WEBVTT - The Story of Nintendo, Part 1 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.960 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:08.880 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with 0:00:09.000 --> 0:00:17.400 head stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello everyone, 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:20.040 welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Polette, and 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:22.520 I am an editor at how stuff works dot com. 0:00:22.520 --> 0:00:25.840 Sitting across from me, as always, is senior writer and 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:30.360 jumpman Jonathan Strickland. Up left up, right right right down 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:34.159 left up up. That's actually a lyric. If you can 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:36.760 figure that one out, then you are a super fan. 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:39.240 And if you can identify the problem with that lyric, 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:41.520 you can tell us that too. Yeah. No, I'm sure 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:43.360 we'll get plenty of people telling us the problem with 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:45.720 that lyric if they figure out the source of it. Um. 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:48.839 All right, So today we are going to talk about 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:52.680 a company that is fairly well known in tech circles, 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:57.040 the Nintendo, but did not start out as a tech 0:00:57.120 --> 0:01:02.080 company as many a tech company as especially the ones 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:04.880 that have lasted as long as Nintendo. Yeah, some of 0:01:04.880 --> 0:01:08.720 the other, you know, video game companies also have their 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:13.680 origin in something other than video games. I'm I'm thinking 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:17.640 of Colico, Yeah, the Connecticut leather company. Yeah, Connecticut leather 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:20.600 company that we've already made the joke about games coming 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:23.840 out of the Connecticut Leather Company and Tandy also. Yeah, 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:27.680 so Nintendo is also one of those companies that and 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:30.479 now they have their history in games, but it wasn't 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:34.839 video games because in eight nine when the company was founded, 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:39.120 video games didn't exist yet because television resolution was terrible 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:43.520 as a non existent. Yeah, you had to actually uh stop, 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:46.560 draw the next picture, all right, and then you know, 0:01:46.640 --> 0:01:48.760 oh and this is what happened next. Hold on, ye, 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:53.080 it's time for this kind of like Dragon's Layer, but 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:59.600 it's super slow speeds. Alright, So that's the one Nega hurt. Yeah. 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:02.280 So so in order for you guys to understand we 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:04.560 we really actually have to go back much further than 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:11.320 even the founding of the company. Um, Chris, um, yes, no, 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:13.960 I'm getting in that now. You got to man, all right, 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:17.040 the way back machine is ready to go, going in there. 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:19.880 I'm right behind you, Chris. Yeah. You know, sometimes I'm 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:21.760 afraid he's gonna shove me in here and then shut 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:25.280 the door. Yeah. Well it's bigger on the inside anyway. Alright, 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:29.560 So let me just set this to U sixteen thirty 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:42.720 three Japan. There were push the button, Frank, And here 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:46.359 we are in sixteen thirty three Japan. Uh you say 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:50.799 so the samurai right over there, that's uh watch out 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:57.720 for the yakuza. Alright. So in sixte yeah, the Japanese. Uh, well, 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:01.520 there was a decision may to close the borders of 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:05.320 Japan to be from away from the outside world. And 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:07.160 they shoved off and they pushed themselves out in the 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:09.160 middle of the ocean. I'm kidding. It used to be 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:12.440 Japan used to be located next to New Jersey. Uh No, 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:16.440 that's not true, not true at all, imagining thousands of 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:21.400 people rowing pats. Actually it's just one Godzilla pushing really hard. 