Speaker 1: Guess what, Mango, what's up? Well? All right, So I've
Speaker 1: had this fact waiting to use it, and I think
Speaker 1: today's episode is the right one. So did you know
Speaker 1: that Nintendo almost came out with a knitting machine? No? No,
Speaker 1: was that in its earliest days? Are like with we
Speaker 1: not not like in the nineteen eighties when they came
Speaker 1: out with the original A ne E S system. You
Speaker 1: remember this? Yeah. I found this old trade ad for
Speaker 1: it when they were considering launching it. And here's how
Speaker 1: it reads. So it says, now you're knitting with power.
Speaker 1: It's not a game, not a toy, not something a
Speaker 1: young girl can outgrow in three to six months or
Speaker 1: even a year. It actually knit sweaters. That's so weird
Speaker 1: and sexist. Yeah, I mean the technology is kind of
Speaker 1: forward thinking, I guess. Yeah. I mean you could fashion
Speaker 1: your own patterns, yarn it up, and have it knit
Speaker 1: for you. I guess I think that's how it works.
Speaker 1: And the guy who was asked to demonstrate it for
Speaker 1: Toys r Us called it one of his least genuinely
Speaker 1: enthusiastic demos and it basically got zero demand. But reading
Speaker 1: about the Nintendo knitting machine made me wonder you know,
Speaker 1: how long has Nintendo been a round and how have
Speaker 1: they survived for this long and such an incredibly competitive market?
Speaker 1: And just how much running and swimming is Mario doing
Speaker 1: in Super Mario Brothers. So that's what we're going to
Speaker 1: find out. Let's dive in, y hey their podcast listeners,
Speaker 1: Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as
Speaker 1: always I'm joined by my good friend man guest Ticketer
Speaker 1: and on the other side of the soundproof glass holding
Speaker 1: up a paper that says up, down, up, down, left, right, left, right,
Speaker 1: be a start. Wow, isn't that the Konami code from Nintendo. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the secret code that gave you all those extra
Speaker 1: lives in contra. That is just how thoughtful he is
Speaker 1: sharing a top secret industry code on the air with
Speaker 1: that's our friend and producer Tristan mc neal. So we're
Speaker 1: talking Nintendo. Now. Everybody's familiar with Nintendo and its flagship
Speaker 1: characters Mario, Luigi, Zelda. The list goes on. The video
Speaker 1: games are only half of the company's a hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty eight year history, actually less than that. So with
Speaker 1: the holiday season upon us and the new Nintendo Switch
Speaker 1: console topping all kinds of hot toy and tech list.
Speaker 1: We thought it'd be fun to shed some light on
Speaker 1: the lesser known history of the world's most recognizable video GameMaker,
Speaker 1: the Nintendo. You don't know, right, And I'll be the
Speaker 1: first to admit there's so much I didn't know about Nintendo.
Speaker 1: For example, did you know the company actually when Emmy
Speaker 1: back in two thousand seven, I thought Emmy's were just
Speaker 1: TV show, So I had a video game company wind
Speaker 1: up with an Emmy. Yeah. So it was actually awarded
Speaker 1: in recognition of one of Nintendo's most famous tech innovations,
Speaker 1: the deep pad or the directional pad. So I'm sure
Speaker 1: you know this, but the deep pad is the plus
Speaker 1: sign shaped button that you see on video game controllers nowadays.
Speaker 1: And Nintendo introduced the new output method back in I
Speaker 1: think two and it quickly became a standard in the
Speaker 1: industry over the old joysticks, like you know, the ones
Speaker 1: where you have to use your whole hand to move
Speaker 1: the controller around instead of just a free thumb. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that makes sense. The deep had revolutionize gaming,
Speaker 1: But that doesn't say how they got an Emmy. How
Speaker 1: did they want an Emmy? Well, most video games are
Speaker 1: played on TV, So there's one connection there, but the
Speaker 1: real reason is that the deep had got utilized by
Speaker 1: most of the remotes in your house, whether for your
Speaker 1: DVD player or streaming device or the TV itself. That's
Speaker 1: pretty crazy, all right. Well, it's clear Nintendo isn't your
Speaker 1: typical video game company, and as I was saying earlier,
Speaker 1: Nintendo actually predates video games themselves by almost a hundred years.
Speaker 1: So I've read a little of this before that. Nintendo
Speaker 1: started out as a playing card manufacturer, and this was
Speaker 1: back in nine when a twenty nine year old businessman
Speaker 1: named Fusia Zero Yamachi. He saw the chance to jump
Speaker 1: start this dormant industry. And as you might know, Japan
Speaker 1: had cut most of its ties with the Western world
Speaker 1: during the seventeenth century. It was like this highly protected
Speaker 1: society and the royalty didn't want invading cultures that the
Speaker 1: country's values and traditions. But as part of this isolationist stance,
Speaker 1: there was this ban on all foreign playing cards, and
Speaker 1: this was to curb the rise in the legal gambling,
Speaker 1: and when the Japanese devised their own card games in
Speaker 1: the ensuing centuries, those two became used for gambling and
Speaker 1: the government banned those as well. Pretty interesting art. So
Speaker 1: it's a bit of a game of kind of whackam ale,
Speaker 1: now right, I mean, games pop up, they get extinguished,
Speaker 1: then they pop up somewhere else, and then they get
Speaker 1: extinguished again, exactly. And so this back and forth rise
Speaker 1: and fall of Japanese card games goes on for more
Speaker 1: than two fifty years, and then in six a new
Speaker 1: game called hanafuda and I'm gonna mispronounce every single Japanese
Speaker 1: word of this, but it's finally permitted by the government.
