Spring+2009+Lecture+18+Notes

= __Spring 2009 Lecture 18 Notes__ =


 


 * NES sold amazingly well through late 80's and into early 90's
 * Nintendo sales records – 1.8 million NES sold 1986, 5.4 million 1987, 9.3 million 1988
 * 1989 Nintendo changed its fiscal-year – lost 5 months for records that year
 * Still showed 5.3 million NES units sold during the 7 recorded 1989 months
 * Another 7.6 million sol din 1990 – Nintendo earning huge profits
 * $750 million in games and hardware sold in US alone in 1987 – $1.7 billion 1988
 * End of decade – sales strong – other things not as pleasant for Nintendo
 * Americans felt economical problems due in large part to Japanese products in market
 * Nintendo's sales alone accounted for 1/10 of America's trade deficit with Japan
 * Other image-problems – educators and parents – said Nintendo big problem to students
 * Claimed NES took away study and exercise time
 * 1989 study – Nintendo partly to blame for 10% decrease in fitness of children
 * Jewish groups protested Legend of Zelda – said third dungeon was inverted swastika
 * Families for Peace protested outside of Nintendo's American Headquarters at holidays
 * Claimed NES zapper-games promoted war-like mentality
 * Nintendo had become lightning-rod for controversy – company needed to soften image
 * Arakawa turned to one of earliest employees – Howard Phillips
 * Nintendo of America's product analysis manager – best game-player Nintendo had
 * Enthusiasm for games contagious – had very youthful, wholesome appearance
 * Made perfect representative to promote Nintendo and counteract bad publicity
 * Phillips became popular – traveled country on tours – President of Nintendo Fan Club
 * Wrote columns for predecessor to Nintendo Power – Nintendo Fan Club News
 * Starred in comic-strip in Nintendo Power - “Howard and Nester”
 * Nintendo promoted Phillips as “the man who plays games for a living”
 * Promotion lasted until Phillips left Nintendo in 1991
 * End of time at Nintendo – survey showed 59% 9-11 year old boys in US recognized him
 * Phillips also pushed for quality-control in games after NES went nation-wide in 1986
 * Video-game industry crashed before – recent memory threatened Nintendo
 * Few people believed new resurgence in home video-games would last
 * Meant people would be less likely to buy NES if they thought industry would die again
 * Retailers would eventually stop carrying NES due to same fears
 * First way Nintendo tried to counteract fears – publicly distanced themselves from Atari
 * Atari seen as symbol for death of home video-games in America
 * Hard to distance themselves – Nintendo's sales-force made up of former Atari employees
 * Managed to spread word that Nintendo had analyzed and learned from Atari's mistakes
 * First analysis came from Howard Phillips – felt glut of bad games had killed industry
 * Wrote pamphlet entitled “The Facts on Home Video Games”
 * Listed 4 problems of old games –
 * 1) Limited in Graphics and depth of play
 * 2) Played at their best only in arcades
 * 3) Restricted to few colors
 * 4) Constrained by poor audio qualities, which limited a variety of sound effects
 * Phillips felt NES had potential to fix all of those problems
 * Furthered by Arakawa and Lincoln – believed game developers on older consoles got lazy
 * Created too many games on old consoles that were almost identical to other games
 * Hiroshi Yamauchi knew 3rd-party developers could make great Famicom games
 * Encouraged 3rd-party games on Famicom – same mentality brought to NES in America
 * Added problem in America - recent death of industry due in part to bad games on consoles
 * Lincoln devised way to stop this from happening on NES – strict licensing agreements
 * Potential game developers had to sign on with Nintendo before making NES games
 * In past developers didn't need permission from company to make games for console
 * Different with NES – built-in security chip – prevented unlicensed games from playing
 * Almost impossible to crack security code – developers had to sign to make NES games
 * Restrictions – 1. Final approval from Nintendo on all games
 * 2. Companies limited to 5 NES games a year – made sure quality of each game higher
 * Last restriction – 3. All NES games had to be exclusive to NES (could not be made for other consoles) for 2 years after release
 * American companies waited – see if worth it to make NES games – Activision, EA, etc.
 * Early licensed NES developers all Japanese companies
 * Only a few companies in early days – all made tons of money when NES took off
 * Capcom – one of first NES licensees – sold millions of copies of first 3 games they made
 * First 3 Capcom NES games – 1942, Ghosts N' Goblins, Commando
 * 1987 – American companies saw how much money could be made with NES
 * Signed on to be licensed NES developers, even with restrictive agreement
 * Nintendo also developed games for their own system – called 1st-party games
 * Years later, in 1994, Lincoln discussed the importance of 1st party games
 * Trip Hawkins – founder of EA – set to debut new console called 3DO in 1994
 * Lincoln dismissed 3DO as not being a threat – proved correct when 3DO failed
 * Reporter asked Lincoln how he knew 3DO would fail – said 3DO had no 1st-party games
 * Lincoln said 1st-party games are what differentiate consoles from each other
 * Nintendo created some of the best and most diverse games for their own NES console
 * 1987 specifically – 3 fantastic and amazingly different NES games made by Nintendo
 * The Legend of Zelda – biggest game of 1987
 * Made by Shigeru Miyamoto – previously created Mario, Donkey Kong, etc.
 * Zelda type of role-playing game – similar in most basic ways to Atari 2600 Adventure
 * Zelda far more complex – more engaging game-play – larger world, etc.
 * Starred young elf-like boy named Link – on quest to rescue Princess Zelda from Ganon
