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Nintendo

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Nintendo logo
Nintendo logo

Nintendo Corporation, Limited (任天堂; Ninten is translated roughly as "leave luck to heaven" or "in heaven's hands," do is a common suffix for names of shops or laboratories; TSE NTDOY) was originally founded in 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi to produce handmade hanafuda (Japanese playing cards). Over the years, it changed to a video game company and became one of the most powerful companies in the video game industry. Nintendo of Japan, the main branch of the company, is based in Kyoto, Kyoto prefecture, Japan. Nintendo of America, its North American division, is based in Redmond, Washington and Nintendo of Europe, the European division, is based in Großostheim, Germany.

Nintendo is the longest running company in the history of the video game console market. They have been in the U.S. market since 1985 and have manufactured four TV consoles -- the Famicom/NES, the Super Famicom/Super NES, N64, the current GameCube -- and five versions of their popular handheld console, the Game Boy.

History

In 1950, Hiroshi Yamauchi, great-great-grandson of Fusajiro and future president of Nintendo, made a deal with Disney to produce playing cards featuring Disney characters, when Nintendo came to make western-style playing cards as well as hanafuda at that period. Even from its early history it was clear that Nintendo was focused on making entertainment for children. These cards sold millions of packs, and made Nintendo enough money to move into other ventures, particularly toys.

By the late 1970s, Nintendo had begun to lose market share to electronic game manufacturers such as Bandai, and they responded with the Game & Watch series (small single-screen LCD games) which were created by the late visionary Gunpei Yokoi, as well as a series of arcade games. The first Nintendo arcade games were shooting-gallery type light gun games. When this trend in arcades began to falter, Yamauchi hired Shigeru Miyamoto to give new video games artistic direction. In 1980, Nintendo of America (NOA) was established by Yamauchi's son-in-law, Minoru Arakawa. In 1981, Miyamoto created Donkey Kong, whose protagonist would evolve into the legendary video game character known as Mario.

Rise of TV consoles

Related article: Nintendo era

Nintendo introduced the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in the United States in 1985 after a successful launch of the Famicom in Japan. Under Minoru Arakawa and Howard Lincoln, the NES is often considered to be the "savior" of the video game industry. Nintendo debuted Super Mario Bros., and later hits such as Metroid, and The Legend of Zelda, helping to boost a market which seriously diminished in the early 1980s (often called "Video game crash of 1983" or "The Great Video Game Crash of the '80s").

By the end of the 1980s the courts found Nintendo guilty of anti-trust activities because it had abused its relationship with 3rd party developers and created a monopoly in the gaming industry by forcing developers not to make games for any other platforms.

Early 1990s

Nintendo released the Super Famicom in November 1990 in Japan to compete against the Sega Megadrive and the PC Engine. In September 1991, Nintendo released the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) in North America, to compete with the Sega Genesis. This became an intense competition for the 16-bit era. In 1992, the SNES was released in Europe as the rival to the Sega Megadrive. In Japan, the Super Famicom easily took control of the gaming market.

Despite a slow start, the SNES in North America eventually overtook the Sega Genesis, thanks to franchise titles such as Super Mario World, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Street Fighter 2, and the Final Fantasy series. Although, overall, the Genesis outsold the SNES. Nintendo of America's stringent blood and violence policies was later eased up on in the mid-'90s. Nintendo initially contracted with Sony to develop an addon CD-ROM drive to the SNES, but after Sony announced a standalone version of the drive, Nintendo terminated the contract and went with Philips. Either way, nothing happened about the addon drive in regard to the SNES, but Sony took the time and research and began to spin it off into a standalone product, the PlayStation. Nintendo announced their alliance with Philips at the same conference that Sony announced their CD-ROM drive.