Speaker 1: And this game loosely translates as flower cards, and they
Speaker 1: used flowers and animal pictures instead of numbers, so it
Speaker 1: was a little harder to use for gambling, harder, I'm guessing,
Speaker 1: but but not impossible. Yeah, that's right. So whiley gamblers
Speaker 1: still found ways to make money playing hana fuda, and
Speaker 1: I mean, the general public isn't that interested in playing
Speaker 1: card games since it's had such a bad rap for
Speaker 1: so long, but this new game did catch on quickly
Speaker 1: among this group of near duells known as the yakuza. Wait,
Speaker 1: so it's just like an organized crime syndicate, is that
Speaker 1: they're the the early customers of Nintendo where they actually
Speaker 1: like Japanese gangster or something sort of. So the term
Speaker 1: yakuza actually started as this reference to a losing hand
Speaker 1: in this game that wasn't worth any points. And since
Speaker 1: the game was popular mostly with unsavory types, Yakuza game
Speaker 1: slang for like useless individuals, And we should do a
Speaker 1: whole episode on the Yukuza down the road, But at
Speaker 1: this point, these useless individuals are just kind of outcasts
Speaker 1: in society. And the wider connection to organized crime that
Speaker 1: comes later, But the moniker itself does have a connection
Speaker 1: to Nintendo, and specifically they're Hanafuda cards. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about how our man Ya
Speaker 1: Manchi rises above this shady designation and and basically it
Speaker 1: all comes down to design. The cards of the company
Speaker 1: Nintendo produced included hand painted images, you know, made from
Speaker 1: the bark of mulberry trees, and because they were so
Speaker 1: ornate and super high quality and and frankly just eye catching,
Speaker 1: it it actually helped free the cards from that back
Speaker 1: alley stigma. And it wasn't long before Nintendo became the
Speaker 1: top card game company in all of Japan, absolutely so
Speaker 1: over the years and generations as the government relaxed their rules,
Speaker 1: Nintendo started releasing new types of cards and card games.
Speaker 1: But it's only in the nineteen fifties, when Yamuchi's great
Speaker 1: grandson took over the reins, that Nintendo started experimenting with
Speaker 1: some oddball ideas. So what did they do. Well, there
Speaker 1: are a few smart things, like hiro she signed this
Speaker 1: deal to feature Disney characters on the card decks, specifically
Speaker 1: to market them to children and families. But he also
Speaker 1: did a few super strange things as well, like he
Speaker 1: dabbled in starting a taxi service and a line of
Speaker 1: instant rice, and for a little while he even invested
Speaker 1: in love hotels where businessmen could rent rooms by the hour.
Speaker 1: No questions asked, Oh my gosh, card Shark, Gangsters, CD motels.
Speaker 1: I mean, I have to be honest, like this is
Speaker 1: not the house mark. Definitely not, definitely not yet. And
Speaker 1: while none of those ventures worked, they all went belly
Speaker 1: up quickly. Hiroshi knew that playing cards and the playing
Speaker 1: card market had reached the saturation, so if Nintendo was
Speaker 1: going to survive into the nineteen seventies, they need to
Speaker 1: branch out well. And also, by this point they were
Speaker 1: already dabbling in at least board games, right, that's right.
Speaker 1: But toy companies like Tomy and Bandai, Like do you
Speaker 1: even remember those? I mean only vaguely? Yeah, me too,
Speaker 1: So it's worth googling Tony and Bandai games from the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies because the titles and photos are amazing, like
Speaker 1: they've got one called the Hamburger Game, and Run Yourself
Speaker 1: Ragged and Nutzi Tennis like honestly are so intricate and plastic,
Speaker 1: but they really look fun. But Nintendo needed an inn
Speaker 1: and this They needed some sort of new product to
Speaker 1: catch people's attention and helped establish it as like a
Speaker 1: place for fun, not just like card and board games.
Speaker 1: I love those names, and I was like, what even
Speaker 1: is like Nutzi Tennis run Yourself Ragged. Well, this is
Speaker 1: the part of the Nintendo story that I really love
Speaker 1: because you know, at first, you think, okay, al right,
Speaker 1: here's where video games come in and the company we
Speaker 1: know starts to take shape. But no, you know, instead,
Speaker 1: the company's first fora into the untapped toy market. It's
Speaker 1: this wacky extending arm thing called the Ultrahand, and there's
Speaker 1: nothing electronic about it. Basically, it's the invention of gun Pay.
Speaker 1: Your kois this low level Nintendo factory workers has got
Speaker 1: a little bit of a background and engineering, and it's
Speaker 1: kind of an innovation on Ben Franklin's long arm grabber
Speaker 1: you know, which he invented in his old age that
Speaker 1: would help him get books high off of shelves. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Ben Franks's version was obviously just this long pole
Speaker 1: with the tiny gratty thing at the end of it, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's it. But but Gunpay designed a prototype grabber claw
Speaker 1: that that frankly, you'd almost picture kind of like an
Speaker 1: inspector gadgets hands or something like. It expanded out across
Speaker 1: the room with sort of a metal crisscross pattern, but
Speaker 1: it collapses to a tiny shape. And when Hiroshi saw it,
Speaker 1: he fell in love with the idea and got gun
Speaker 1: paid a mass produced a plastic version by the end
Speaker 1: of that year, and the thing was dubbed the Ultrahand,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned, And the toy was a massive success
Speaker 1: for Nintendo. They sold over a million of them between
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six and nineteen seventy and with that initial success,
Speaker 1: Nintendo made the transition to toy manufacturer and and honestly,
Speaker 1: they never looked back after that. So I was just
Speaker 1: on my phone and I looked up the box of
Speaker 1: the Ultra Hand, and it is amazing. There's like one
Speaker 1: version that's a cartoon box and it's got two kids
Speaker 1: happily stealing some sort of money purse from businessman. That's
Speaker 1: good marketing. And there's this other that's like a real
Speaker 1: life pick and it's got a boy in the background
Speaker 1: using this ultrahand to like maybe grab something off a
Speaker 1: top shelf, while this girl in the foreground seems to be,
Speaker 1: I don't know, passing a tomato across the room to
Speaker 1: her dad. It's amazing. Also, why would you get this
Speaker 1: for your kid? Like it only encourages like theft and
Speaker 1: missif I mean, but it does look kind of fun.
Speaker 1: Those pictures are ridiculous, though, But thankfully Nintendo brought gun
Speaker 1: Pay along for the ride as they developed more and
Speaker 1: he was promoted from this maintenance engineer to the head
Speaker 1: of product development, and that's where he helped create all
Speaker 1: these different unusual toys and and that includes Nintendo's first
Speaker 1: feature electronics, and that first one was called the Love Tester.