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:24.520 Um No. As it turns out, Japan had made this 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:28.639 decision to Japanese government made decision to to essentially ostracize 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:32.800 themselves from everybody else to too. There was very xenophobic 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:37.520 era in Japan where the Japanese culture, which was very 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:42.320 much centered on UH concepts that were UH based in 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:45.760 things like family and honor and tradition. They saw the 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:49.600 outside world as threats to that, and so a lot 0:03:49.640 --> 0:03:52.000 of contact was cut off from the outside world in 0:03:52.080 --> 0:03:57.720 Japan became inwardly focused. Well, at that time, the government 0:03:58.000 --> 0:04:05.320 banned the uh importation of all foreign playing cards. Part 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:07.840 of the problem was that there was an issue with 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:12.480 gambling in Japan that'll come up later too. So because 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:16.520 of the issue of gambling, the Japanese government decided to 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:22.920 to ban the the importation and sale of foreign playing cards. Now, 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:27.039 this actually created a market for domestic playing card companies. 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:32.320 Um that we're able to within certain parameters produced playing cards. 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:35.440 Now we've set the scene, all right. For the rest 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:37.000 of this, we'll just tell it from the present day. 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:40.039 So let's get back in the way back machine. Come on, 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:43.599 all right, assuming let me say this to present day, 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:48.760 which was a late October, all right, and push the 0:04:48.800 --> 0:05:00.600 button rank and back into our cozy studio. Alright, so 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:06.680 cozy seventeenth century Japan cuts off this these ties to 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:11.359 the outside world. And then in eighteen fifty nine a 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:15.080 a fellow by the name of Fusa Gio Yamachi was born. 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:19.200 And I would like to take this opportunity to apologize 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:21.880 to any Japanese listeners for the way I will butcher 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:25.799 names throughout the entirety of this podcast, because it's gonna happen. 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:29.600 I am non Japanese. I've never taken Japanese. Um So, 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:32.880 if you will just extend me a a little slack, 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:38.320 uh I would owe you and rigato um So in 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:41.440 eighteen fifty nine, He's born, Machi is born and uh 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:44.720 and and he would found the company in eighteen eighty nine. 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:50.400 He called it Nintendo Kopai and the company was making 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:55.240 special playing cards uh out of out of bark actually 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:58.839 for a game called Hanafuda. Now do you know what 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:03.840 Nintendo means? What does Nintendo mean? It's it's it's translated 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:09.040 frequently as leave luck to Heaven, which sort of goes 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:11.800 along with, you know, playing cards, because you know, and 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:16.440 you're talking about games, luck would be involved. Sure. And 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:20.880 Hamafuda means flower cards. And these were cards that, instead 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:23.240 of having numbers on them, which is what the gamblers 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:27.600 were using, um had flowers on them, pictures of flowers 0:06:27.680 --> 0:06:30.240 hand painted actually when they first came out, and they 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:34.279 became really really popular and uh and the company saw 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:38.880 a lot of early success. Uh And In eighteen eighteen 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:42.480 eighty nine, the same year that Nintendo was founded, uh 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:46.200 the Japanese government began to relax some of the restrictions 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:49.279 that they had placed around the whole industry of playing 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:52.279 cards in the first place, so it was perfectly positioned, 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:56.760 and so Nintendo Capie began to UH to expand very 0:06:56.839 --> 0:06:59.839 quickly because everyone thought that the artwork on the cards 0:06:59.880 --> 0:07:03.360 was really beautiful and so they were desirable to have. 