titles. Nintendo would upgrade to a specialized chip made by Ricoh. The Ricoh chip was specially engineered to produce sounds, accept inputs from a controller, and generate tricolored sprites. It outputted as much image and sound as an 8-bit processor could, which was good, because it was going to have to duplicate Donkey Kong using a fraction of the arcade game’s horsepower.
Instead of a joystick, Nintendo’s “family computer” (or Famicon) would use one of Gunpei Yokoi’s innovations from the Game & Watch line: the raised directional pad. Joysticks broke with repeated use. Flat discs like the Intellivision’s were better, but still didn’t produce much tactile satisfaction. D-pads, little plus signs, were the future. There would be square action buttons as well, but only two. The sparse button selection was a “forcing device” to ensure developers made easy-to-play games. The controller was simple, elegant, and offered a diversity of options for designers.
Yamauchi believed in the Famicon so much he canceled Nintendo’s arcade division to focus funds and experience on it. Price was one of Yamauchi’s no-compromise angles. The Famicon had to be cheap, cheaper than most everything else on the market. After all, Apple’s Lisa and Xerox’s Star were top-of-the-line machines, but flopped due to five-digit price tags. In fact, Yamauchi wanted a price point of under ten thousand yen, about seventy-five dollars—and wanted to make a profit off each console. This seemed a pipe dream, to double-dip from the two-part tariff business model. This model, most famously used by Gillette, sets a one-time price for the razor, and an ongoing price for the blades. Yamauchi insisted Nintendo profit from both the games and the consoles, no easy feat.
By 1983, Nintendo had released dozens of different Game & Watches. It had widened the screen, and then introduced dual-screen games that doubled the playing space. Most games were original, but franchise characters such as Snoopy, Mickey Mouse, and Donald Duck made appearances. Nintendo had smartly ported over one-level versions of its arcade hits: Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr .
Mario had three different Game & Watch titles in 1983, doing three different jobs. He retained his contractor creds in Mario’s Cement Factory , where he worked filling up cement mixers. For Mario Bros., instead of adapting the sewer game, designers put Mario and Luigi to work in a bottle factory. (This version was ported to the Commodore 64 as Mario Bros. II .) And for Mario’s Bombs Away , he becomes an ace commando, grabbing lit bombs from a battlefield and tossing them into the enemy camp.
This trilogy of games (none designed by Miyamoto) makes it clear what Nintendo was aiming to set up for Mario: a cartoonlike role as the eager employee, trying to cope in any number of stressful environments. No one who played Mickey & Donald thought “Hey, wasn’t Mickey a sorcerer’s apprentice instead of a firefighter? This guy’s career is all over the place.” Mickey was a symbol for Disney, and Mario would be that exact same symbol for Nintendo.
To accomplish this, Nintendo would ignore Mario’s role as a villain in Donkey Kong Jr. Mario would jump with both feet into whatever challenge Nintendo put in front of him, be it war, monsters, or the perils of just-in-time supply chain management.
Mario’s father, Miyamoto, moved on as well to new jobs. After Mario Bros. he worked to design a game called Devil World , the only game of his never released in North America. It was a maze game, with the clever conceit that the monsters in the maze would move the walls, instead of just chase the hero. That wasn’t what kept it from U.S. shores, though. In the game’s story line, a green dragon named Tamagon descends into Hell in order to fight Satan. The Pac-Man – style power pellets are replaced by crosses and Bibles. For an industry called devil worshipers by some extremists, a game featuring the devil
Instead of a joystick, Nintendo’s “family computer” (or Famicon) would use one of Gunpei Yokoi’s innovations from the Game & Watch line: the raised directional pad. Joysticks broke with repeated use. Flat discs like the Intellivision’s were better, but still didn’t produce much tactile satisfaction. D-pads, little plus signs, were the future. There would be square action buttons as well, but only two. The sparse button selection was a “forcing device” to ensure developers made easy-to-play games. The controller was simple, elegant, and offered a diversity of options for designers.
Yamauchi believed in the Famicon so much he canceled Nintendo’s arcade division to focus funds and experience on it. Price was one of Yamauchi’s no-compromise angles. The Famicon had to be cheap, cheaper than most everything else on the market. After all, Apple’s Lisa and Xerox’s Star were top-of-the-line machines, but flopped due to five-digit price tags. In fact, Yamauchi wanted a price point of under ten thousand yen, about seventy-five dollars—and wanted to make a profit off each console. This seemed a pipe dream, to double-dip from the two-part tariff business model. This model, most famously used by Gillette, sets a one-time price for the razor, and an ongoing price for the blades. Yamauchi insisted Nintendo profit from both the games and the consoles, no easy feat.
By 1983, Nintendo had released dozens of different Game & Watches. It had widened the screen, and then introduced dual-screen games that doubled the playing space. Most games were original, but franchise characters such as Snoopy, Mickey Mouse, and Donald Duck made appearances. Nintendo had smartly ported over one-level versions of its arcade hits: Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr .
Mario had three different Game & Watch titles in 1983, doing three different jobs. He retained his contractor creds in Mario’s Cement Factory , where he worked filling up cement mixers. For Mario Bros., instead of adapting the sewer game, designers put Mario and Luigi to work in a bottle factory. (This version was ported to the Commodore 64 as Mario Bros. II .) And for Mario’s Bombs Away , he becomes an ace commando, grabbing lit bombs from a battlefield and tossing them into the enemy camp.
This trilogy of games (none designed by Miyamoto) makes it clear what Nintendo was aiming to set up for Mario: a cartoonlike role as the eager employee, trying to cope in any number of stressful environments. No one who played Mickey & Donald thought “Hey, wasn’t Mickey a sorcerer’s apprentice instead of a firefighter? This guy’s career is all over the place.” Mickey was a symbol for Disney, and Mario would be that exact same symbol for Nintendo.
To accomplish this, Nintendo would ignore Mario’s role as a villain in Donkey Kong Jr. Mario would jump with both feet into whatever challenge Nintendo put in front of him, be it war, monsters, or the perils of just-in-time supply chain management.
Mario’s father, Miyamoto, moved on as well to new jobs. After Mario Bros. he worked to design a game called Devil World , the only game of his never released in North America. It was a maze game, with the clever conceit that the monsters in the maze would move the walls, instead of just chase the hero. That wasn’t what kept it from U.S. shores, though. In the game’s story line, a green dragon named Tamagon descends into Hell in order to fight Satan. The Pac-Man – style power pellets are replaced by crosses and Bibles. For an industry called devil worshipers by some extremists, a game featuring the devil
Similar Books