Speaker 1: So I thought we were past the more questionable bits
Speaker 1: of Nintendo's history. Well, you know, although this was aimed
Speaker 1: at a slightly older crowd, the Love Tester was was
Speaker 1: a whole lot tamer than that was paid by the
Speaker 1: hour hotels you mentioned earlier. That's just so disgusting. It
Speaker 1: was this small device that kind of looked like a
Speaker 1: voltmeter with two wires sticking out of it, and there
Speaker 1: was this small silver disc at the end of each wire,
Speaker 1: and the idea was that a couple would hold hands
Speaker 1: while each person held one of the disks, and so
Speaker 1: they had this resulting level of love that would then
Speaker 1: be displayed on the screen. And it used the scale
Speaker 1: from zero to one hundred. So, I mean, it's clearly
Speaker 1: a cute, gimmicky item. But when the love tester actually
Speaker 1: test love Mango, you don't believe this really worked. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was most likely the electric conductivity of the couple.
Speaker 1: I don't know, like if their palms were sweaty it
Speaker 1: would affect it. But you know, the specifics really didn't
Speaker 1: matter that much, at least not to the target customers.
Speaker 1: There's this great site I found as we were doing
Speaker 1: our research called before Mario, and it explains that dating
Speaker 1: culture in Japan during the nineteen sixties was actually still
Speaker 1: pretty strict. So really any excuse to hold hands and
Speaker 1: strike up conversation was was welcomes interesting. Yeah. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: so that's why the Love Tester was such a success.
Speaker 1: It was a really smart idea for that time, and
Speaker 1: because it made Nintendo so much money, the company continued
Speaker 1: to dabble in electronic toys, you know, when video games
Speaker 1: were just starting to make their debut. Sure, so I
Speaker 1: mean we're talking about the late seventies here, when our
Speaker 1: kids just started to take off, that's right. But you know,
Speaker 1: gun Pays an extraordinary thinker because he actually had his
Speaker 1: sight set on a different market. The one day, while
Speaker 1: riding a commuter train to work, he noticed this other
Speaker 1: businessman playing with his cow it later just to kind
Speaker 1: of keep himself busy, I guess, And this gave gun
Speaker 1: Pay the idea for a new line of handheld video games.
Speaker 1: You know that maybe would use the same LCD screen
Speaker 1: and that that display technology that a calculator would use,
Speaker 1: except in this case, the graphics would be used to
Speaker 1: create characters and then maybe objects that could be set
Speaker 1: against this pre printed background scene. And so you'd have
Speaker 1: this built in controller buttons on either side of the
Speaker 1: screen that would allow the player to move a character around,
Speaker 1: you know, to complete basic task, I guess. And so
Speaker 1: one early model of these Nintendo game and watch systems
Speaker 1: had the player controlled this deep sea diver. He just
Speaker 1: had to go from one side of the screen to
Speaker 1: the other side of the screen and he would claim
Speaker 1: a sunken treasure chest there and in all the while
Speaker 1: he was avoiding the moving tentacles of this grabby octopus.
Speaker 1: How captivating is this? kN I mean, I actually vaguely
Speaker 1: remember those games as kids and really wanting one, but
Speaker 1: they were so expensive. And of course that actually brings
Speaker 1: us full circle because it's actually these game in watch
Speaker 1: systems where the dpad was used for the first time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right, although I just had a memory. Do you
Speaker 1: remember when we took that computer science one oh one
Speaker 1: class and we had to make a fish tank where
Speaker 1: the fish would just go one side for the other.
Speaker 1: We're basically computer signed genius, that's right. But back to
Speaker 1: the D pad, you know. It was another little master
Speaker 1: stroke from Gunpay, and he'd run into problems while trying
Speaker 1: to adapt Nintendo's successful Donkey Kong arcade game for the
Speaker 1: handheld market. And unlike most handheld games at the time,
Speaker 1: which only had the player moving left to right, Donkey
Speaker 1: Kong was pretty different because it had them moving along
Speaker 1: both the X and the Y axis, which we both
Speaker 1: understand what that means as computer sciences. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: it is funny, like you run along the platforms, but
Speaker 1: you also have to climb the ladders and reach the
Speaker 1: top where Donkey Kong's keeping your kidnapped girlfriend. Right, right.
Speaker 1: But I went to a pizza place this weekend with
Speaker 1: my kids in town here and they had a few
Speaker 1: old school n s set up while you're waiting, and
Speaker 1: my four year old was actually trying to play Donkey Kong,
Speaker 1: and she had no idea what she was doing, and
Speaker 1: she was really angry. That's this ape was like tossing barrels.
Speaker 1: That's pretty great. All right. Well, here's where I'm going
Speaker 1: to hand the baton off to you, because it sounds
Speaker 1: like Gunpay was the guy at the forefront of electronic gaming,
Speaker 1: but actually someone else came up with the games like
Speaker 1: Donkey Kong and Mario and Zelda. Right, Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1: So credit for those goes to Shigeru Miyamoto, also known
Speaker 1: as the father of modern video games, like his creativity
Speaker 1: and attention to detail was this massive part of Nintendo
Speaker 1: success when it transitioned into home consoles in the eighties.
Speaker 1: All right, well, we should definitely talk about what he
Speaker 1: brought to the table and how it affected the video
Speaker 1: game industry going forward from there. But before we do that,
Speaker 1: why don't we take a quick break. You're listening to
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius and we're talking about how Nintendo made
Speaker 1: the transition from playing card manifest Acture to video game icon.
Speaker 1: All right, Mango, So, Shiguero Miamoto is the mastermind behind
Speaker 1: Super Mario Brothers and that whole series and really kind
Speaker 1: of a gaming legend. But how did he wind up
Speaker 1: working at Nintendo in the first place? So, I mean,
Speaker 1: to be honest, there might have been a little nepotism involved,
Speaker 1: because Miamoto's father was able to line up an interview
Speaker 1: for him right out of college and he had some
Speaker 1: connections with Nintendo. But once Miamoto had his foot in
Speaker 1: the door, the young designer impressed everyone like he had
Speaker 1: all these great toy ideas, and he started out as
Speaker 1: kind of a staff artist for the company's planning department.
Speaker 1: And this was in and he's still with the company today.