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:06.360 And then the restrictions at the same time, we're started 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:10.680 to slack a bit. Uh the company saw a lot 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:15.240 of early success, and that was really what it focused on, 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:20.760 was producing playing cards. Now, in nineteen twenty nine, Fusagiro 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:23.880 retired and he handed over the control of his company 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:29.400 to his son in law, Uh SAKIROA and Uh, who 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:32.760 then took the family name, the Yamauchi family name. And 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:36.960 in fact, all Nintendo CEOs with the exception of the 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:42.960 current one, were related to UH Fusagro in some way, 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:47.800 either by actual blood or by marriage. Um really by 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:50.080 marriage when you get down to it. But in nineteen 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:53.560 thirty three, that's when the company changed its name to 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:56.840 Yamauchi Nintendo and Company. So they dropped the KAPI at 0:07:56.880 --> 0:08:01.520 that point and they created a a second company, a 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:06.880 card game distributor company called Marofuku Company Limited, and both 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:10.960 of those companies at that time saw great success. So 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:15.720 again Nintendo is already doing really really well. Uh, and 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:19.520 of course video games are not anywhere near the picture 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:26.440 at this point. Yeah. So in nineteen nine, Securio suffered 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:31.120 a stroke and he was no longer able to control 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:34.560 the company, and so he handed over the company to 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:40.520 his grandson, Hiroshi. Now this caused a lot of concern 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:44.720 within Nintendo because Hiroshi was very young. He was twenty 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:47.120 one at the time when he was given the company, 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:50.080 and he was a law school student. He wasn't a 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:53.760 business student, so he was starting to become a lawyer. 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:56.560 He dropped out of college, out of law school in 0:08:56.679 --> 0:09:00.679 order to to take over this company, and some of 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:06.120 the the employees of Nintendo really objected to him becoming 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:09.280 the new head of the company, so much so that 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:12.880 there was actually a factory strike m m. He. As 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:14.840 a matter of fact, he uh, he went down in 0:09:14.960 --> 0:09:18.520 history for uh firing a lot of those employees. That 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:21.960 was not a popular move within the company. Yeah, Hiroshi was. 0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:25.880 He kind of showed everyone who was boss. He took 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:30.680 He introduced at corporate culture. He had the Darth Vader 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:35.200 method of of management, and that if you if you 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:39.080 thought that he was his decisions were not good ones, 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:42.480 then he didn't want you working for him anymore. Yeah. Yeah, actually, 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:46.280 uh I. Part of my research was done from a 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:50.040 book called All Your Base or Belonged to Us UM 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:53.120 by Harold Goldberg. He has a chapter on It's a 0:09:53.200 --> 0:09:54.760 it's a history of video games, but he has a 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:57.880 chapter on Nintendo, which is which is pretty fascinating. And 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:00.760 they said that that he was a really serious guy. Yeah, 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:03.160 I mean they you know, watching him crack a smile, 0:10:03.679 --> 0:10:06.880 you'd have to wait because he didn't do it very frequently. 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:10.160 Was a very very no nonsense sort of fellow, but 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:13.720 very business like, exactly kind of like the cliche idea 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:16.880 we have of the Japanese businessman, you know, very formal 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:22.960 and very serious. Um. And he also instituted a policy 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:28.160 that would become something that sort of resonates throughout Nintendo 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:31.760 for years to come, which was that he demanded that 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:35.000 all products that Nintendo was going to produce be cleared 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:38.240 through him personally before the company would move on it. 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:40.640 So you think about that, I mean, this is a 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:43.760 CEO of a company. Now most companies, the CEO is 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:47.920 directing the company, you know, since he's got a hands 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:51.840 on involvement with the company. But you don't necessarily have 0:10:52.080 --> 0:10:56.160 every single product cleared through your CEO and every company. 