultra Hand, basically an extendable
Speaker 1: claw that would grip uh toy balls or you know,
Speaker 1: that was what came with it, but you could use
Speaker 1: it for all kinds of other games. Harassing the family
Speaker 1: cat but yeah, the twice often than not probably. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So he he was the fellow who designed the game Boys.
Speaker 1: So yeah, very popular design, very simple design, you know,
Speaker 1: unlike his first portable uh for a this was this
Speaker 1: was basically they hundred of portable games because before that
Speaker 1: they were all hardwired, like the Mentel games with the
Speaker 1: little led s that would go you know yeah, and
Speaker 1: even even Nintendo's UH game games were all hardwired at
Speaker 1: that point. So this was the first cartridge based one
Speaker 1: that really started to take off huge. So in nineteen nine,
Speaker 1: into No introduces the Super Famicom, which in the United
Speaker 1: States a year later in ninety one was known as
Speaker 1: the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Yeah, the NES was starting
Speaker 1: to near the end of its lifecycle, although it was
Speaker 1: still supported for a few years after this. UM and
Speaker 1: the NES was an eight bit video game system, the
Speaker 1: S and E S. The Supernintendo was a sixteen bit
Speaker 1: game system, twice the bits and UM. At that time,
Speaker 1: Nintendo boasted an ownership a market share of about eight
Speaker 1: percent of the United States game industry and nine of
Speaker 1: the worldwide game industry, so truly a dominant company at
Speaker 1: this point. Also, this is a good time to mention
Speaker 1: the character designs that Miyamoto came up with. The reason
Speaker 1: why the characters look the way they do is because
Speaker 1: the eight bit gaming era was so low resolution that
Speaker 1: you had to pick a very simple yet iconic design
Speaker 1: to be able to show people what your character look like.
Speaker 1: So he has Mario has a giant nose, so you
Speaker 1: could see that he Mario has a mustache because it
Speaker 1: was easier to see than a mouth. His his his overalls,
Speaker 1: his hat, all of that was designed because in order
Speaker 1: for him to show up well against multiple backgrounds, he
Speaker 1: had to have a very simple design. And we're talking
Speaker 1: all the way back to the Donkey Kong days, so
Speaker 1: um yeah. Even in the sixteen bet the designs get updated,
Speaker 1: of course because now you've got higher resolution, but they're
Speaker 1: still based on that very simple premise and it was
Speaker 1: something that guided Miyamoto's design for for many years. Uh
Speaker 1: yeah yeah. So now, right around the same time in Japan,
Speaker 1: Nintendo starts to face down lawsuits brought against it by
Speaker 1: competitors who are accusing Nintendo of fixing prices with retailers
Speaker 1: so that essentially the Nintendo products would stay on store
Speaker 1: shelves and and and keep selling while the competitor petitors
Speaker 1: would end up getting pushed aside. Um, Nintendo was no
Speaker 1: stranger to lawsuits in the century which makes sense. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're the eminent player, than the antitrust
Speaker 1: lawsuits are gonna start popping up. Because really, for a while,
Speaker 1: Nintendo was, and no pun intended, the only game in town,
Speaker 1: or so it seemed. Now we're gonna I'm gonna skip
Speaker 1: ahead a little bit. So SNDS is really popular. A
Speaker 1: lot of really popular titles come out on the SNS.
Speaker 1: But I don't think I need to go into all
Speaker 1: of those. Um, let's let's talk about one of Nintendo's
Speaker 1: major missteps, not the power Glove, which was its own problem.
Speaker 1: Nintendo hasn't always succeeded when it's come up with some
Speaker 1: innovative products, and one of those innovative products that really
Speaker 1: bombed by Virtual Boy. But what could be wrong with that?
Speaker 1: Virtual reality was the wave of the future. We were
Speaker 1: all going to be walking around with these things on
Speaker 1: our heads that would show us these amazing immersed in
Speaker 1: a computer world that would be uh indistinguishable from our
Speaker 1: real world all around us, as long as our real
Speaker 1: world all around us is a monochromatic vector graphic as
Speaker 1: in terms intation. As it turns out, there's a glitch
Speaker 1: in the matrix. Yeah, so the virtual boy comes out.
Speaker 1: It's a head no display that's actually on a little
Speaker 1: stand and you lean forward. It's almost like a pair
Speaker 1: of binoculars. You you lean your head forward and you
Speaker 1: have a screen for each eye. And it if only
Speaker 1: it didn't have to be hardwired into your neural network.