Speaker 1: I mean that's forty years since Nintendo hired him, and uh,
Speaker 1: he's never worked a single day for any other company.
Speaker 1: It's pretty incredible, is pretty incredible, And obviously he's an
Speaker 1: insane talent, and it will find out why the company
Speaker 1: wanted to keep him. But what kind of stuff was
Speaker 1: he working on in those early days. I mean, he
Speaker 1: couldn't have come up with Mario right out of the gate, right, well,
Speaker 1: I mean yes and no. So in the early nineteen
Speaker 1: eighties and Nintendo tried to expand into the North American
Speaker 1: arcade scene. But one of their earliest efforts, which was
Speaker 1: this sci fi shooting game called Radar Scope, it failed
Speaker 1: to find an audience outside of Japan. So one of
Speaker 1: Miamoto's first assignments was to build a new, low cost
Speaker 1: game using the existing tech and this engine of Radar Scope.
Speaker 1: And that way the company could you know, rejigger and
Speaker 1: convert the thousands of arcade cabinets they already had into
Speaker 1: something fresh. And Miamoto was eager to prove himself, so
Speaker 1: under the mentorship of Gunpay, he came up with this
Speaker 1: idea for Donkey Kong Oh and you should explain what
Speaker 1: that has to do with Mario though, right, so nothing
Speaker 1: at first. Originally the game was going to be based
Speaker 1: on Popeye the Sailor Man, but when the license for
Speaker 1: that property fell through, Miamoto redesigned the game to include
Speaker 1: original characters. So the brutish villain of Bluto became this
Speaker 1: guerrilla named Donkey Kong, the perpetual damsel in distress Olive
Speaker 1: Oil became a woman named Pauline, and Popeye got turned
Speaker 1: into this carpenter named Jumpman. And since Jumpman is the
Speaker 1: catchiest of names today, he goes by Mario, and so
Speaker 1: it's the same character definitely. So according to the story,
Speaker 1: the president of Nintendo America known as the similarity between
Speaker 1: the Italian landlord they had, the one they've been renting
Speaker 1: warehouse space from and the mustachio Jumpman, and the Nintendo
Speaker 1: crew nicknamed the character Mario and his Honor, And by
Speaker 1: the time the carpenter turned a plumber and was ready
Speaker 1: for his breakout roll into his own series, the nickname
Speaker 1: it stuck. That's pretty great and and it actually reminds
Speaker 1: me of another story about early Nintendo, or at least
Speaker 1: the video game phase. So apparently Donkey Kong was a
Speaker 1: big hit for the company, pulling in over a hundred
Speaker 1: eighty million dollars in just a year after its release.
Speaker 1: Eight million dollars then, I mean, that's a lot of money.
Speaker 1: But with all that success came the attention of Universal Studios,
Speaker 1: who now believed that the game was infringing on its
Speaker 1: King Kong copyright, and the studio made some pretty tough demands,
Speaker 1: insisting that Nintendo destroy all unsold copies of the game
Speaker 1: in hand over every penny they had made along the way. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm guessing Nintendo it didn't go for any
Speaker 1: of that. No, not so much. Instead, they lawyered up
Speaker 1: and proved that not only did the game have nothing
Speaker 1: to do with the events of the movie, but Universal's
Speaker 1: copyright had long since expired. Anything that actually meant King
Speaker 1: Kong was now in the public domain. How crazy is that?
Speaker 1: Which we had snapped it up, But that isn't the
Speaker 1: craziest part. Actually, it turns out that Universal had allowed
Speaker 1: Tiger Electronics to create this game based on King Kong
Speaker 1: and it was actually kind of a knockoff of Donkey Kong.
Speaker 1: So in the end, the court ruled in Nintendo's favor
Speaker 1: and Universal was made to pay the company millions in
Speaker 1: damn it. That's amazing. Yeah. So, actually, Nintendo's lawyer, John Kirby,
Speaker 1: he was given this brand new sail boat as a
Speaker 1: thank you gift, and of course he christened it the
Speaker 1: Donkey Kong. But that name may sound familiar, because the
Speaker 1: best part is he also got a character named after him,
Speaker 1: and that is the character Kirby. Oh, I love that.
Speaker 1: I like that. Not only did he get this new boat,
Speaker 1: but he also got video game immortality. Yeah, no kidding.
Speaker 1: So I'm glad you mentioned knockoff games because is that
Speaker 1: speaks to something I don't think a lot of people remember,
Speaker 1: and that's that America's video game industry was in really
Speaker 1: bad shape in the early eighties. In fact, it was
Speaker 1: almost on the verge of total collapse. So companies like
Speaker 1: Colico and Atari, they've made a killing in their early days,
Speaker 1: but their lack of foresight left them with no way
Speaker 1: to keep unlicensed games from being designed and released for
Speaker 1: the systems. So as a result, there were tons of cheap,
Speaker 1: low quality software and games out there, and frustrated buyers
Speaker 1: and and all these parents and kids were disappointed in
Speaker 1: the quality of the products well, and that had to
Speaker 1: be a huge headache for Nintendo, right. I mean, they
Speaker 1: released their first home game console in Japan and nine three,
Speaker 1: so of course the next logical step was bringing it
Speaker 1: to the Western market. But then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: the rug gets pulled out from under them and it
Speaker 1: starts to look like video games will never make it
Speaker 1: out of the arcade in the US exactly. But the
Speaker 1: company couldn't afford to let a whole market fall by
Speaker 1: the wayside, so they came up with this new battle plan.
Speaker 1: So first Nintendo developed a lockout chip to prevent company
Speaker 1: from releasing unauthorized games, and then they redesigned the system
Speaker 1: itself to avoid any bad connotations that you know, home
Speaker 1: video game systems might have developed among consumers. Wait, but
Speaker 1: so how do you make a video game system not
Speaker 1: look like a video game system by making it look
Speaker 1: more like a VCR? Apparently? Yeah. So, in Japan, Nintendo's
Speaker 1: first system was known as the Famicon or Family Computer,
Speaker 1: and it loaded from the top, so the games were
Speaker 1: inserted vertically, the way you know you'd put it a
Speaker 1: game in an old atari. But for the US release,
Speaker 1: the system was given this like flip up panel where
Speaker 1: cartridges would be inserted like a VHS tape. That's pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: Actually reminds me of This is kind of unrelated, but
Speaker 1: it's a little bit like how Subway realized, if you
Speaker 1: compare their sandwiches to other sandwiches, you've got this mediocre proposition.