0:10:56.200 --> 0:10:58.440 There are a few companies that, did you know, Apple 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:02.760 being another famous company. Yeah, so Apple is another famous 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:05.680 company where that where the CEO had a real hands 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:08.760 on approach. Well, Hiroshi felt the same way, and and 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:11.960 this is a strategy that would pay off for Nintendo 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:14.880 further down the line. Not necessarily that the CEO had 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:17.640 to clear everything before it went through, but Nintendo decided 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:22.839 having this real focus on product quality that would become 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:28.240 very important when Nintendo would enter the video game market. Now, uh, 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:33.560 company diversified quite a bit. Yeah, well yeah, well, first 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:37.160 of all, ninety three they started to produce plastic playing cards, 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:40.760 which was that was the first big move as far 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:43.800 as technologically speaking goes, because but up to that point 0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:47.920 they were using paper or would cards. So in this 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:50.960 case they're they're moving to plastic cards, and they even 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:53.760 started to practice with some other stuff. In nineteen fifty nine, 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:56.960 they had they signed a big licensing agreement with another 0:11:57.360 --> 0:11:59.480 huge company. Do you know which company I'm talking about? 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:01.760 Was it the on with the mouse with the big ears? Yes, 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:06.480 it was Disney. So in ninety nine they become uh, 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:11.080 Nintendo and Disney form a partnership through licenses that allowed 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:14.679 a Nintendo to print playing cards with Disney characters on it, 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:17.440 which I don't know if you know this, if you're not, 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:19.320 if you've never been to Japan and you don't know 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:21.480 a lot about Japanese culture, you may not be aware 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:26.720 of this. But Disney was enormous in Japan, still is. 0:12:27.800 --> 0:12:30.080 But you know, it was one of those things that 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:34.160 really resonated with the Japanese people, and so these cards 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:39.280 were insanely popular. Um, and then they did try to 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:44.360 diversify because the playing card business, even at that point, 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:49.120 Nintendo could see that that the business was starting to 0:12:49.120 --> 0:12:52.760 slow down, and so they started looking into other ways 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:55.400 of making money. Now, you did you have a couple 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:58.640 that you wanted to particularly mention Um, there's one I'm 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:01.679 sort of debating mentioning was the hotel. Yes it was 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:04.920 the hotel. It's a very special kind of hotel. Yes, 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:08.480 it wasn't just a regular hotel. It was a hotel 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:11.960 that didn't have windows. Well, of course not it's a Nintendo. 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:14.360 Oh wait, never mind, all right, No, so while we're 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:16.760 dancing around here, is that and is this was gonna 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:18.880 be something that's shocking to people who think of Nintendo 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:22.560 as this family friendly sort of video game company. Um, 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:24.480 it was a hotel that didn't have windows. It was 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:28.839 meant for people who wanted a discreet place to whisk 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:32.720 away to and have a romantic interlude. Yes see, that's 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:36.440 that was very that was that was way of putting it. 