Revival of the Videogame Industry: A Nintendo Story

In the late 70s to the early 80s, there were many great videogame consoles released in the U.S., many of them introduced ground breaking games that are considered simple, classic, and fun such as Pac-Man, Pong, Galaga, and Missile Command which are made for videogame consoles like Atari 2600, the Vectrex, Odyssey and Odyssey II, Intellivision and Intellivision II as well as Colecovision, many of these consoles are made by the people at Atari while others came from manufacturers such as Magnavox, Milton Bradley, Coleco, and Intellivision and had created one of the most important market in the electronic industry, the videogame market. Unfortunely, by the mid-80s, these manufacturers had become so anxious in the videogame market that many outside companies, many of which had nothing to do with videogames jump in to produced videogame based title on their own product using it as advertisement instead of quality game play. As more and more outside companies jump in and the games started getting produced once every minute, the more the products came, the badder the gaming industry gets and it had become so worst that soon consumers started seeing the gaming industry as a joke or a flop. Some think the gaming industry had become nothing but an advertising strategy to sell products made by other manufacturers to persuade them to buy their goods for examples, Kool-Aid, Quaker Oats, and Chuckwagon Dog Foods. The reason for that is because not only the manufacturers wanted to advertised their product but they believed that people at that era were so into gaming that they will do whatever they can to play just because it's a videogame, that's like saying "Hey, everybody loves to eat at McDonald's, so let's make a game about it that people can play with so that McDonald's can be as fun as they are good." Well if you think about it, gaming back then was quite a mess, also since computers at the time had came to be quite popular, every consumers finally gave up on gaming and were playing computers instead. Also the other reason that made videogame flopped at the time is the game E.T.(or Pac-Man if you count that).

Atari and E.T. had Made the Death Blow to Videogames

Atari at the time were very strict since they knew that consumers started seeing the videogame industry more as a joke than anything else but they hope one name can refresh that, that's where the whole E.T. idea started pouring in. Atari think that consumers who enjoyed watching the successful Steven Spielberg movie would actually go nuts for the game, even Spielberg himself were so excited about his movie becoming a game. After much anticipation and the game's development which took about roughly six weeks in development so the game can be available at the time of the Christmas rush, consumers who bought the game did not experience any fun or goodness out of the game and the game cartridges itself were return to retailers just days after it was bought. The big problem here is that Atari was thinking E.T. would sell thousands and they had made E.T. cartridge to the thousands, even more than they sell their own Atari 2600 consoles. It was strange that the thousands of cartridges they sell of the game later came back to them in the bargain bin and their warehouse was loaded with unwanted E.T. cartridges that seem too crowded to even organized. With this in effect, Atari later buried the unwanted cartridges in a mass desert landfill in New Mexico and destroy them one by one not to mention some other unwanted cartridges along with it. With Atari's failure to capture the heart of consumers and the entire videogame industry as well as many electronic and non-electronic companies alike went out of business and the computer industry were getting more popular by the minutes, the gaming industry in the U.S. at that time had gone into an era which was known as the "Great Videogame Crash of 1983."

Life after the Great Videogame Crash of 1983

All consumers at the time had completely given up on videogames, some prefer computers as the most important media to get use to and some just went with movies. Consumers are not the only ones who abandon the videogame market, even some of the companies who once participated in the videogame market now had jump into the computer market thinking people would refer computers over videogames, even Atari themselves think that videogames are over and computers are the future, at least that's what it sounds like in the U.S. at that time. Now the other part of the story lies not in the U.S. but fifty thousand miles west across the Pacific in a little island called "Japan" which many refer to as "The Land of the Rising Sun." While U.S. consumers are into computers and throwing their Atari 2600 or their Colecovision consoles in the bargain bin and started playing with Barbie dolls and G.I. Joes at the time, in Japan however, the young Japanese consumers are lining up and playing the new Nintendo 8-Bit videogame system called the "Famicom"(short for Family Computer). American consumers at that time did not had the same enjoyment as the Japanese market since the videogame industry to them are more than just plain jokes, but one company will proved that wrong, that company is Nintendo themselves and seeing that their Famicom is quite a success in their home country, the Japanese videogame manufacturer had decided it's time to show the west what true videogaming are really about. In 1985, Nintendo then finally step into the American market searching to find a partnership to handle its product of their Famicom in the U.S. and the only one partner they would see that fits their agreement is Atari, the once successful American videogaming company. Although many agreements and several schedule visitations went without problems between the two companies, something ugly had finally emerged, Atari later snapped when they found out about "Donkey Kong," a Nintendo arcade port which Atari once had computer rights to were featured in Coleco's Apple computer at the 1985 CES(Consumer Electronics Show) in Chicago. This act led Atari to filed suit against Nintendo for cheating and double dealing and was threatening to sue them out of existence, heck they even decided that the deal with Nintendo's Famicom were off cursing that Nintendo would never had any chance of succeeding in the U.S. since consumers had already gave up on videogames anyways. Nintendo didn't care what Atari think, the contract for the deal are still unsigned and Nintendo later dropped the contract which puts everything they had with Atari down the drain and decided to go with plan B.