Speaker 1: But when you compare a sandwich to other fast foods,
Speaker 1: suddenly it seems like, you know, this healthy idea exactly.
Speaker 1: So they reframed this as modern family entertainment and it
Speaker 1: was also renamed as the nintend To Entertainment System, where
Speaker 1: the NES to further obscure it's role as a piece
Speaker 1: of gaming hardware. And then they played with the color
Speaker 1: scheme so instead of being like bright red and white
Speaker 1: like the Japanese version was, they muted it down to
Speaker 1: this two tone gray color scheme, so that the strategy
Speaker 1: for the US was to kind of make it duller.
Speaker 1: Did that end up working, Yeah, it did, but consumers
Speaker 1: were only part of the hurdle. Like Nintendo also had
Speaker 1: to deal with retailers, and when it was time to
Speaker 1: launch the NES, most stores were hesitant to devote any
Speaker 1: shelf space to another, you know, slow selling video game system.
Speaker 1: So to solve that problem. Nintendo came up with this
Speaker 1: robotic accessory that they dubbed ROB. It was the Robotic
Speaker 1: Operating Buddy, and when the marketing push for the NES began,
Speaker 1: Robbed the robot was front and center, helping to assure
Speaker 1: parents and store owners that the NES was this worthy investment.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's kind of funny to think that this
Speaker 1: physical toy robot being a selling point for a video game.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just the opposite. Now, most kids would
Speaker 1: pick an iPad over an action figure any day. I
Speaker 1: would think, Yeah, I mean, that's definitely true. And honestly,
Speaker 1: rob was never a hot item, like the robot was
Speaker 1: this last minute edition solely designed to move units, so
Speaker 1: it's interaction with the system was limited to a few
Speaker 1: week titles that you know, hardly anyone remembers today, but
Speaker 1: none of that really mattered. Like ROB was basically this
Speaker 1: trojan horse. It was a way of sneaking a quality
Speaker 1: video game system into American society without much notice. And
Speaker 1: once he was there, people were able to play like
Speaker 1: Super Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt and kid Icarus or whatever.
Speaker 1: At that point, like nobody was complaining, and in fact,
Speaker 1: the rules worked so well that by over six million
Speaker 1: as consoles and more than thirty three million games had
Speaker 1: been sold in the US, and the systems weren't cheap either.
Speaker 1: That's pretty crazy. Yeah, when you're talking about Duck Hunt
Speaker 1: in these additions to the games. I remember playing that
Speaker 1: game and just how close the gun would be to
Speaker 1: the TV screen, like basically touching the screen, cheating, But
Speaker 1: it felt good, you know, to win. That was that
Speaker 1: That's the most experience I've had with hunting. But I
Speaker 1: was pretty good get out. But this was definitely some
Speaker 1: smart strategy. And I guess robots were super popular back then.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's right around the time when Transformers and
Speaker 1: Voltron and short Circuit were popular. Short Circond two was
Speaker 1: so good. But you know, I do like how the
Speaker 1: story kind of shows Nintendo drawing on its experience as
Speaker 1: a toy company, you know, because I actually think there's
Speaker 1: a case to be made for still thinking of Nintendo
Speaker 1: as a toy maker first, rather than maybe it's a
Speaker 1: video game company. Well, I mean, I think that's an
Speaker 1: interesting line of thinking, and I definitely want to hear
Speaker 1: more about what you want to say about that. But uh,
Speaker 1: why don't we take a little break first? Okay, Mango,
Speaker 1: it's quiz. Time to be ready. I guess we're not
Speaker 1: the ones that really have to be ready. We're gonna
Speaker 1: we're gonna play a quiz because we're talking Nintendo today,
Speaker 1: and we decided to bring on one of our friends
Speaker 1: from here and how Stuff works, also the producer of
Speaker 1: the always brilliant Tech Stuff, Ramsey Young. Welcome to part
Speaker 1: time genius. Glad to be here. Alright, are you nervous
Speaker 1: about this quiz? Very nervous? Okay, but before we do
Speaker 1: the quiz, you are a big video game fan, so,
Speaker 1: so what's your go to console and video games? Now?
Speaker 1: It is actually a PlayStation four, um, but I grew
Speaker 1: up playing pretty much most of the consoles. I still
Speaker 1: have my attor console that still works and collection of
Speaker 1: games for that. But it's definitely not attached to television
Speaker 1: because it's a process. Okay, but you had an original
Speaker 1: Nintendo as well? Yes, yes, alright, well that qualifies you
Speaker 1: to play this game. Okay, So, Mengo, what game are
Speaker 1: we playing with Ramsey today? It's called real unpopular Nintendo
Speaker 1: game or something we just made up. Okay, right, so
Speaker 1: we're gonna give you the name of a game and
Speaker 1: and a quick description, and you just have to tell
Speaker 1: if it's real or if it's something that we made up.
Speaker 1: And some of them are a Nintendo games, some of
Speaker 1: them are Super Nintendo games. Before we get hate mail, alright,
Speaker 1: Question number one Baby Boomer and here's the description. A
Speaker 1: game where a baby escapes his crib and you have
Speaker 1: to use the duck hunt gun to shoot birds, cobras,
Speaker 1: and other annoyances out of the way. Is this a
Speaker 1: real game or something we made up? I'm gonna say
Speaker 1: it is a real game. Yeah, it's a real game,
Speaker 1: just like real life. Or use a gun to shoot
Speaker 1: things out of your baby's way. I forgot that was
Speaker 1: your style. Okay. Number two, TV tag the game and
Speaker 1: here's the description. This trivia slash skill game was set
Speaker 1: in a retirement community where you wheeled around your grandfather
Speaker 1: in a game of TV tag. Whenever you got tagged,
Speaker 1: you answered TV trivia to unfreeze yourself with the occasional
Speaker 1: help of your daughtering grandfather. Is this real or something
Speaker 1: we made up? I'm gonna say that is something you
Speaker 1: made up. It sounds really how this real is shooting
Speaker 1: the things in the way of your baby? I want
Speaker 1: to play this game, yeah, grandfather, all right? Number three,
Speaker 1: Oh this is good? All right? Bill Lambier's Combat Basket
Speaker 1: Mango is is l a Lakers fans as kids like
Speaker 1: we couldn't okay Bill Lambier's Combat Basketball And here's the description.