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:40.320 And they had a taxi company, yeah, yeah, which they 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:42.280 it did have windows because it turned out that if 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:44.000 you had a taxi with no windows, it was very 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:47.560 dangerous to drive on the road. Yes, so anyway, yeah, 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:49.840 so they Nintendo, by the way, was not the only 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:54.920 company that tried this whole hotel, this love nest hotel thing. Um, 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:56.880 there were many other companies that tried it as well. 0:13:57.120 --> 0:14:00.559 So Nintendo tried that and the taxi service, as well 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:04.160 as producing foods essentially foods that you would buy at 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:08.280 a supermarket. But none of these lines of business really 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:11.320 panned out, and these were all failures for Nintendo, and 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:14.720 Hiroshi had sort of a black eye for kind of 0:14:14.880 --> 0:14:19.720 pushing the company into these areas. But as it turns out, um, 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:22.560 it was important for for the company to try and 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:29.000 diversify because in nineteen sixty four, the the game card 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:33.080 industry in Japan crashed. Just like you know, we've talked 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:35.680 about the three video game question. We'll talk about it 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:38.080 again in a in a little bit, but we've talked 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:40.560 about that in the past. The same sort of thing 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:45.240 happened in Japan with playing cards, and oddly enough, it 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:49.200 was for the same reasons are largely the same reasons, 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:52.600 and one of the big reasons was saturation. Yeah, you know, 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:55.120 you got to a point where these cards were really 0:14:55.120 --> 0:14:58.000 really popular for a really long time, so everyone owned them. 0:14:58.040 --> 0:14:59.960 But if everyone owns them, why would you go out 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:03.880 buy another one. You've already got them. You don't need anymore. 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:08.200 So because of that, the whole industry started to suffer 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:11.520 because you know, no one needed to buy more cards. Uh. 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:13.960 And this was right around the same time that Tokyo 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:16.800 was hosting the Olympics. So it was weird because you 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:19.440 had this huge influx of money coming into the country, 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:22.800 but you also had this industry failed, this this historically 0:15:23.040 --> 0:15:28.640 relevant industry failing. Yes, at the same time, but not 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:35.080 to know, manages to skirt the shoals of bankruptcy. Uh 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:38.760 to quote money python. Um, well, they got into toys 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:41.880 for a while too. Yeah, Well, in nineteen five they 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:46.440 hired a guy named gun pay Ya Koi, and gun 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:52.320 pay was a fellow who was very inventive. Um. He 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:56.360 worked in one of the playing card factories, and there 0:15:56.400 --> 0:15:58.320 he happened to be working there on a day when 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:02.920 Hiroshi came through and Hiroshi sees gun pay playing around 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:06.360 with something that he had invented that was essentially do 0:16:06.400 --> 0:16:09.920 you remember those in in cartoons that happens all the time. 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:13.720 There's a character that picks up a a boxing glove 0:16:13.800 --> 0:16:17.600 that's on like an accordion hand, uh, accordion sort of 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:20.200 lattice thing. Then if you pull a trigger, it extends 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:24.320 out and punches someone who's twenty feet away. So one 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:26.880 of those at home, that's well, that's essentially what gun 0:16:26.920 --> 0:16:29.240 pay had invented. He had invented this thing that was 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:31.720 a claw on the end of one of those so 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:34.600 you would, uh, you know, you pull these two levers 0:16:34.600 --> 0:16:38.040 together and it would extend out this accordion arm, and 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:40.000 at the end of the accordian arm was a claw. 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:42.840 And the very last action is that claw would close, 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:45.280 so it allows you to pick stuff up that was 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:48.560 slightly inconvenient for you to get up and pick up 0:16:48.600 --> 0:16:52.360 yourself and um and Hiroshi came to the conclusion that 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:56.520 perhaps what Nintendo could do is diversify and get into 0:16:56.960 --> 0:17:00.080 the toy business. Yes, and that that invention should be 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:04.480 came the ultra hand m that's uh, you know, very 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:08.160 typical and in my head Japanese name for something like that, 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:11.360 I'm probably thinking of ultraman at that point, so UM. 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:14.040 But yeah, it actually came with uh with some plastic 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:17.600 balls that you could pick up um. You know, well 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:20.560 anything like that you got to include the thing to 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:23.160 pick up. So they did that for a little while. 