Nintendo drop an NES on New York soil

Nintendo knew that after the great crash of the videogame era, it would be difficult for them to convince the American consumers from buying videogames so they decided to create their own branch in the U.S. without any supports from past videogame companies. Their first step is to change the design of their Famicom console, they knew that to convince consumers since most of them are still very strict about videogames, Nintendo decided to change the console design so that it would look more like an entertainment system much similiar like a VCR, tape recorder, or stereo player rather than a videogame system of the past. The second step is to change the name, not that Famicom isn't a good name for American consumers, but it needs a name to tell consumers that the new system is pointing towards entertainment and fun rather than just plain videogame which to consumers are still plain jokes, so Nintendo decided to name their console the "Nintendo Entertainment System"(note that the word videogame is nowhere to be found in that name). The third step is to test market the system with the bundle game, "Super Mario Bros.," the reason for the test market is to see if consumers are satisfy with the product or otherwise Nintendo could very well go back to square one if it fail. Nintendo even promised retailers in buying back all unwanted consoles if they weren't sold which solve the problems having to throw them in the bargain bin. Nintendo then test marketed the system in the New York City area, while the NES are selling, the other companies are watching and taking notes just in case if it fails or succeeds. Miraculously, the NES is a big financial success, almost every homes in New York City had an NES, surprisingly not even one single consoles that got sold ever came back to Nintendo from retailers and consumers not to mention when words are spread outside New York, the other states are demanding for a nationwide sales. Nintendo is more than willing to met their demands and started selling the NES nationwide the next year when more stocks are made.

The New Generation of Videogames Now Lead by Nintendo

Many past videogame companies who failed to capture the heart of many U.S. consumers were very surprised at the success of Nintendo's NES system, even Atari themselves which urged Atari to return to the videogaming market after spending a harsh time in the computer industry. Consumers who once see the videogame market as a flop now believed it to be a blessing since the NES, which is indeed a videogame system, played very much different from the past systems. For one thing, just by playing the bundle game, they could see and feel the differences in game play. The past games that were released before Nintendo had games which used only one screen and different speed levels or score board and the reason enough to play is to beat the score which many consumers got tired of, but in Nintendo's games, you don't just go right and left and try to beat scores, in their games you go as far as you want, you can jump, you can run, the screen even scrolls as you move forward, you can even use items such as power-ups to upgrade skills and use it against other enemies in videogames and the best feature of them all, it's just fun to play since the NES control is very simple to handle and easy to function. Seeing the success of this one system here in the U.S. as well as the bundle game, many other videogame competitors started to jump in on the videogame industry once again, but unlike the past industry though, unlicensed games are not welcome in the new official gaming market since Nintendo as well as new competitor Sega who debuted in the videogame market in 1989 were very strict of unlicensed games that they created a lockout chip which contain official code to block unlicensed games from working on any of their official consoles. This is a strategy to prevent the videogaming industry from becoming a flop like the past Atari era where almost any companies in existence can produced a game and just leave it there not thinking about the quality of the game. Many people today considered Nintendo to be the company that brought videogames back to life after nearly got bury by Atari or abandon by the American consumers themselves. It's strange that new ideas nowadays were from Nintendo despite many people criticized them even before they were released, not to mention how the company were criticized when other electronic companies started jumping in on the videogame market. It is also strange that more of Nintendo's idea are being copied by other companies despite being competitors in the same market. Here are some example of Nintendo's ideas being copied...

