Spring+2009+Lecture+10+Notes

= __Spring 2009 Lecture 10 Notes__ =


 


 * 1981 – Video-arcades more popular than ever
 * Brought further controversies than ever before
 * 1981 – 15-year-old Steven Juraszek set world Defender record
 * 16 hour game on single quarter – 15,963,100 points – became somewhat of a celebrity
 * Time Magazine ran picture of him – gained increasing fame in gamers' circles
 * Parents and school officials not impressed – record breaking game played on school hours
 * Juraszek banned from leaving school grounds for rest of his school career
 * This and similar incidents caused world-wide view of video-games as poisoning youth
 * Cities across America prohibited children from visiting arcades during school hours
 * Laws passed - kids can't enter arcades after 10PM on weekdays/12 midnight on weekends
 * Arcade owners found violating rules had their licenses revoked
 * Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos banned video-games entirely in 1981
 * All video-games destroyed in Philippines in 2 weeks
 * Time cover story – reported over 2 billion quarters spent on arcades in1981
 * “Addicts” said to have spent over 75,000 years playing video-games
 * Money made from video-games twice as much as all Nevada Casinos combined
 * 3 times as much as any professional sports league
 * Nearly as much as movie industry (at this time)
 * 1982 – over 1.5 million arcade machines in operation in US alone
 * Regardless of controversy video-arcades were huge in US – lots of money to be made
 * Japanese companies doing well in America – Namco via Midway – Taito of America
 * One company in particular had trouble breaking into US – Nintendo
 * Nintendo – roughly translated as “Leave Luck to Heaven”
 * Founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi in Kyoto, Japan in 1889 to manufacture Hanafunda – Japanese playing cards
 * Early 1900's – Nintendo began to create western-style cards, in addition to Hanfuda
 * 1st Japanese company to successfully create and sell western-style playing cards
 * Members of the Yamauchi family ran Nintendo until very recently
 * 1949 – Hiroshi Yamauchi President of Nintendo – great-grandson of original founder
 * Yamauchi ran Nintendo from 1949 until 2002 - 53 years as President of Nintendo
 * Yamauchi turned Nintendo over to Satoru Iwata in 2002, making him the first non-Yamauchi Nintendo President in the company's history
 * Yamauchi retired near age 75, is currently (as of 2009) almost 82 years old, the richest peson in Japan, and the 149th richest person in the world (as fo 2008)
 * 1949 - Yamauchi coated cards with plastic, licensed Disney characters, entered into Japanese stock market
 * 1963 – changed focus of Nintendo to games and toys, rather than cards
 * Hanafunda manufacturing kept at Nintendo – mostly for nostalgia, did not sell well
 * Yamauchi started other projects – Daiya – Taxi company – “Love hotels” – hourly rates
 * Both businesses successful – Yamauchi still closed them
 * Wante to focus on the strength that Nintendo already had from its playing cards - its distribution system, which gave it access to toy shops and department stores in Japan
 * Nintendo became completely focused as an entertainment company
 * 1969 – Nintendo's first research and development branch for games to be created - this division simply called "Games"
 * 1970 – Gunpei Yokoi hired to this branch
 * Yokoi had a degree in electronics
 * Hired at Nintendo to keep the machines for the playing card manufacturing lines running
 * When brought to the games division, Yokoi was to handle engineering
 * Yamauchi told Yokoi to make "something great” for the upcoming holiday season
 * Very next day Yokoi shows new invention – Ultra Hand
 * Ultra Hand – extending toy arm – sells over 1.2 million units
 * Side note: Ultra Hand later appeared in Mario Power Tennis as a special move for Wario
 * Yokoi's job was to now create inventions and show them to Yamauchi
 * Yamauchi had uncanny sense for what would sell - if he liked an invention, he ordered it to go into production immediately
 * Yokoi's inventions became the "Ultra" series of toys for Nintendo
 * Ultra Machine next – home baseball-throwing machine
 * Ultra Scope – tiny periscope toy
 * Next from Yokoi – "Love Tester”
 * Couples hold hands, grab handles in machine with free hands, “love” between the two measured
 * Just a gimmick, but it encouraged hand-holding which was taboo in Japanese society at the time
 * Love Tester was a big success
 * New employees hired - Nintendo did not encourage an environment of cooperation
 * Employees competed with each other for Yamauchi's approval
 * Yamauchi hires Sharp salesman Masayuki Uemura after seeing a demonstration of Sharp's solar cells
 * Saw potential for toys with solar cell - wanted Uemura to help Yokoi with new toy idea
 * Experiment with Sharp's solar-cells – get them to detect where light is coming from