Speaker 1: It relied on something that we call parallax. And parallax
Speaker 1: we've talked about on this podcast before, but in general,
Speaker 1: parallax is the phenomenon we experience because our eyes are
Speaker 1: not located in the exact same spot in our head,
Speaker 1: or else we'd all be cyclops. Uh. Yeah, yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a there's a difference between uh, the way an object
Speaker 1: appears in your left eye and the way it appears
Speaker 1: in your right eye, and your brain assimilates the information
Speaker 1: from these two images, and that helps you judge things
Speaker 1: like depth. It's not the only thing that lets you
Speaker 1: judge depth. And there are people who have trouble with
Speaker 1: parallax who can still tell generally how far something is away.
Speaker 1: And of course the further away something is, the less
Speaker 1: parallax matters, because the the converging points become closer and
Speaker 1: closer to being parallel instead of converging on a single point. Um.
Speaker 1: But anyway, it used these two screens one f e
Speaker 1: chi to give the illusion of depth, and it was
Speaker 1: monochromatic and used red graphics, which mean you know, you
Speaker 1: were staring at a at a black screen with red
Speaker 1: graphics on it. I remember Warrio showed up in ah
Speaker 1: in Virtual Boy, and at first I thought Warrio was
Speaker 1: introduced in Virtual Boy, but that's not true. Warrior Warrio
Speaker 1: actually predates Virtual Boy by a few years. He first
Speaker 1: appeared on a Game Boy title. But I remember there
Speaker 1: was a Warrior title on Virtual Boy and a friend
Speaker 1: of mine, Um, no one, actually, I guess none of
Speaker 1: my friends actually owned a Virtual Boy. I remember testing
Speaker 1: it out in in various toy stores, toy stores, not
Speaker 1: toy stories. Um, you got a friend in me, thank you?
Speaker 1: And it launched and around a hundred and eighty bucks
Speaker 1: when it came out in Uh. It did not do well.
Speaker 1: People were disappointed in the graphics quality, They did not
Speaker 1: feel that it was particularly compelling, and there were a
Speaker 1: lot of reports of people suffering massive headaches while trying
Speaker 1: to play this thing. I can't imagine why. And there
Speaker 1: and there just weren't that many compelling titles either. It
Speaker 1: was kind of like a triple threat. Really, you had
Speaker 1: a system that just didn't feel like it was fully baked,
Speaker 1: you didn't have a lot of really great titles, and
Speaker 1: you had reports of people having headaches while playing it.
Speaker 1: So uh, yeah, the Virtual Boy ended up being a bomb,
Speaker 1: a non virtual bomb. Yeah. Um. And apparently I think
Speaker 1: eight hundred thousand of them were produced, so they're now
Speaker 1: collector's items. There aren't that many that ever hit the wild.
Speaker 1: At least they didn't bury them in the desert. No,
Speaker 1: they didn't grind them up and bury them under the
Speaker 1: desert like a certain video game titles. So they didn't
Speaker 1: put them on top and I want to put them
Speaker 1: next to et um. Yes. So, how how do you
Speaker 1: recover from a flop like that? Well, they weren't. Would
Speaker 1: argue that that the company's name wasn't damaged to the
Speaker 1: point where Nintendo was hurting, but that was certainly, uh
Speaker 1: a thorn in its side. It wasn't like the Virtual
Speaker 1: Boy ruined the reputation entirely. It was just that it
Speaker 1: was not a success. But in nineties six they did
Speaker 1: bounce back quite a bit. They introduced their next video
Speaker 1: game console. Now this was during the you know, we
Speaker 1: we had the eight bit systems, we had the sixteen
Speaker 1: bit systems. A few thirty two bit systems came out,
Speaker 1: but Nintendo did not jump on that bandwagon. Instead, Nintendo
Speaker 1: bided its time for a sixty four bit system and
Speaker 1: surprise the world when the Nintendo sixty four came out.
Speaker 1: And I say surprised because they decided to stick with
Speaker 1: the cartridge based games as opposed to moving to an
Speaker 1: optical disc system. Yeah. So let's see who who were
Speaker 1: their competitors. Atari had basically, uh, you know, they had
Speaker 1: come out with the links. Yeah, we had it was
Speaker 1: not doing well. You had Sega, which we if you've
Speaker 1: listened to our podcast about Sega, you realized that Sega,
Speaker 1: although it was always an also ran when it came
Speaker 1: up against Nintendo, except Nintendo really kind of rebuilt the
Speaker 1: home digital video game market and uh and Sega came
Speaker 1: along about that time, and they gave they they were
Speaker 1: the uh, the Apple to Nintendo's Microsoft in this world
Speaker 1: because they pushed Nintendo harder and we're a good competitor.