Nintendo's Popularity and the Many Followers of its Creativity

First of all, the D-Pad, the directional pad was designed and created by Gumpei Yokoi, an engineer who once worked for Nintendo and this pad was designed to make controlling easier for any Nintendo players to use. It was the most popular cross pad ever and was included as the main directional function in every Nintendo controllers as well as handheld systems to this day. Despite its popular design, many competitors had either copied or cloned its design for many of their popular consoles which includes Sega, Sony, 3D0, and Microsoft. Some gamers of today may critizied Nintendo, but they never knew it was Nintendo who brought this wonderful pad into gaming before gaming becomes revolutionary. Second, the shoulder buttons, Nintendo's 16-Bit Super NES was the first and only system to introduced a controller that actually had shoulder buttons alongside four action buttons to make gameplay feel more revolutionary and game play more easy to handle. Ever since the success of the Super NES, shoulder buttons than become a popular and important part of control and many upcoming future consoles released after the Super NES had controllers that feature shoulder buttons such as the Sega Saturn, Sony PlayStation, PS2, Nintendo 64, Sega Dreamcast, GameCube, Microsoft X-Box, X-Box 360, and PS3. Third, analog joystick and rumble feature, before the Sega Dreamcast, PS2, X-Box and GameCube era, there was the Nintendo 64 and the controller for that had the cross style buttons of the Super NES which are now all different C buttons, it had the new back touchable Z button, it also had the returning shoulder buttons and finally it had another feature, analog function. It was the first controller to feature an analog joystick and the first controller to use Rumble feature with the use of the Rumble Pak that is. Game consoles that came after N64 already had both analog and rumble feature intact as well as the shoulder buttons, D-Pad and many other buttons, but the N64 was the first to introduced it before it became an important feature to next generation consoles. Now the new Nintendo Wii had launched and it introduced a new controller and new ways to play, yeah many videogame consumers had already critized it thinking it would indeed become a flop, while PS3 and X-Box 360 introduced games with ground breaking graphics and sounds and online supports out of the box as well as many HD DVD or Blu-Ray format for their games, one thing hasn't change, their control and everything they introduced are everything the last generation had already seen or played before not to mention you won't find any new features about their controllers despite the fact that it was wireless and it had one menu button to return to the systems menu, now that is not new or revolution since people from the GameCube era had already seen a wireless controller before and many PC players can always hit the home button to return to the desktop at anytime, these two consoles introduced nothing new to their control except that the PS3 now dropped the Rumble feature for a motion sensing kind of play but unlike them, again Nintendo came up with something brand new. Yes, it doesn't had the best graphics, almost every Nintendo consoles doesn't need to be super goody looking, Nintendo never care about how good a game looks, they are more aiming on how good it plays like and how much fun players can actually enjoy it. That's what the Wii is for, it introduced a new revolutionary remote style controller for one hand play, you could even enjoy a burger or a drink even while you played without ever pausing, a first for a Nintendo console, another first is a nunchuck style attachment for secondary function on some games that required it, Nintendo even made a new Super NES style controller for those classic downloaded games that can be downloaded from their Virtual Console. The Wii is also backward compatible with all Gamecube games as well despite backward compatible had already been a feature for their handhelds and for the PS2 before the Wii, but the important thing is, the Wii was made to be simple and fun and that's what it had already done.

Change is Good, but will Nintendo be here to stay?

Despite the lack of new features the competitors offered, gamers everywhere were either decided to live with it or just avoid it and to some they mostly lived with it. Nintendo had already changed the faces of videogame with the Wii and it will be a matter of time before the competitors will tried to copied their idea again at least this time Nintendo is in the lead that will change the way we play for many generations to come. If we look back at history, we can find lots of mistakes or ideas many companies made, but we may also find some few answers as well. Just think that back then Nintendo was up against competitors like Sega, Atari, SNK, NEC, and 3D0, most of which outperform Nintendo at the same time they used Nintendo's idea, then along came Sony and Microsoft with better processing powers and innovation which had destroyed almost every past competitors out of the console competition leaving the future to Sony and Microsoft themselves, though they both destroy almost all of the competition, one name still lives and kicking as we played and that name is Nintendo. Who else can destroy a company that took the risk of reviving a dead videogame industry back to life from being extinct even though they are alien to the society? Who else can destroy a company that created the first portable handheld that can display only four shades of grey with a small pea-soup color screen with no backlit with the longest battery durability and a cheap price tag bundle along with the addictive killer app, Tetris and yet its name still exist to consumers even to this day? Who else can destroy a company that introduced the world to Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda, Metroid, Kirby, Star Fox, Pokemon, Pikmin, F-Zero, Fire Emblem, the list goes on....? Who else can destroy a company that once start small, but now had become the biggest name in videogaming today? Who else can destroy a company that, unlike all the other, respect consumers of all ages from the youngest to the oldest despite being criticized a harsh number of times both from fans and other game reviewers alike? Who else can destroy a company that introduced new ideas every videogame generation after generation and still continued to go beyond that? Who else can destroy a company that unlike past competitors is the only legendary company that never lose its cool even if many of its third parties publishers left to support rival competitors or become extinct? Nintendo had revived the videogaming industry and had faced several competitors of yesterday and even today, now just think, will Sony and Microsoft would still be in the videogame industry, I mean if Nintendo had never come to America and decide stay exclusive to Japan, will every consumers here in America still be playing with power, would Sega create a videogame if Nintendo didn't come to revive the industry, would the PlayStation even exist if it weren't for Nintendo's mistake, would Atari even care to come back to the videogaming industry if it weren't for the success of Nintendo's revival, would Microsoft even want to come to the videogame market if videogame were still just Pong and Pac-Man, another thing, imagine if the industry is still dead, would there ever be a Final Fantasy, Castlevania, Metal Gear, Halo, Sonic the Hedgehog, Mega Man, Tekken, and many other popular franchises of today. If it weren't for Nintendo and their decision to revived the industry, maybe Final Fantasy would actually be final, maybe Metal Gear would actually turn to liquid instead of solid, maybe Sonic the Hedgehog never came to play, maybe Street Fighter never fought in a street, maybe Mortal Kombat had met its end, maybe Castlevania is nothing more than a Dracula's curse, maybe Crash Bandicoot would actually being crash, and so on. As you can see, many of these franchise series would have never found a home to begin with and had never being to where it's at if the videogaming industry hadn't being revived by the name of Nintendo and to the many that said Nintendo could go the way of Sega, I don't think so and like Nintendo said, it's just too early to surrender.