Mid 1990s

File:N64-3.jpg
Nintendo 64

In 1995, Nintendo found themselves in a similar competitive situation. Competitor Sega introduced their 32-bit Saturn, while newcomer Sony introduced the 32-bit PlayStation. Sony's fierce marketing campaigns ensued, and it started to cut into Nintendo and Sega's market share. In September 1996, Nintendo introduced the Nintendo 64 (N64). Nintendo chose to remain with the cartridge medium, a surprising move especially considering their competition's choice of emerging CD-ROM storage mediums. The first 3D Mario game was introduced as Super Mario 64, which has been the archetype for almost all 3D console games to this day. The N64 managed to secure a solid #2 spot under the #1 Sony PlayStation.

Current era

File:S11 Video GameCube kl.jpg
Nintendo GameCube

By 2001 the next generation consoles were being released. Sega had introduced the Dreamcast in 1999, Sony answered with the PlayStation 2, Microsoft joined the fray with the Xbox, and in November of 2001, Nintendo released the GameCube. Nintendo has continued with their popular high quality franchise titles, such as, Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox, Metroid, Super Smash Bros., and a new series called Pikmin. Currently, the GameCube is in second place in total worldwide sales ahead of the Xbox and tied for second in the U.S. market.

Handheld consoles

Introduced in 1989, and continuing strong today, were Nintendo's portable Game Boy systems. With several evolutions, including Pocket, Color, Advance, and Advance SP versions, the Game Boy is the single most successful, and oldest video game platform still in production. The Game Boy has been known for putting over a dozen other portable systems out of business (Including Nintendo's other attempts such as the Virtual Boy). Due to low battery consumption, durability, and a library of over a thousand games, the Game Boy has been on the top of the portable console food chain since its inception and made Nintendo the domineer of the handheld console market.

Slowing sales of the Game Boy were assisted by the introduction of the Pokémon game, which started a phenomenon of top selling video games, movies, merchandise, and TV shows. The Pokémon phenomena helped and continue to help rocket Game Boy sales all around the world.

In 2004, Nintendo begun to re-release separate NES games to the Game Boy Advance, called the Classic NES Series

In early 2004 Nintendo announced a new portable game console, called Nintendo DS. The final version of it was unveiled in July 2004, and its U.S. release date is 21 November 2004. The DS is going to be marketed separately from the Game Boy Advance and GameCube consoles, but it will play Game Boy Advance cartridges. The Nintendo DS is able to connect upto 16 players simultaneously wirelessly, and comes with a built in wireless chat system. The Nintendo DS also has a built in microphone and touch screen

Happenings

In 2002, Hiroshi Yamauchi stepped down as the president of Nintendo and named Satoru Iwata his successor.

In 2003, Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro, sued Nintendo, its Pokémon division, and various other Nintendo affiliates over breach of contract and various of other charges relating to the Pokémon trading card game.

In early August 2004, Bill Gates said in an interview for German business magazine WirtschaftsWoche that if Hiroshi Yamauchi were to call him, "I will pick up at once" and discuss buying the company. Gates tried in the late 1990s to acquire the company but Yamauchi turned him down. Rumors started coming out that Microsoft was buying Nintendo, but these rumors were confirmed to be false.

In late September 2004, Hiroshi Yamauchi announced at a press conference in Kyoto that Nintendo will possibly make a new division; an animation studio that will most likely to produce anime. Yamauchi stated that "video games are very similar to films". The final decision is up to the October management meeting.

