The Nintendo Saga

The term “videogames” and Nintendo are synonymous to each other. They somehow cannot be used in isolation because if it wasn’t for the bunch of geniuses hard at work at Nintendo, we would still be stuck up playing a bad lot of Atari games, which eventually led to the Great Videogame Crash in the 80’s.The company from its early beginnings has managed to carve quite a niche in the industry today.

The Stone Age- Nintendo was established way back in 1889 as a small company engaged in making trading cards called “Hanafuda”, gradually it entered into a string of ventures including a “love hotel” as well as a Taxi company but most of these outings proved unfruitful. Then came along a creation called the “Ultra hand” by an assembly line worker called Gunpei Yokoi this was an extendable claw which could be used to grab objects . It went on to be a huge success, the company along Gunpei brain’s went on to create a number of innovative toys before actually entering the gaming industry.

The Industrial revolution- The Company’s first brush with the idea of a home console came when it signed a deal with Magnavox to distribute The Oddyssey video game console in Japan, but Nintendo had other plans up its sleeve, it decided to enter the video game market, hiring members from Sharp electronics and with their ingenious employee Gunpei Yokoi they created the Color TV Game 6 with different playable versions of a game called “Light Tennis”, the World knows the game better as “Pong”. This product went on to sell about a million units; Nintendo also tried its luck in the arcade business which was sprawling around that era, but failed. It was during these times that Gunpei Yokoi would fish Nintendo out of troubled waters by giving the world The Game and Watch series, which can be regarded as one of the first handheld line of consoles to hit the market. It roughly looked quite similar to the Nintendo’s current DS, it was revolutionary and went on to become Nintendo’s biggest hits ever, most of its popular games have been ported on to this compact console. In 1981, a year after the launch of its successful Game and Watch series the company was still trying hard to make it big in the arcade industry, they hit upon a game called “Radar scope” which had received a positive response during prototype testing in the United States, but by the time it was actually shipped, people had forgotten all about the game. Nintendo of America in order to save its skin and stay afloat assigned “Shigeru Miyamoto” to create such a game which could ensure their survival in the turbulent market, and thus was born “Donkey Kong” ,the lovable 800 pound gorilla along with “Mario” the Italian Plumber and “Pauline” who was to be replaced by Peach in the Mario Series. Well to say the least the Big N had finally arrived there was no looking back.

The Golden Era- The Famicom system made its debut in the summer of ’84 in Japan and burrowed itself into the hearts of Japanese Gamers; this was what Nintendo had been waiting for such a long time. The U.S. launch came two years later in ’86 and was renamed the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and met with a similar success story on foreign soil, even though it was technically inferior in some aspects than its Japanese counterpart. This period also saw the birth of many gaming franchises which would live on eternally to this day. Nintendo with its low price tag and excellent marketing campaign managed to capture more than 90 % of the market share for games, it had acquired virtual monopoly in the gaming industry, all this proved to be a severe blow to small time developers and its competitors this resulted in a slew of unlicensed games and all kinds of sneaky tactics adopted by its rival companies. Nonetheless the console has managed to sell about 60 million units worldwide. Even though Nintendo of America stopped production of the console way back in the 90’s.The east still saw production and sale of the Famicom system till 2003. The golden era also saw the release of the immensely popular Gameboy handheld system, the credit behind this system again goes to Gunpei Yokoi .The console along with Tetris went on to rule handheld market.

The Console wars- The year 1989 was to see Sega launch its MegadriveGenesis 16 bit system, Nintendo still reeling from the dizzying heights it had achieved from the NES ignored Sega’s move and continued with add-ons for the NES , for they believed that Sega couldn’t possibly achieve what they had, Nintendo’s supremacy was about to be challenged. The Company realized this and released the Super Nintendo entertainment systemSuper Famicom in 1991. It would take some time for Nintendo to regain the its lost crown from what it was to be their toughest competitor .The company still had what Sega didn’t - a lineage of great games, the brains of Shigeru Miyamoto and Gunpei Yokoi and to add to all that a neat 3D effect which was to be used in games like Starfox. They did manage to beat Sega worldwide and the console saw some of the most memorable games of all times some of which are regarded as classics including Street Fighter 2, Legend of Zelda A link to the Past, Final Fantasy II and III, Contra 3 Alien wars, Star fox, Super Metriod; but its policy of developing games with little or no violence in them cost them big time, Gore and Blood was the next big thing in games, with refinement in graphical quality developers could now take violence to a whole new level. Nintendo has always adopted the policy to make games for family fun, so a violent multiplatform game released during this era saw very little gore on the SNES version while the Genesis version was everything including the kitchen sink, sales of such games were higher on latter than the former.

The Big Fall- After the success of the NES and the SNES the company went off track with the Virtual boy which was deemed to be the successor of the Gameboy, it was basically a virtual reality somewhat on the lines of Quest world in the cartoon Series Johnny Quest but it had way too many flaws to make it a success story. Sony had offered Nintendo to develop a CD based add on to counter Sega’s Mega CD but it feared Sony would be getting a bigger share in the profit pie and the dismal performance of the 32X and Sega CD cut the deal mid way through. Sony went ahead with it idea and created the Playstation and Nintendo went on to create the N64. The N64 incorporated a lot of new elements that had not been seen in recent consoles including analog support, a disk drive add on (not released in the U.S.) as well as online capabilities but they goofed up using cartridges to prevent rampant piracy and they had faster load times, but were extremely expensive almost $20 more than a regular PS ROM and did not have as much space as a CD ROM. Even though Nintendo’s console was more powerful than The PS, most of the games released on it were inferior in quality and bore a fogging effect which was to become a trademark of N64 games, but the console did have its share of amazing first party and second games including Super Mario 64 which would be ‘the game’ against which all 3D Platformers would be compared to this date. Goldeneye by Rareware, one of the best fps to be released on the world of consoles, Legend of Zelda Ocarina of time probably the best action RPG to be created on a console. The list goes on, but the company had lost the sheen it once had with a large number of developers shifting their base on Sony’s platform including Square responsible for the Final Fantasy Series. However on the portable gaming front it still enjoyed virtual monopoly with the Game Boy Color and a game called Pokemon, the game gave Nintendo the boost it desperately needed as it proved to be a humungous hit, bringing in revenues of about $5 million from the games and merchandising combined.