Speaker 1: And in fact, their marketing slogan was Sega does what
Speaker 1: Nintendo don't because they had Sonic Sonic was designed to
Speaker 1: show off the speed of the Genesis UH system and Home,
Speaker 1: and it did a great job of showing that off
Speaker 1: because he moved very quickly. The graphics sixteen bit system
Speaker 1: looked very nice. Um, and then you had Sony. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the PlayStation. Really in Japan, the Nintendo sixty four did
Speaker 1: not do so well, and it's because it's main competitor
Speaker 1: was the Sony PlayStation and which just seemed much more compelling.
Speaker 1: The graphics seemed better, um, and they were using an
Speaker 1: optical disc system, which meant that the games could be
Speaker 1: far more complex. The cartridge had a limited amount of
Speaker 1: space that you could hardwire a game onto, and also
Speaker 1: it meant that there were limitations with a cartridge based
Speaker 1: game that you didn't necessararily have with an optical system game. However,
Speaker 1: there were also positive sides to go with cartridge based
Speaker 1: the big one being that you didn't have to worry
Speaker 1: about loading times. Yes, and you also don't have to
Speaker 1: worry nearly as much about ruining the cartridge as you
Speaker 1: did about scratching it, and it's much more robust than
Speaker 1: the disc was. But yeah, the big one being loading times,
Speaker 1: because you know, with an optical based one, the laser
Speaker 1: had to find the right track on the CD in
Speaker 1: ordered for it to start playing the right information, and
Speaker 1: then load that information into the the console's memory so
Speaker 1: that you could start playing, whereas with a cartridge based system,
Speaker 1: it just because everything's hardwired, it's never changing. It goes
Speaker 1: straight to where it needs to go, and you didn't
Speaker 1: have to have these loading screens. And Nintendo thought that
Speaker 1: was an advantage. And uh, in the United States, it
Speaker 1: did quite well. In fact, some of the best games
Speaker 1: some people would argue of all time came out during
Speaker 1: the Nintendo sixty four era. But that controller. I liked
Speaker 1: the controller. I actually enjoyed that controller. Uh. And it
Speaker 1: was the first one to have a thumbstick in Nintendo's history. Uh,
Speaker 1: not the first, not the first one to have a
Speaker 1: thumbstick ever, but the first one for Nintendo, yes, before
Speaker 1: they were using the D pad. Yeah. So yeah, that,
Speaker 1: like Gold and I, came out for the Nintendo sixty
Speaker 1: four and that was a big hit. That was a
Speaker 1: big hit, one of the one of the games that
Speaker 1: people still will refer to as one of the best
Speaker 1: video games of all time. Um. Oddly enough, I think
Speaker 1: it's probably arguably more favorite of people, uh than the
Speaker 1: actual movie. Yeah, and then's just personal observation, not based
Speaker 1: on anything other than that, So don't write me and
Speaker 1: say but no. And there were other games like Mario
Speaker 1: sixty four really kind of reinvented Mario quite a bit. Um.
Speaker 1: People thought that was pretty innovative. I was a huge
Speaker 1: fan of the rest playing games that came out for
Speaker 1: the Nintendo sixty four. They were very deep, They allowed
Speaker 1: incredible customization. You could create your own wrestler. Um. There
Speaker 1: were phenomenal games, and the Japanese games were even more
Speaker 1: robust than the American ones. I had all the American
Speaker 1: titles because I didn't have the Japanese system. You couldn't
Speaker 1: play Japanese games on an American system unless you had
Speaker 1: an adapter um or in Japanese, you know, or you
Speaker 1: just went ahead and bought a Japanese game system. R
Speaker 1: two systems were not compatible. They were region locked for
Speaker 1: the you know, that's the easiest way of saying it.