Hardware

  • Game & Watch
  • Nintendo Family Computer (Famicom for short) Japanese console.
    • Famicom Disk System Japan only) - A large number of stores in Japan had "Disk Writers" with games stored in them that could be downloaded to a non-standard floppy disk for ¥2,000. Very popular in Japan, killed due to advancing technology that rendered the disks obsolete, and later, rampant piracy of said disks.
  • Nintendo Entertainment System (NES for short) North American and European console version of the Famicom. It was responsible for reviving the North American video game industry.
  • Game Boy - Portable black and white handheld system. The best-selling videogame system of all time.
  • Super Famicom 16-bit Japanese console.
  • Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES or Super NES for short) North American and European console version of the Super Famicom.
  • Super Game Boy - Adapter for playing Game Boy games on the Super NES.
  • Virtual Boy - The Virtual Boy used a red monochrome 3D virtual reality like system. Fewer than two dozen games were released for it in the United States.
  • Game Boy Color- A version of the Game Boy with a simple colored screen.
  • Nintendo 64 - Originally the Ultra 64, this system saw Nintendo fully embrace 3D game worlds. It was also the last home console that was cartridge-based.
    • 64DD - Only released in Japan, this add-on system's games are on re-writeable magnetic disks. Games released include a paint and 3D construction package, F-Zero X Expansion Kit, for creating new F-Zero X tracks and a few others. A complete commercial failure, many speculated that Nintendo released it only to save face after promoting it pre-emptively for years.
  • Game Boy Advance - The new, more advanced version of the Game Boy, with the same processing power as earlier full-sized consoles.
  • Nintendo GameCube - Nintendo's current mini disk system; uses a proprietary 1.2Gb DVD medium.
  • Triforce - An arcade system based on Nintendo GameCube hardware, developed in partnership with Sega and Namco.
  • Game Boy Advance SP - a fold-up version of the Game Boy Advance with a frontlit screen. The SP stands for Special Project.
  • Game Boy Player - An adapter for playing Game Boy games on the GameCube.
  • Nintendo DS - Forthcoming dual-screen portable game console.
  • Project Revolution - (code name) - Nintendo plans to release its next video game console in late 2005.

Nintendo's chief designer, and video game producer, is Shigeru Miyamoto. Mr. Miyamoto is largely known for creating Nintendo's most popular games. Miyamoto is considered by many to be the most talented video game developer in the industry and one of the most influential in history. He is known for several franchise titles, such as Donkey Kong, Mario, Zelda, F-zero, Mario Kart, Starfox, and Pikmin.

Nintendo Power is a monthly news and strategy magazine from Nintendo. The first issue published was July/August of 1988 spotlighting the NES game Super Mario Bros. 2. They are still being published today with over 180 issues.

Software and franchises

Franchises that were established on Nintendo systems

In addition to its notable first party franchises, Nintendo consoles were where a number of popular console franchises began.

Franchises established on the NES

Franchises established on the Game Boy

Franchises established on the SNES

Franchises established on the N64

Franchises established on the GBA

Franchises established on the GameCube

Arcade games released by Nintendo

Policies

Emulation

Nintendo is known for a "no tolerance" stance against emulation of its video games and consoles. It claims that mask work copyright protects its games from the exceptions that United States copyright law otherwise provides for backing up software legally. Until mid-2002, the company also claimed that emulators running on personal computers have no use other than to play pirated video games, contested by some who say these emulators have been used to develop and test independently produced software, albeit on Nintendo's platforms.

The revival of the NES and SNES through emulation has gradually settled down, and NES and SNES ROMs are actually getting easier to find. However, Nintendo's opposition remains, due largely to its tendency to re-release old games within new ones, as with Animal Crossing, Metroid Prime, and the The Legend of Zelda Collector's Edition, as well as with the re-release of many older games for the Game Boy Advance Classic NES Series. The enhanced remake idea sometimes curbs the need for emulation of NES quality games on the Nintendo GameCube.

Censorship

For many years Nintendo of America also had strict censorship regulations on its games, and had a long list of objects, situations, and phrases that were not allowed to appear in licensed games on Nintendo systems. Among the banned subject matter was the appearance of excessive blood and gore, nudity and sexual content, religious content, swearing, and smoking. This zero tolerance policy, praised and championed by U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman, was popular with parents, but unpopular with older gamers who felt they were being "babied". Upon the advent of the ESRB video game ratings system in 1994, the censorship practices were lessened. However, minor changes to games being localized for the U.S. and European markets are still made on occasion; these are largely left to the individual developer's discretion.

See also

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