 * Had to collect 8 pieces of magical triangle called Triforce in order to face Ganon
 * Pieces scattered throughout large game-world – first free-roaming game from Miyamoto
 * Shown in over-head view – players could go in any direction
 * Could also return to previous areas – Miyamoto took advantage of this
 * Players could see items – could not get it until later in game after they got other items
 * Lots of typical Miyamoto secrets in game – burn bushes, push rocks, bomb walls to find secrets
 * Arakawa received early prototype of Legend of Zelda
 * Worried American gamers not like such a complex game with lots of text-windows
 * Had employees test it – Japanese-translators there to read text for American employees
 * Took most employees a long time to warm up to game – some 10 hours before they enjoyed it
 * Different game experience than anything before it – needed more time to take-in game
 * All gave game high marks after playing it for a while – Arakawa still worried
 * Thought people wouldn't give game a chance – so different – bigger than any game before
 * Decided to do number of things for American release to prevent this problem
 * Legend of Zelda sold in shiny gold cartridge – stood out from other typical grey cartridges
 * Big game – needed more storage space than any NES game before it
 * Arakawa had battery put in game to save up to 3 players' progress per game
 * Didn't have to start over each time played the game - 1st game ever to use battery back-up
 * Far more documentation than any previous NES game – thick instruction manual
 * Large fold-out map of land of Hyrule (Hyrule s the land players explored in the Legond of Zelda game)
 * Last, Arakawa set up toll-free 1-800 number – players could call if they got stuck in game
 * The Legend of Zelda released June 27, 1987 – quickly became best-selling NES game
 * Phone calls at 800 number listed in game-booklet soon came pouring in
 * The 4 people Arakawa hired to work phone lines soon over-worked – had to hire more
 * Customers began calling in with questions on other games
 * By 1990 over 200 people working phone lines – free lines became too expensive to run
 * Arakawa set up 1-900 pay-per-call number
 * Nintendo Help Center remained free if gamers wanted to write-in with questions
 * Arakawa expected calls to subside with 900 number – calls continued almost unabated
 * Average of 100,000 calls, 2500 emails (once emails invented), and 1900 mailed-in letters a week through 90's
 * Holiday season – 500 employees brought on to answer as many as 250,000 calls a week
 * Second big game from Nintendo in 1987 – Mike Tyson's Punch Out
 * Conversion of arcade game Nintendo released in 1983 simply called Punch Out
 * Arcade game used pseudo first-person view – saw through wire-frame of player-character
 * Played as up-and-coming boxer represented by green wire-mesh
 * Boxing game – also puzzle-game – had to figure out fighting-patterns of opponents
 * Arcade game design by Genyo Takeda – help design Laser Clay Shooting Ranges in 70's
 * By 1983 Takeda was head of Nintendo's Research and Development Team 3 (R&D3)
 * R&D3 typically focused on hardware – moved to software with Punch Out game
 * Takeda and R&D3 also handled home-conversion of Punch-Out
 * More than double the opponents of arcade – changed game to 3rd-person perspective
 * Controlled tiny boxer “Little Mac” – barely reached opponents belts – jumped to punch
 * Arakawa claimed Little Mac was modeled off of spokesperson Howard Phillips
 * Didn't look like Phillips who had red hair – Mac had black hair – facial features different
 * Phillips or not – other big celebrity was big draw for game – popular boxer Mike Tyson
 * Arakawa himself got idea to license Tyson for home version of Punch Out
 * Saw Tyson's early fights – impressed with his power and skill
 * Offered Tyson rumored sum of $50,000 for 3-year agreement to use name and likeness
 * Tyson agreed – Takeda told of deal and also agreed to make necessary additions to game
 * Punch Out became Mike Tyson's Punch Out for the home version of the game
 * Tyson licensed by Nintendo before he was the world champion
 * Deal became even better for Nintendo after Tyson won the WBC title in November 1986
 * Mike Tyson's Punch Out became million-seller – deal later threatened Nintendo's image
 * 1987 – Tyson involved in heavily-reported divorce from actress Robin Givens
 * Claimed that Tyson beat Givens during marriage
 * 3-year agreement with Nintendo ended – his name and image removed from game
 * Re-released as simply Punch Out! – final opponent changed from Tyson to "Mr. Dream"
 * Third major 1st-party game for NES in 1987 – Metroid
 * Created by another big name in Nintendo history – Gunpei Yokoi and his R&D1 team
 * Futuristic exploration/adventure game starring intergalactic bounty hunter Samus Aran
 * Sent to planet Zebes to track down the evil Space Pirates and their leader Mother Brain
 * Discovered energy-sucking creatures called Metroids on planet
 * Metroid one of the more difficult games of its time – completely free-roaming like Zelda
 * Unlike Zelda – objectives much less clear-cut – had to explore to find what to do next
 * Game featured large vertical and horizontal-scrolling areas requiring precision-jumping
 * Power-ups spread through world which expanded Samus's abilities and strength
 * Samus wore helmet throughout game – hid character's identity
 * Game ended – Samus took off helmet – revealed to be a woman
 * Ground-breaking in many respects – video-game traditionally a male-dominated medium
 * One of first examples of a female main-character – especially one as tough as Samus
 * Serious nature of Metroid caused it to be a symbol of Nintendo's adult-targeted games
 * Metroid games later released on almost all Nintendo systems


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