The Current Generation- Nintendo’s first disc based console came in the form of Gamecube. This generation was to see one of the worst console wars till date. Nintendo had finally worked upon all the flaws that had plagued their earlier console and managed to get a lot of things right. They got their hands on exclusive 3rd party games like the Resident Evil Series and Viewtiful Joe from Capcom, the original Playstation Hit Metal Gear Solid Was Re-released under the subtitle The Twin Snakes, a new army of developers like Retro Studios gave the world the Return of Samus In Metroid Prime ,Silicon Knight created Eternal Darkness, Factor Five continued its the Rogue Squadron series, innovative games like Pimkin and Animal Crossing gained critical accolade form the dev community. They patched up with Square and after a long hiatus a Final Fantasy game appeared on a Nintendo console. They continued to rule the roost in handheld gaming with the GBA locking horns with the PS2 in terms of sales worldwide. Nonetheless they did mange to goof up in certain areas. Certain first party games did not live up to the quality, Super Mario Sunshine bombed, Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker was criticized for using Cel shading instead of rendering the game in full 3D, Rare known for its games on the N64 was sold off to Microsoft, their idea of sticking to “family games” severed as a big blow because Grand Theft Auto never saw light on the GCN. While Sony and Microsoft were engaged in online supremacy, Nintendo felt to stay outside all the action. All this eventually would see Nintendo scramble for a distant 3rd place.

Here are some of the most popular Characters and Games that Nintendo has created:

Mario- The lovable and un-attractive Italian plumber saw his first appearance in “Donkey Kong” where he was called “Jumpman” and had to rescue the damsel in distress. There was no stopping him ever since having starred in over a 100 games and selling more that 200 million games featuring him, this 25 year old Mascot has shown no sign’s of ageing and will be making his next appearance in Super Mario Galaxy on the “Wii”.

The Legend of Zelda series- Link, Princess Zelda and Ganondorf and their timeless adventures in the kingdom of Hyrule have captivated audiences worldwide. The series is known for its idyllist settings, lush graphics and a wonderful score. The series is one of the most successful gaming franchises till date. Each successive game raises the bar to the next level and has never failed to disappoint till date. “Twilight Princess” is going to be the first Zelda title available on a Nintendo’s console on the Launch of “Wii”.

The Metroid Series- “Samus” the original Lara Croft of video games has been seen almost every Nintendo console except for the N64. The player being a bounty hunter is hot on trails on the Insidious Space Pirates across the Galaxy. The game is famous for blending various genres and creating a challenging experience for the player. This long running series is going to take full advantage of the motion sensing capabilities of the “Nunchuk” controller in Metroid Prime 3 Corruption.

Starfox- This was the first game on the SNES which would include the Super FX chip, one of the most primitive 3D accelerators in consoles. The game is a scrolling shooter from a 3rd person perspective where players take on the role of Fox Mc Cloud who has to defend his homeworld of Corneria for the deadly Andross Forces.

Pokemon- Short for Pocket Monsters the games took the world by storm when it was released on the Gameboy in ’98. All the games in the series have a basic objective of becoming the greatest Pokemon trainer ever and in order to achieve this they have compete against various Gym Leaders, win Badges and catch all of the monsters in the game in a device called the Pokeball. The game has sold about 150 Million Copies worldwide and is second best videogame Franchise after Mario.

The Long road - Nintendo’s next console “Wii” is going to be one of the most unique creations to be seen in the gaming industry, while Sony and Microsoft are at logger heads in wowing the world with games with “the works”. Nintendo is hard at work trying to appeal all kinds of gamers out there, with its one of a kind controller the result of their sound investment in The Gyration Corp, the company seems to be on the right track with this one. Even though it may be technologically inferior to its brothers but this sleek baby is deemed to pack quite a punch, with its successful gaming franchises holding its back this may just be Nintendo’s time once again. Just Imagine playing a game of tennis that physically exhausts you or imagibe being able to be the head of your own orchestra, the best of all being able to aim in a FPS without getting frustrated, well all this and more in is what Nintendo seeks to achieve this time around. Its next gen handheld DS is doing incredibly well with fun games to boot.

Closing comments

Tracing the evolution of Nintendo and looking at its future ahead I’ll say the company is finally going places. Games now-a-days are striking similar to each other, during such times it’s nice to see a company actually racking its brains to return the lost glory that videogames once had. The company can still make it big with its new console if it sees through the fact that the world has evolved. I can just imagine playing GTA with the new controller, aiming would be so much simpler. Red Steel by Ubisoft is the FPS that I’d love to play before playing Halo 3 because I know what kind of gameplay to expect from the latter than the former. Innovation is the key word here, this Generation might be “make or break” for Nintendo. I say “Bring it on….”

Neelesh Mukherjee