Speaker 1: But I loved a lot of the games in the
Speaker 1: in sixty four. Well in sixty four does well in
Speaker 1: the United States, doesn't do so well in Japan. And
Speaker 1: two thousand one, uh, they hit they introduced the game
Speaker 1: Boy Advance, but they also introduced then into no game Cube. Yes,
Speaker 1: so there's a five years have passed since the in
Speaker 1: sixty four debut. Nine six and sixty four comes out
Speaker 1: two thousand one. You get the game the game cube,
Speaker 1: and this is when Nintendo moves to the poptical discs,
Speaker 1: except they don't use the big optical discs the same
Speaker 1: size as a CD or d v D. No, these
Speaker 1: are smaller. So yeah, that kind of part of that
Speaker 1: is a d r M thing. But anyway, it was
Speaker 1: one of those things where where people were, oh, so
Speaker 1: now Nintendo is getting on the the disc train as
Speaker 1: opposed to cartridge is on the train. They did not
Speaker 1: look back from that point forward. Uh No. They had
Speaker 1: removable storage yep, and uh and a very nice game controller. Actually,
Speaker 1: the GameCube was my first Nintendo home console, not counting
Speaker 1: the game Boy because that's a portable. And it also
Speaker 1: had some compatibility stuff with game Boy Advance, so you
Speaker 1: started to see some convergence here where you could you
Speaker 1: could have the two systems interact with one another, which
Speaker 1: I like, yeah, that was kind of cool. And then
Speaker 1: in two thousand two, uh to Iwata becomes the first
Speaker 1: Nintendo CEO who was not related to the founder Yamachi
Speaker 1: um by marriage or by blood, so he was the
Speaker 1: first time is the first time Nintendo had a CEO
Speaker 1: that was not part of this legacy and um he
Speaker 1: took over at that point. In two thousand three, Nintendo
Speaker 1: introduced the Game Boy Advanced sp which was a thinner
Speaker 1: and lighter version of the Game Boy Advance and UH.
Speaker 1: In two thousand five and two thousand six, Nintendo starts
Speaker 1: to launch their DS line, which interestingly looked a lot
Speaker 1: like some of the old the the old game and
Speaker 1: watch UM systems that had the clamshell designed to double screens,
Speaker 1: but in this case they included a touch screen with stylus,
Speaker 1: and so that was kind of a differentiator in the
Speaker 1: home or the handheld market at the time, because remember
Speaker 1: in two thousand five and two thousand six, smartphones and
Speaker 1: not really become a thing in the United States, and
Speaker 1: games for smartphones were pretty much unheard of at that point,
Speaker 1: at least in the US. UM and then the Nintendo
Speaker 1: launches the d s I in April of two thousand six,
Speaker 1: and then we have to you know, the we also
Speaker 1: comes out in that around that time, the we console,
Speaker 1: which is the current Nintendo console on the market, introduces
Speaker 1: the Wii Remote, where you've got the motion gaming, and
Speaker 1: Nintendo kind of surprises people by taking aim at the
Speaker 1: casual gaming market. Yeah. See, Um, if you'll remember, at
Speaker 1: that point, Microsoft had released the Xbox and the Xbox
Speaker 1: three sixty um, and Sony and PlayStation three. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean they PlayStation two was a huge success. Uh, the
Speaker 1: Xbox was a huge success, and basically Nintendo was taking
Speaker 1: it on the chin with the GameCube. Although the GameCube
Speaker 1: was sophisticated, um, and it had again the the uh
Speaker 1: brilliant licensing maneuvers of Nintendo by keeping Mario and the
Speaker 1: Zelda franchise and some of the others Metroid h alive
Speaker 1: on the console and locked into the Nintendo console the
Speaker 1: fans of the franchise. Again, Miamoto's thinking that there should
Speaker 1: be a story is playing into Nintendo's success because without
Speaker 1: that storyline and the fans want the storyline, Um, Nintendo probably.
Speaker 1: I think you could argue, um that Nintendo may not
Speaker 1: have survived past that because, uh, there was an onslaught
Speaker 1: from Sony and Microsoft and they needed again, they needed
Speaker 1: something to differentiate them from the mark and from the
Speaker 1: rest of the market, and then we did that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it was when the Week came out, it really
Speaker 1: did make a big splash. I mean, it had huge
Speaker 1: sales figures and it was leading the video game console
Speaker 1: sales in the United States for for ages. I mean
Speaker 1: for the longest time. It was Uh, the question wasn't
Speaker 1: who's in the lead, it was who's in the second place?
Speaker 1: Because he knew that Nintendo was in the lead. But
Speaker 1: Nintendo sales have slowed down more recently because we well
Speaker 1: a lot of reasons. The game consoles several years old now,
Speaker 1: and um as are the Xbox in the PlayStation models
Speaker 1: the current models. But Nintendo also has the problem of
Speaker 1: it aimed for casual gamers, and casual gamers don't tend
Speaker 1: to be the kind of people who rush out and
Speaker 1: buy the next new title. Necessarily, they might be satisfied
Speaker 1: with just a few handful of titles because they gain casually.