 * Goal to create cheap product using this technology for consumer market
 * Light guns created – emit a thin beam of light - if it hits a solar cell, located in a "target," something happens
 * Guns bundled with different targets and sold
 * Nintendo Beam Gun Games – cost around 4000-5000 yen (about $30) in early 1970's
 * About a million units sold in Japan between 1971 and 1972
 * Beam Gun Games sold very well - far better than Hanfuda, which was barely profitable and only kept for nostalgia reasons
 * Yokoi saw other uses for technology – electronic skeet shooting
 * Skeet shooting - shooting at flying clay discs (known as "pigeons") with a rifle - huge in Japan in 1970's
 * Yamauchi smart businessman – thought of brilliant use for idea
 * 1960's bowling huge in Japan – by 1970's many abandoned bowling alleys
 * Yamauchi had some alleys converted to indoor skeet-shooting ranges, using light guns
 * Simulated shooting clay pigeons via light sensors which registered hits and misses
 * Far more realistic simulation than certain amusement parks, which simulated skeet shotting with cork-bullets that were easily thrown off by winds
 * Yokoi, Uemura, and new employee Genyo Takeda, alter light guns for large-scale use
 * 1973 – Nintendo Laser Clay Shooting Ranges born
 * Opening night crowd of reporters/media watching first public demonstration
 * System-wide malfunction – Takeda makes smart move
 * Before anyone notices problems, he gets behind electronic controller of pigeons/score
 * Manually registers hits on pigeons and increases score accordingly
 * No one realizes there is a problem – all impressed – shooting range packed as soon as it opens to public - later locations run smoothly
 * Nintendo Laser Clay Shooting Ranges become huge Japanese activity
 * Nintendo finds other uses for technology – 1974 Wild Gunmen – electromechanical game
 * Use 16mm projector to show images of gunfighters – player must shoot before being shot
 * Big hit – exported to Europe and US
 * Ongoing Japanese oil shortage prematurely ends light-gun success
 * Japanese economy very poor – locations not paying bills and one can afford to go out to Nintendo locations
 * Nintendo invested large sums of money in shooting ranges – Nintendo on the verge of Bankruptcy
 * Yamauchi desperate to find new product to sell
 * 1975 – learns of American game using microprocessor to play games on TV
 * Magnavox Odyssey by Baer – Home Pong by Atari – others
 * Yamauchi makes deal with Magnavox to license the Odyssey technology
 * Yamauchi wants Nintendo to make its own home consoles along the lines of Odyssey, Home Pong, Telstar, etc.
 * Nintendo does not have resources to make microprocessors, however
 * Uemura suggests forming partnership with other Japanese electronics company
 * Nintendo forms partnership with Mitsubishi electronics - Nintendo comes up with ideas, buys custom chips from Mitsubishi
 * 1977 - Nintendo enters video-game business
 * Color TV Game 6 – plays 6 versions of tennis on TV– does very well
 * Following year – more advanced version – Color TV Game 15 – sells 1 million units
 * Nintendo releases other games in the Color TV Game series - Block Kuzushi ("Block Buster," like Breakout) and Mach Racer
 * Color TV Game series sells around 500,000 units total
 * Not enough to make a huge profit, but enough to keep Nintendo afloat
 * Yamauchi needs more profitable idea
 * 1970's calculators become cheaper and smaller – huge fad worldwide
 * Yokoi gets idea for new video-game – hand-held video-game the size of calculator
 * Not entirely new concept – 1976 Mattel released first hand-held video-games
 * Small strips of LED lights – players “move” dots of light to play game
 * Mattel releases Auto Race and Football – dots supposed to be cars or football players
 * Games very simple – game-play not very good – still sell very well
 * $24-$35 each – make over $400 million in sales for Mattel
 * Mattel starts electronics division – a number of important video-game releases in future
 * Yokoi's idea much more advanced – small and thin games using LCD screens
 * LCD's primitive by today's standards – still far more complex than LED screens
 * LCD capable of producing better graphics than simple dots on LED
 * Yokoi's games also have built in alarm clocks – games aptly called Game & Watch
 * Nintendo Game & Watch games released in 1980 - big success
 * Most Game & Watch games used stick-figure-like characters
 * Though figures do differ in appearance, they were similar enough to be seen as a single character
 * Mr. Game & Watch - technically not the same character in all of the Game & Watch games - just similar looking
 * Mr. Game & Watch is now considered the mascot for the Game & Watch series, after he appeared in the popular "Smash Bros." video games
 * Later Game & Watch games did not use this character - rather were simple version of more popular Nintendo games (Zelda, Mario, etc.)