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:26.120 But that wasn't the only thing they didn't. They didn't really, 0:17:26.720 --> 0:17:30.760 from my research, get into toys wholesale, like where you know, oh, 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:32.480 this is what we're gonna do in the future. It 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:35.760 was more like a um, a trial thing that they 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:39.000 sort of experimented with for a little bit. Yeah, and 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:42.879 there were other I mean, there were several examples of 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:45.600 toys that they got into, UM, some of which gave 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:47.920 a hint at what they would be doing in the future. 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:52.560 Like they had a love tester, yes, the old the 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:55.120 old love testers, which you know, just sort of measure 0:17:55.200 --> 0:18:00.000 the um the your compatibility with another person you hold 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:03.160 a little handle and it tells you how red hot, yeah, exactly, 0:18:03.240 --> 0:18:06.840 or or a cold fish I remember cold Fish. Yeah, 0:18:07.240 --> 0:18:11.480 used to have those stuckies. Stuckies. Oh man, that's taking 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:14.560 me back to a comedy album anyway. But yeah, the 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:17.320 the Yeah, I was just looking at looking it up, 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:19.399 and it's a little slower to do this in uh, 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:23.120 in a non electronic format. But Goldberg the Dead Tree. 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:25.200 I actually had the Dead Tree edition. Whine checked it 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:29.120 out from the library. Um. Apparently they sold about one 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:34.360 point two million Ultra hands. So and the The Love 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:38.360 Tester came out in nine nine, but both of them 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:43.960 we're going with UH with the company's philosophy of because 0:18:44.000 --> 0:18:47.080 YOKOI apparently said, and this is a quote, the Nintendo 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:49.320 way of adapting technology is not to look for the 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:53.240 state of the art, but to utilize um, mature technology 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:56.359 that can be mass produced cheaply. Yeah. I feel like 0:18:56.400 --> 0:18:59.400 this is going to come up again. Um, but yeah, 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:01.560 that's that's a very it was a very responsible way 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:04.920 of doing things because it enabled them to put something 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:09.720 together using existing technology, no R and D. But at 0:19:09.720 --> 0:19:13.280 the same time it's sold very well, So that's that's 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:15.480 a good way to make money. Yeah, in fact, the 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:20.680 toys really turned Nintendo around. Without without that that serendipitous 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:26.959 uh discovery where Hiroshi saw Yakoi's work, Really the company 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:30.520 may not have survived because that the playing card industry 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:33.879 was in such such a such dire straits, and uh, 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:38.280 the other attempts of Nintendo to diversify had failed pretty 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:41.200 dramatically that without that, it may not have been able 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:43.320 to stay afloat long enough to get into the video 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:46.240 game era. But moving ahead a couple of years, in 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:51.440 nineteen three, Nintendo developed a technology called the Laser Clay 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:55.720 Shooting System, which was clay shooting system. It was it 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:57.640 was a light gun game. Okay, because I'm just trying 0:19:57.640 --> 0:19:59.399 to figure out what laser clay was, Well, you know, 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:03.600 it's it was a skeet shooting system. The skeet shooting game. 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:05.280 Like if you've ever been to one of those giant 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:08.720 arcades that has like the rifle that's really a light gun, 0:20:08.760 --> 0:20:11.560 and then you're firing at the image of a of 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:15.800 a clay pigeon. Duck hunt. Yeah, yeah, like duck Hunt 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:18.760 eventually would become, but in this case, it was stuff 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:20.879 that was projected on the wall. It wasn't necessarily it 0:20:20.920 --> 0:20:24.600 wasn't like a screen screen. Um, they installed these and 0:20:24.720 --> 0:20:28.000 old bowling alleys that had gone out of business. So 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:31.280 this was kind of creating an entertainment destination. It wasn't. 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:34.280 There's still a little too early for the arcade era. 