Speaker 1: They're not that they're not as heavily invested in the
Speaker 1: system as a hardcore gamer is. Yeah, I mean, they're
Speaker 1: gamers will replay games even on older consoles. They will
Speaker 1: keep older consoles and older computers around to play classic
Speaker 1: games that they really love. Case in point, the newer
Speaker 1: versions of Golden I. Long after the movie franchise has
Speaker 1: moved on several films, Um, Golden I is sticking around
Speaker 1: on newer consoles. And so you've got with the Nintendo we'
Speaker 1: you've got this issue with saturation again, just like with
Speaker 1: the video the playing cards back in the sixties, you've
Speaker 1: got uh, you know, the argument is just about everyone
Speaker 1: who wants a we has a wee, and so there's
Speaker 1: not a whole lot of reason to go out and
Speaker 1: buy more. So of course sales figures are gonna start
Speaker 1: to falter us. I'm sorry, go ahead. Plus Microsoft now
Speaker 1: has to connect and Sony has the move, so now
Speaker 1: they're control. Motion control is not as big a deal anymore. Um.
Speaker 1: And so also the smartphone revolution and the gaming on
Speaker 1: smartphones and social networks has taken a big bite out
Speaker 1: on Nintendo because Nintendo was taking aim at that casual gamer.
Speaker 1: Well back in two thousand and six when the Week
Speaker 1: comes out, the casual gamer wasn't really being catered to
Speaker 1: that way. But today you've got everything from phones to
Speaker 1: uh to uh, you know, set top boxes in some
Speaker 1: cases to um, you know, the social networks that all
Speaker 1: have these casual games that are available. Nintendo has no
Speaker 1: longer got a lock on that, So it's they're actually
Speaker 1: in a way, you could say their competition is way
Speaker 1: more fierce in that area than it would be if
Speaker 1: they were competing against Microsoft and Sony. Well, now I
Speaker 1: would argue that that Nintendo is finding itself at a crossroads.
Speaker 1: Um it has announced the Wii U, which is the
Speaker 1: next version of the Wi um Yukoy had said, as
Speaker 1: you will recall from the last podcast, that Nintendo was
Speaker 1: the kind of company that takes mature technology and utilizes
Speaker 1: it to create new products, which is exactly what they
Speaker 1: did with the WE that enabled them to hit a
Speaker 1: lower price point out of the out of the gate. Um.
Speaker 1: And people criticize the hardcore gamers who liked the Xbox
Speaker 1: three sixty, who liked the PlayStation three because it had
Speaker 1: uh full on her high definition graphics, uh, criticized the
Speaker 1: WE because it only had the lower definition. Um, well,
Speaker 1: it's still high deaf, but it's uh DVD resolution, not
Speaker 1: the ten A DP. It was seven UM and or
Speaker 1: seven or seven twenty anyways, seven lines of resolutions. Then yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, the WE U is aimed at the high
Speaker 1: deaf market, and it has a Again, they've reinvented the controller.
Speaker 1: It has a it's a much bigger controller that has
Speaker 1: an additional functionality, has its own screen UM. So they're
Speaker 1: also like combining the d S I with the UM
Speaker 1: And some people really like it, some people really don't.
Speaker 1: We'll have to see when it actually gets out on
Speaker 1: the market whether it succeeds or not. But the DS
Speaker 1: is competing with smartphones and other devices, and people have
Speaker 1: pointed out, and rightfully, so why would I pay thirty dollars,
Speaker 1: which is sort of the price point for a new
Speaker 1: DS game, when I can get the same exact game
Speaker 1: for my smartphone for five dollars, And and my smartphone
Speaker 1: does stuff other than play games. So some people say
Speaker 1: that perhaps Nintendo should get into the smartphone business, or
Speaker 1: perhaps Nintendo should re reevaluate it's it's line on not
Speaker 1: licensing out it's it's prime core material to other companies.
