
The Rise of Nintendo: A Story in 8 Bits - mr_tyzic
http://grantland.com/features/the-rise-of-nintendo-video-games-history/
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Patient0
What struck me from reading this was the amount of failure and "suck" they had
to deal with before they finally had any success:

"Despite middling results from titles like Wild Gunman and Battle Shark,
Yamauchi remained committed to his new vision and continued to allocate a vast
amount of resources toward videogames. " ...

"Space Fever was followed by Space Launcher (underwhelming), which was
followed by Space Firebird (disappointing), which was followed by a slew of
unsuccessful non-space-themed games. After this string of mediocre misfires,
Stone and Judy were ready to quit, and Arakawa couldn’t help but reconsider
his new vocation. "

...

"That foreboding was validated after the three thousand units finally arrived
and Stone and Judy found that operators had little interest. Radarscope was
fun at first, the consensus appeared to be, but it lacked replay value."

on and on through failure after failure they kept trying until finally, Donkey
Kong.

It's a lesson: while consistent reliable and predictable success is what
everyone wants to achieve, the reality is often "failure, failure, failure,
failure... huge success that finally makes up for all of the previous
failures".

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magpi3
For anyone interested in this topic, this is a great, great book on the rise
of Nintendo:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Over_(book)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Over_\(book\))

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deaconblues
I believe a copy of that book came with my Gamecube preorder, all those years
ago. It's a great book, easy to read, very interesting.

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Tiktaalik
Though this excerpt of the "Console Wars" book is about Nintendo, according to
this Wired article[1], the book focuses heavily on Sega as well, and Sega of
America is the protagonist of the story.

[1] [http://www.wired.com/2014/05/console-wars-book-
sega/](http://www.wired.com/2014/05/console-wars-book-sega/)

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TheBiv
It appears like Nintendo acted like Apple does with apps (stringent reviews
that have to meet their expectation, share of revenues, etc). Can anyone who
has had software development experience with both Nintendo (back in the day)
and Apple (iPhone days) juxtapose the two software distributors? (Using any
pieces of anecdotal similarities you wish)

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bluedino
Nintendo had two intents - preventing shovelware that killed the Atari 2600,
and requiring royalties as well as making publishers purchase ROM cartridges
from Nintendo.

It didn't quite work. There were still quite a few downright horrible games
for the NES, look at any 'Worst Nintendo Games Ever' list. Two great examples
were X-Men and AD&D: Heroes of the Lance.

Also, Tengen (from Atari) released their own games with their own chips,
including a copied NES lockout chip. Remember those games that came in the
strange black cartridge that didn't look like other NES games, notably the
first Tetris, Gauntlet, and Ms. Pacman? Those were Tengen games, and they
ended up in a legal battle with Nintendo.

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bsirkia
I'm a huge fan of Grantland and HN, love it when a Grantland piece makes it on
here.

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noname123
Who do you like more? Bill, Clairvoyant Bill, Jalen with Baseball Bat, Jalen
with Sunglasses or plain old Jacoby?

~~~
bsirkia
Hmmmm, probably Jalen with Sunglasses, since Champagning and Campaigning is my
favorite segment.

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dosh
Growing up with games from Nintendo, Sega, and bunch of old-but-goodies, sort
of miss the old days. Playing Super Mario 3 on the original nintendo, then the
awe of Super Mario World on SNES.. Sonic the Hedgehog's awesome CD background
music...

Life was much simpler back then. You get your game featured on one of the game
magazines then you hit gold. No version updates, just plain big releases. Game
reviews...

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dspillett
For an important side-note relating to Nintendo's history, have a look for the
BBC4 documentary "From Russia With Love" which covered the unexpectedly
interesting history of Tetris (particularly the politics and corporate
machinations around its move into the west) in which Nintendo played a part.

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johnorourke
[humor] tl;dr? Cartoon version here:
[http://brawlinthefamily.keenspot.com/2012/04/11/400-the-
hist...](http://brawlinthefamily.keenspot.com/2012/04/11/400-the-history-of-
nintendo/)

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abledon
tldr The real story in 8 bits: A long time ago.... it was True, then True,
then False, then True, then False, then True, then False, then False.

The end.