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:36.440 We're talking nineteen seventy three here. In the arcade era 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:40.680 really started to take off in the late seventies. It 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:45.960 was heading into that period though. Yeah, that's when you 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:48.119 started seeing them pop up. And of course in Japan 0:20:48.680 --> 0:20:52.600 arcades are still incredibly popular. In in the United States, 0:20:52.760 --> 0:20:57.000 they are a rare breed. Uh So. In nineteen seventy four, 0:20:57.359 --> 0:21:02.000 Nintendo formed a partnership and arranged to become the distributor 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:05.719 in Japan of the Magna Vox Odyssey. I yes, I 0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:10.040 remember it well unfortunately. Yeah, so the Honesty was a 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:13.480 a home video game console, very limited. We talked about 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:16.320 it on our home video Games podcast, The Crash of 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:18.760 the Video Game. Yeah, so this is one of the 0:21:18.760 --> 0:21:21.359 the first actually it was the first video game home 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:24.679 video game console that really reached wide distribution, and so 0:21:24.800 --> 0:21:28.480 Nintendo became the the Japanese distributor for this. Now, Nintendo 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:32.480 did not develop the Odyssey, but they the company saw 0:21:32.560 --> 0:21:37.280 the the potential for that in Japan and actually it 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:41.520 did very well. And then in uh moving up, over 0:21:41.560 --> 0:21:44.120 the next few years, Nintendo started to market its own 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:47.680 game consoles. The game and Watch oh that was one 0:21:47.680 --> 0:21:50.919 of them. Yeah, the game that was the first portable 0:21:50.920 --> 0:21:53.200 system that was back that that I officially launched the 0:21:53.280 --> 0:21:57.240 nineteen eighty but just before that, in the seventies, Nintendo 0:21:57.359 --> 0:21:59.760 had some game consoles that were similar to the Odyssey, 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:02.040 and that they were not. It wasn't the kind of 0:22:02.080 --> 0:22:03.840 game console where you would put a cartridge in and 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:07.520 play a game. It was had had games hardwired onto 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:12.840 the console, so you couldn't switch between games or you could, 0:22:13.040 --> 0:22:14.919 you know, if there were like multiple games on that console, 0:22:14.960 --> 0:22:17.800 you could, but you couldn't put a new game into it. Yes, 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:23.000 and and and that really endeared Nintendo to Magnavox. Yeah, 0:22:23.359 --> 0:22:28.400 and by endeared, I mean completely ticked off and inspired lawsuits. Yeah, 0:22:28.440 --> 0:22:32.240 because again Nintendo had become the distributor of this device 0:22:32.359 --> 0:22:34.800 and then starts to come out with its own competing products, 0:22:34.840 --> 0:22:40.280 and Magnavox says, hey, but Nintendo didn't stump Nintendo. They 0:22:40.640 --> 0:22:43.680 had lost the lawsuit and had to pay licensing, but 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:46.280 they they put out their own version of games like 0:22:46.320 --> 0:22:51.119 ponged uh and this is also yeah Pong and you 0:22:51.119 --> 0:22:54.679 know in in nineteen seven, that's also when Nintendo hired 0:22:55.040 --> 0:22:59.760 a certain young artist who would become instrumental in the 0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:07.200 company's success, Shighetto Miyamoto. Yes, a famous name in video games. 0:23:07.200 --> 0:23:09.560 If you do not know who Miyamoto San is, then 0:23:09.640 --> 0:23:13.879 you are not a not a Nintendo fan. Yeah, I 0:23:14.520 --> 0:23:17.639 think it's safe to say that if if there is 0:23:17.680 --> 0:23:23.200 a polar opposite to the company's CEO, Miyamoto San would 0:23:23.200 --> 0:23:26.240 have been that guy. Miyamoto is like a rock star, 0:23:26.800 --> 0:23:29.520 and he really is treated like a rock star. Well, 0:23:29.600 --> 0:23:32.600 he wasn't at first thing. When he was first hired, 0:23:32.640 --> 0:23:35.119 he was just an artist, a no name artist. And 0:23:35.160 --> 0:23:37.760 as a matter of fact, he uh he got the 0:23:37.880 --> 0:23:43.000 job because of his parents connections. Um yeah, this again 0:23:43.119 --> 0:23:47.400 is according to uh Goldberg's book. But apparently, um, he 0:23:47.400 --> 0:23:49.879 he had his uh he he wanted to be a 0:23:49.920 --> 0:23:56.640 manga artist. Um, and his parents happened to know. Well, 0:23:56.720 --> 0:24:00.879 you know, when your parents know the CEO of a company, yeah, um, 0:24:01.000 --> 0:24:03.080 you know there they they may very well try to 0:24:03.119 --> 0:24:05.840 get you a job, which is what happened in this case. 0:24:06.040 --> 0:24:08.600 And Uh, it wasn't. It wasn't like it was a 0:24:08.640 --> 0:24:11.560 high level job. Now he was a basic artist for 0:24:11.560 --> 0:24:15.600 this company. Yeah, basically. Uh. During the interview process, you 0:24:15.680 --> 0:24:18.400 Mantu was asking him questions like why should I hire you? 0:24:19.240 --> 0:24:21.199 Um and and and told him, you know, if I 0:24:21.280 --> 0:24:24.120 hire you, it won't be because I know your parents, 0:24:24.400 --> 0:24:28.080 It'll be because you're good enough to work here. Uh 0:24:28.119 --> 0:24:30.399 here Again, he's a no, no nonsense kind of guy. 0:24:30.520 --> 0:24:33.440 He's a real business person. Um. But he said, yeah, 0:24:33.440 --> 0:24:35.960 okay fine, uh and hired him after about a month 0:24:35.960 --> 0:24:39.200