Speaker 1: This game is set in a dystopian future where the
Speaker 1: Pistons player runs an ultra violet beetball league where players
Speaker 1: use armor, minds and spinning blades to get to the hoop.
Speaker 1: Is this real or something we made up? I'm gonna
Speaker 1: say yes. I think I remember seeing something style basketball game,
Speaker 1: like you could pick weapons and then go out and
Speaker 1: play basketball. It's curious why this wasn't a big seller,
Speaker 1: but it might have something to do with the fact
Speaker 1: that Bill Lambier was the start kids Sandil Lamber number four.
Speaker 1: He is what three out of three two left? Stewart
Speaker 1: the Goat Hurder and the description. In this game, Stewart
Speaker 1: the Terrible Goat hurt Or tries to prove his family
Speaker 1: wrong by hurting a flock of goats through increasingly difficult challenges,
Speaker 1: from walking them one by one across the river to
Speaker 1: trying to use various skills to lure them away from
Speaker 1: a Pebo Bryson Concert. Is this real or something we
Speaker 1: made up? That sounds like the worst game ever. I'm
Speaker 1: going to say it's something you made up because I'm
Speaker 1: hoping some last one. You gotta get this for the
Speaker 1: big prize? Okay? Alright? Number five Home Improvement Power Tool
Speaker 1: Pursuit and the description in this super a ne s
Speaker 1: game you shoot dinosaurs and mummies with a nail gun
Speaker 1: while trying to get through a giant TV studio. Is
Speaker 1: this real or something we made up? I mean, if
Speaker 1: Tim Allen's name was attached to I imagine it. Yeah, totally,
Speaker 1: It's true. It's a real game. Is this really? And
Speaker 1: the confusing game came with no instructions because real men
Speaker 1: don't need instructions? Are you serious? This is a super
Speaker 1: Was it based off the TV show? All right? So
Speaker 1: Ramsey went what five for five? Right? So what does
Speaker 1: that entitle him to? So Ramsey is going to get
Speaker 1: a part time genius official certificate of Genius and we'll
Speaker 1: be delivering it along with a hearty congratulations. Congratulations, thanks
Speaker 1: so much for joining us. Appreciate it. Okay, Well, so
Speaker 1: clue me in. Why should we think of Nintendo as
Speaker 1: a toy company instead of a video game company. And
Speaker 1: if we do, why is that a good thing? Well,
Speaker 1: the second part depends on who you ask. So the
Speaker 1: gaming industry has gone through major changes since Nintendo's heyday
Speaker 1: and the eighties and the early nineties, and adult gamers
Speaker 1: make up a much larger portion of the market than
Speaker 1: they once did, and both the types of games being
Speaker 1: made in the gaming culture as a whole have changed
Speaker 1: really to reflect that new demographic. So, for example, a
Speaker 1: game in their early twenties who mostly plays these realistic
Speaker 1: and third person shooter games like Call of Duty, they
Speaker 1: might not think that Nintendo being a toy company is
Speaker 1: such a positive thing. Yeah, that's one thing I noticed
Speaker 1: a lot while researching. Like the other big names and
Speaker 1: video games I'm talking about, like Microsoft and Sony, they're
Speaker 1: largely known for their computing power, and that makes them
Speaker 1: really intense, immersive gaming experiences. But Nintendo has seen is
Speaker 1: almost like this quirkier, more playful, almost this underpowered option. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the interesting thing to me is that the difference
Speaker 1: you're noting is completely intentional. Thanks to the video game
Speaker 1: bust in the mid eighties, Nintendo had a clear playing
Speaker 1: field when they arrived on the scene. But when Sega
Speaker 1: began releasing their own rival consoles, soon to be followed
Speaker 1: by Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo quickly found itself locked into
Speaker 1: a graphical arms race. Really sure, so this is when
Speaker 1: the so called console wars ranging, and each company tried
Speaker 1: to outdo the other with a faster, more powerful hardware
Speaker 1: that promised to like redefine gaming, and after the Game Boy,
Speaker 1: something like the Super Nintendo, the N sixty four, more
Speaker 1: buttons on the controllers, more immersive graphics. I mean, it
Speaker 1: seems like Nintendo kept pace for a while, but in
Speaker 1: the end it was just like a battle they couldn't win. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean that's kind of the thing. I don't think
Speaker 1: Nintendo lost so much as it just bowed out. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's almost like the company woke up one day and
Speaker 1: remembered that it would just much rather be playing games
Speaker 1: than fighting wars. So what prompted that epiphany, Well, the
Speaker 1: company was forced to face some harsh truths back in
Speaker 1: the early two thousands. Its latest console was the GameCube,
Speaker 1: if you remember, and I had forgotten about the Cube.
Speaker 1: I mean, why were cubes so probably like Apple came
Speaker 1: out with the Cube computer too, right, just the shape
Speaker 1: I guess nobody'd ever recognize before. I really have no idea,
Speaker 1: but the Nintendo's GameCube definitely underperformed. I mean, it had
Speaker 1: to compete with Sony's PlayStation two and Microsoft's Xbox. And
Speaker 1: it was during this time that new leadership came to
Speaker 1: Nintendo in the form of Saturo Iwata, and it was
Speaker 1: the first Nintendo president who actually wasn't a member of
Speaker 1: the founding Yamachi family. So a lot of shook things
Speaker 1: up by placing the focus on software rather than hardware,
Speaker 1: instead of building the most powerful console they could and
Speaker 1: then working backwards to figure out what kind of games
Speaker 1: would take advantage of that power. I want to encourage
Speaker 1: designers to think up fun and unique game concepts first
Speaker 1: and then create the console to run them, which is
Speaker 1: just a very different way of thinking about it. So
Speaker 1: that shift in perspective lad to brand new toys and
Speaker 1: to the way video games were played. You think about
Speaker 1: things like the Nintendo DS, which really was built off
Speaker 1: the game Boy but had this dual touch screen system,
Speaker 1: or maybe the motion controlled home console, the Nintendo WE
Speaker 1: and then you have the wee fits of several new
Speaker 1: ideas well. I mean, we all know how that worked
Speaker 1: out for them, right like that, We was such a
Speaker 1: smash hit with just about everybody. And I remember seeing
Speaker 1: all these Wimbledon tournaments and retirement homes and enfolding tournaments too.