 * Other companies released bootleg Game & Watch games
 * Mego Electronics – Mego Time Out series – stick figure characters similar to Nintendo's
 * Despite bootlegs, Nintendo still made millions off of LCD-based hand-helds throughout 80's (as did Mego and others)
 * Also in 1980 – Yamauchi decided Nintendo should make arcade games
 * Early games – Sheriff, Sky Skipper, others – mostly shoot-em-up types – not overly successful
 * Radarscope –Nintendo's 1st arcade hit in Japan – Space-Invaders-like – not very original
 * Radarscope 2nd best-selling game in Japan behind Pac-Man
 * Yamauchi confident it could be exported to other countries
 * Decided to set up American division of Nintendo – hired son-in-law, Minoru Arakawa
 * Not hired out of family loyalty – Yamauchi ruthless businessman
 * When he took over Nintendo in 40's, fired family members to prevent power struggle
 * Rarely let outside-factor influence his business decisions
 * Arakawa hired because of qualifications
 * Arakawa just finished managing construction of condominiums in Canada
 * Construction done in 3 years by Japanese firm
 * Thus Arakawa had experience running Japanese company in North America
 * Arakawa opened Nintendo office in NY and warehouse in NJ
 * Arakawa only real employee at this time – needed distributors to place Nintendo games
 * Ron Judy and Al Stone – ran Seattle-based trucking company – game-resellers on the side
 * Had been purchasing small number of Nintendo games from Hawaiian firms
 * Arakawa offered to pay their expenses and give them a large commission based on sales
 * In return, Judy and Stone would become Nintendo consultants and representatives
 * First Radarscope games shipped in – 3000 units
 * American players didn't go for game – only 1/3 sold – 2000 units remained in warehouse
 * Other Nintendo games, like Sheriff, sold worse in America
 * Yamauchi knew Nintendo needed something never seen before to break into US market
 * Shigeru Miyamoto - Not typical Japanese – liked bluegrass, playing banjo, Beatles music
 * Wanted to design toys – went to Kanazawa Munici College of Industrial Arts and Design
 * Graduated in 5 years – much longer than average Japanese student at the time
 * Degree in Industrial Design - did not want to enter workforce immediately
 * Laid back for 2 years, let life decide his fate for him
 * Father wanted him to work – contacted old friend of his – Hiroshi Yamauchi
 * Yamauchi agreed to a meeting – told him to return next day with examples of his work
 * Miyamoto had designed some toys during his 2-year hiatus – brought them to shows
 * Yamauchi impressed – gave him job as Staff Artist
 * Initial job to design artwork for cabinets for games like Sheriff and Radarscope
 * Yamauchi looking for new ideas – in 1979, called Miyamoto into his office
 * Asked if Miyamoto could design an arcade game
 * Had never made a video-game before – had been designing characters for years
 * Jumped at opportunity – didn't need to worry about technical aspects
 * Yamauchi was going to convert Radarscope machines to Miyamoto's game
 * Also assigned Yokoi to oversee Miyamoto's game and implement it technically
 * Miyamoto came up with elaborate story for his game
 * Gorilla escapes from master, who is a carpenter – kidnaps master's girlfriend
 * Player controls carpenter, who has to climb construction sites to get to gorilla
 * Gorilla throws barrels at Carpenter as he climbs, Carpenter has to jump over them
 * Later obstacles include walking fire, vats of cement, etc.
 * Eventually, player had to pull at the pins on beams - gorilla falls, girlfriend saved
 * Yamauchi – wanted game to sell in America – directed Miyamoto to give it English name
 * Miyamoto didn't speak English well – turned to English-Japanese dictionary
 * Looking for translation for desired title: “Stubborn Gorilla”
 * Came up with “Donkey” as synonym for “Stubborn” and “Kong” for “Gorilla”
 * The final game, Donkey Kong, was unlike anything before it
 * Pac-Man had no confidence at Namco – Donkey Kong had total confidence at Nintendo
 * Yamauchi immediately saw the potential of the game
 * Called Arakawa – told him to expect a new game called Donkey Kong
 * Arakawa barely able to keep Nintendo of America in business
 * Call about new game came at right time
 * Landlord, named Mario Segale, consistently coming around trying to get overdue rent
 * Arakawa immortalized him in video-game history
 * Changed the carpenter's name in Donkey Kong from Jump Man to Mario
 * Judy and Stone almost bankrupt from try to sell unsellable games
 * Wanted to leave Nintendo – Hearing about a game called Donkey Kong didn't help
 * Arakawa wanted to patent the game – asked Judy and Stone if they knew a lawyer
 * Took him to see their lawyer, Howard Lincoln
 * Lincoln also expected disaster from a game called “Donkey Kong”
 * Arakawa received small number of Donkey Kong units from Japan
 * Judy and Stone convinced bar owners to place the games in their bars – 2 locations
 * Spot Tavern, in South Seattle and Goldie's, a bar near University of Washington
 * Donkey Kong soon gained a following – games both took in over $200 a week
 * Arakawa, Judy, and Stone transformed the 2000 Radarscope units into Donkey Kong
 * All sold out quickly, more orders coming in
 * Rather than wait for shipments from Japan, Arakawa manufactured them in warehouse
 * Rather than go bankrupt, Judy and Stone became millionaires on game
 * Lincoln got a call from their accountant – expected it to be about their bankruptcy
 * Instead they wanted to be incorporated to protect their newly-found wealth
 * Lincoln impressed, took note of Nintendo's success
 * Donkey Kong sold over 67,000 units – one of the biggest sellers of the time
 * Nintendo and Miyamoto both established as strong presences in video-game industry


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