Speaker 1: We should also point out the three DS, which launched
Speaker 1: is another Nintendo slow starter at is not done nearly
Speaker 1: as well in the market as they had hoped. That,
Speaker 1: of course, is the d S system, the handheld gaming
Speaker 1: system that has the glasses free three D effect, using
Speaker 1: essentially a variation on a lenticular display. If you'd like
Speaker 1: to see one taking apart, you can see that on
Speaker 1: our website. Yeah, I I we bought one specifically for
Speaker 1: me to demolish, and I did, and there was much
Speaker 1: wailing and nashing of teeth. But the Yeah, the three
Speaker 1: D S was sort of Nintendo's approach to try and
Speaker 1: combat the smartphone casual gaming market by introducing this new
Speaker 1: element three D, which was not available on most other systems.
Speaker 1: But it just has not taken off. And a lot
Speaker 1: of people who have enjoyed the three DS have told
Speaker 1: me this is anecdotal, but they have told me that
Speaker 1: they just turned the three D off because it's just
Speaker 1: more of a problem than than Uh. It doesn't it
Speaker 1: doesn't enhance the gameplay for them. So the XL, however,
Speaker 1: has done reasonably well. It's D S with a larger screen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, I we need to start wrapping up the
Speaker 1: uh this episode, But I did want to point out
Speaker 1: one other thing. We we've been talking about lots of
Speaker 1: different people, and I do have a kind of a
Speaker 1: tragic ending for one of the folks involved in this story.
Speaker 1: Um Yakoi, the guy who was the designer who came
Speaker 1: up with the game Boy design. He also designed the
Speaker 1: Virtual Boy, so not everything he touched turned to gold.
Speaker 1: He decided to leave Nintendo in nine and he went
Speaker 1: to found his own company, but unfortunately, tragically, he died
Speaker 1: as a result of a car accident in n He
Speaker 1: his car rear ended a truck on a highway and
Speaker 1: when he got out to inspect the damage, he was
Speaker 1: struck by another driver and died as a result. H
Speaker 1: So that was something I thought i'd mentioned. It was
Speaker 1: a person who really was instrumental in the design of
Speaker 1: a lot of early Nintendo products, and his design elements
Speaker 1: carried over into current generation Nintendo products, and I thought
Speaker 1: it was it was important to remember him. And Uh,
Speaker 1: it's sad, of course, is the way, um the way
Speaker 1: that all turned out. But I thought it was something
Speaker 1: that we should definitely touch on. So it'll be interesting
Speaker 1: to see what happens, don't know, in the future. Recently,
Speaker 1: as of eleven, the company has been struggling financially. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's just it's one of those things where the video
Speaker 1: game console market saturation has caused problems. The three DS
Speaker 1: sales have caused problems, but the company has returned from
Speaker 1: setbacks in the past, so we can't we can't just
Speaker 1: discount Nintendo and say that they're out of the game
Speaker 1: like they're they're also ran. At this point, there's always
Speaker 1: the chance that they're going to reinvent the home video
Speaker 1: game market yet again. Yeah, and it's and it's uh well,
Speaker 1: just before we recorded this a few days ago, they
Speaker 1: announced that their earnings were going to be less even
Speaker 1: than they had predicted before um, which has caused some
Speaker 1: um mumblings of doom and gloom around the industry. But
Speaker 1: um uh you know, they could also end up as Saga.
Speaker 1: Did you wonder what the creators of Mario and Link
Speaker 1: and and all those other characters Kirby and so many
Speaker 1: of the others that we love, um would would do.
Speaker 1: I mean, Saga found as it got out of the
Speaker 1: video game console business that it still could make great
Speaker 1: video games, uh some not so great, um, but still
Speaker 1: sell them to uh markets and reach out through other
Speaker 1: people's hardware. And I think they've been somewhat successful in
Speaker 1: partnering with Nintendo UM to do that. Uh. So it
Speaker 1: is possible that even if Nintendo gets out of the
Speaker 1: hardware business. They could still end up making fantastic games
Speaker 1: around their their wonderful characters. UM. So hopefully, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: if they find a way to um that they'll find
Speaker 1: a way to continue one way or the other. But
Speaker 1: they're still not they're still not out of it yet,
Speaker 1: and I'm interested to see what happens when when the
Speaker 1: WEIU comes out, um, you know, in the market and
Speaker 1: the and they're not too terribly distant future. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll have to keep our eyes open and uh, we'll
Speaker 1: be sure to report on it of course. So that
Speaker 1: wraps up this discussion about the two partner episode. If
Speaker 1: you guys have any companies you would like us to
Speaker 1: focus on, or even other topics have nothing to do
Speaker 1: with the company whatsoever, let us know. Send us a message.
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