Speaker 1: It was it was really built for everybody. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: we made video games accessible to this wider audience, and
Speaker 1: much wider than it had ever been before, and it
Speaker 1: did so by returning the focus to these simple joys
Speaker 1: of play. So suddenly you've got families gathering in their
Speaker 1: living rooms to play video games together, and not just kids,
Speaker 1: but parents and grandparents. Like you mentioned, this is what
Speaker 1: a Wada described as a blue ocean, which was this
Speaker 1: new market free of rivals. The idea was that if
Speaker 1: the offerings were innovative enough, it could spark the interest
Speaker 1: and enthusiasm of anyone looking to have fun. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: actually loved that me too, And apparently there were a
Speaker 1: lot of people looking to have fun, because the We
Speaker 1: became Nintendo's best selling home console to date actually sold
Speaker 1: over a hundred million units in its lifespan. That's pretty incredible. Okay,
Speaker 1: so clearly Nintendo went its own way in terms of
Speaker 1: creative and business models. But how does that make them
Speaker 1: more of a toy company than a video company. And
Speaker 1: how do you see the difference. Well, I really think
Speaker 1: it comes down to the intention behind the product. I mean,
Speaker 1: when Nintendo changed direction and became a toy company in
Speaker 1: the sixties and seventies, there was this sense of freedom
Speaker 1: and discovery to their products, and I think it's because
Speaker 1: they were experimenting. You know, they were dreaming up weird
Speaker 1: ideas and turning them into silly gadgets that were appealing
Speaker 1: not just because they were using the latest and greatest technology,
Speaker 1: but because they were just fun to play with a
Speaker 1: lot of help the return the company to that mindset
Speaker 1: and the one they had when they were just a
Speaker 1: toy company. Yeah, that's interesting, and it makes sense that
Speaker 1: the company with that kind of history would have a
Speaker 1: completely different culture and ethos than other video game giants.
Speaker 1: I mean, Sony is really a consumer electronics company first,
Speaker 1: then it's not video games as a new revenue stream.
Speaker 1: And Microsoft is this like you know, digital PC and
Speaker 1: electronics company. First, then they figured we already make computers.
Speaker 1: What's a game console if not a specialized computer. But
Speaker 1: what's cool is that it sounds like Nintendo is leaning
Speaker 1: into those differences now, Oh, definitely. So I found this
Speaker 1: speech that Miamoto and to say we should devote an
Speaker 1: episode to just Miamoto because he's such a genius and
Speaker 1: how he came up with Mario and Zelda and so
Speaker 1: many other games over Nintendo's lifespan is definitely worth exploring.
Speaker 1: But back to the talk. He was giving a talk
Speaker 1: to a group of investors a few years back, and
Speaker 1: there's one that really shows how the company is playing
Speaker 1: to its strength. So he said, Nintendo is known as
Speaker 1: a video game company, but in fact it's also a
Speaker 1: toy company. Toys make consumers feel a sense of wonder.
Speaker 1: When it comes to video game hardware, companies tend to
Speaker 1: take the similar and rather unified course of aiming to
Speaker 1: beef up the machines functionalities in our efforts to differentiate
Speaker 1: our hardware from others. I believe it's important that users
Speaker 1: experience that feeling that they have played with a new toy. Well,
Speaker 1: speaking of that sense of wonder that comes from a
Speaker 1: new toy, have you heard about the secret tribute to
Speaker 1: Iwada that Nintendo hid in its new console in the
Speaker 1: switch or what is it? Yeah? So, unfortunately the man
Speaker 1: who helped Nintendo return to its roots, passed away in
Speaker 1: two thousand fift he had complications from a tumor. But
Speaker 1: uh it was especially tough because it Wata helped shepherd
Speaker 1: the new Switch console through its development, and suddenly the
Speaker 1: company was faced with this grim prospect of launching it
Speaker 1: without him. But earlier this year, it was discovered that
Speaker 1: the Nintendo team had actually done something a little sneaky.
Speaker 1: They secretly embedded this digital copy of an old NYS
Speaker 1: Golf game within the firmware of every Switch console, and
Speaker 1: the only way to access the game is by holding
Speaker 1: a controller in each hand and replicating a signature hand
Speaker 1: gesture that it Wada used to use in his promotional
Speaker 1: videos for the company. That's pretty sweet and a little
Speaker 1: bit odd. I guess why did they choose a golf game? Well,
Speaker 1: the ANYS Golf was one of the first games of
Speaker 1: water program for Nintendo, so it kind of held a
Speaker 1: special significance. And more broadly, it's possible the game was
Speaker 1: meant as this uh omamori, which is uh it's kind
Speaker 1: of like the special charm that's traditionally left that Japanese
Speaker 1: shrines to offer protection to departed spirits. So, as one
Speaker 1: gamer put it, Nintendo embedded it, WADA's game did to
Speaker 1: watch over every unit. Are you trying to make me
Speaker 1: tear up over a video game? Now? But it really
Speaker 1: does go back to what we've been saying about Nintendo, right.
Speaker 1: It's not your typical company. It's got this long and
Speaker 1: weird and complicated history, and the childlike approach to game
Speaker 1: design that it's adopted has made sure of that. And
Speaker 1: the result of it is that you end up. Whether
Speaker 1: you call them toys or video games, Nintendo products have
Speaker 1: a level of sincerity and heart that separates them from
Speaker 1: everything else. Well. I don't know about you, but all
Speaker 1: this talk of gaming has made me feel kind of competitive, honestly.
Speaker 1: So what do you say we go head to head
Speaker 1: and a little two player backed up? I'm in h Okay. Well,
Speaker 1: for all the talk of Nintendo sweetness and sincerity, they
Speaker 1: didn't always abandoned their gambling or your couza rude, So
Speaker 1: did you know that in they tried to bring online
Speaker 1: gambling into homes. According to Kataku, they teamed up with
Speaker 1: the state of Minnesota to create this gaming system and
Speaker 1: a cartridge that you could spend ten dollars a month
Speaker 1: for this subscription gambling service. They sort of gamify the
Speaker 1: lottery with the system. But Nintendo quickly realized that maybe
Speaker 1: creating this gambling game that kids might access it wasn't
Speaker 1: a great idea for their brand, and they decided to
Speaker 1: kill the project before political and religious groups could could
Speaker 1: voice their opinions about it. That's pretty wild. Did you
Speaker 1: know that Shigeru Miyamoto is considered so valuable to the
Speaker 1: company that it's in his contract that he's not allowed
Speaker 1: to bike to work. I mean, the sixties something designer
Speaker 1: used to love Viking, but as Business Insider put it,
Speaker 1: the company is too afraid he might go the way
Speaker 1: of Frogger. I did not know that. Well. Do you
Speaker 1: know that Nintendo used to own the Seattle Mariners. Apparently
Speaker 1: Nintendo's Japanese CEO didn't really care about baseball, but when
Speaker 1: the team was going to move to St. Petersburg, Florida,
Speaker 1: Yumochi decided to buy the team. Is a goodwill gesture
Speaker 1: to the city of Sea at all. Nintendo's American operation
Speaker 1: is located not far from there, in the city of Redmond. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's kind of amazing, and it was apparently
Speaker 1: super controversial at the time. Because people were worried about
Speaker 1: a foreign entity owning an American baseball team, which is crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is. Did you know the original Super Mario Brothers
Speaker 1: was all drawn on graph paper and it was all
Speaker 1: colored in and when the designers were happy with a
Speaker 1: certain level, that's when they had send it off to code. Eventually,
Speaker 1: the team started using this internal software to design the games,
Speaker 1: but their tool became so fun to play with that
Speaker 1: that's actually what they released to the public as Super
Speaker 1: Mario Maker. Well, speaking of Mario, r pal Nick Green
Speaker 1: figured this out, and I love this so much, so
Speaker 1: he wanted to figure out how much Mario runs and
Speaker 1: swims in Super Mario Brothers. If you take out all
Speaker 1: the bonuses and shortcuts, and if you run from the
Speaker 1: start all the way to the castle, he only does
Speaker 1: about three point four miles. And as for the swimming,
Speaker 1: if you isolate that, he only actually does about seven
Speaker 1: and a half laps in an Olympic sized pool. I mean,
Speaker 1: Nikorean is a genius, but I do think he's discounting
Speaker 1: how many turtles he's jumping over and how much Parker
Speaker 1: he basically has to do along the way. It's always
Speaker 1: got that six pack, so Tristan held up the Konami
Speaker 1: code in the beginning of the show, and I've been
Speaker 1: waiting to talk about this. It's obviously used in pop culture.
Speaker 1: I mean you find it on Archer The Family Guy
Speaker 1: as an inside joke, but from time to time you
Speaker 1: find it as an easter egg on various sites. So
Speaker 1: a while back, when you fired up the code into
Speaker 1: Google Reader, a bunch of cartoon ninjas would pop out
Speaker 1: onto your screen. I don't know if you remember this.
Speaker 1: It was really fun to watch. And when the code
Speaker 1: was used on ESPN dot com, it would bring up
Speaker 1: all these sparkly unicorns. Basically it was a unicorn infestation,
Speaker 1: and whenever you clicked a new sparkle pony would pop up.
Speaker 1: But the craziest to me was when Newsweek got in
Speaker 1: on the action, because if you typed in the code,
Speaker 1: the lead article was about zombies attacking parts of the
Speaker 1: East Coast, but it also had these tips for the
Speaker 1: zombie apocalypse, like aim for their heads. And Newsweek only
Speaker 1: partially owned the correction. Like a spokesperson said, now we've
Speaker 1: all to laugh. We will be removing it to that
Speaker 1: one alright, Well, I feel like we can't finish an
Speaker 1: episode without talking about Nintendo Power. You know, the magazine
Speaker 1: and all the tips about games and hyped up the
Speaker 1: new games. And I know we were both subscribers at
Speaker 1: one point, but they also published high scores and apparently
Speaker 1: Steve wosni Act, you know, the co founder of Apple,
Speaker 1: was a huge fan. He used to keep submitting his
Speaker 1: scores for Tetris month after month, and eventually the magazine
Speaker 1: had to ask him to stop submitting because they couldn't
Speaker 1: keep printing his name. So he finally agreed to it,
Speaker 1: but not before sending in one last entry vets Kane
Speaker 1: z o w or his name backwards. That's pretty great.
Speaker 1: I mean that the was was like and subscriber to
Speaker 1: Nintendo Power is just so insane. Yeah, you've got to
Speaker 1: take the crown for that. All right, Well, thank you
Speaker 1: so much and thank you guys for listening. That's it
Speaker 1: for today's episode. If we forgot any of your favorite
Speaker 1: facts about Nintendo or anything related to video games, feel
Speaker 1: free to send those to us. We'd love to hear
Speaker 1: those facts. You can always email us part time genius
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com or call our seven
Speaker 1: Fact hotline. That's one eight four four pt Genius. It
Speaker 1: is still seven mangoes that right, Yes, Okay, that's excellent news.
Speaker 1: You can also hit us up on Facebook or Twitter.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening. Thanks again for listening. Part
Speaker 1: Time Genius is a production of how stuff works, and
Speaker 1: wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do the
Speaker 1: important things we couldn't even begin to understand. Tristan McNeil
Speaker 1: does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme song
Speaker 1: and does the MIXI mixy sound thing. Jerry Rowland does
Speaker 1: the exact producer thing. Gave Bluesier is our lead researcher,
Speaker 1: with support from the Research Army, including Austin Thompson, Nolan
Speaker 1: Brown and Lucas Adams and Eve Jeff Cook gets the
Speaker 1: show to your ears. Good job, Eves. If you like
Speaker 1: what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe. If you really
Speaker 1: really like what you've heard, maybe you could leave a
Speaker 1: good review for us. We did. We forget Jason Jason,
Speaker 1: who