Lecture+11+Notes

= __Lecture 11 Notes__ =

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 * 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 in 1981
 * “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 Hanafuda – 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 (as of 2010) 83 years old, the 7th richest person in Japan (he held the top spot in 2009), and, in 2008, he was the 149th richest person in the world
 * 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
 * Hanafuda 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
 * Wanted 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
 * Ultra Hand has also appeared in various other Nintendo games, including the WarioWare series
 * 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 (likely just measured skin conductivity), but it encouraged hand-holding which was taboo in Japanese society at the time
 * Love Tester was a big success
 * Like the Ultra Hand, there have been references to these devices (Ultra Machine, Ultra Scope, Love Tester, etc.) in Nintendo video games from much later
 * 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, as noted, 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 shooting 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 no 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 to produce ideas
 * 1977 - Nintendo enters video-game business
 * Color TV Game 6 – plays 6 versions of tennis on TV– does well (in Japan, where it is released)
 * 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 released 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, including Intellivision
 * 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 his appearances in the popular "Smash Bros." video games
 * Later Game & Watch games did not use this character - rather were simple versions of more popular Nintendo games (Legand of Zelda, Super Mario Bros., 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-held games 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 terribly original and not overly successful
 * Radarscope – Nintendo's 1st arcade hit in Japan – Space-Invaders-like – still not very original, but still did very well in Japan
 * 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, much like Taito of America – 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 factors 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 show to Yamauchi
 * Yamauchi impressed – gave him job as Staff Artist
 * Initial job to design artwork for cabinets for games like Sheriff and Radarscope - did not design games themselves, nor graphics in the game, just the images on the arcade cabinet
 * 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 - simple by today's standards, but still more elaborate than any game up until this point
 * Gorilla escapes from his 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
 * Toru Iwatani's Pac-Man had no confidence at Namco – Miyamoto's 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
 * Arakawa changed the carpenter's name in Donkey Kong from Jump Man to Mario, after the landlord
 * 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

Time Magazine Article from January 18, 1982, discussing Steve Juraszek and Video Games (be sure to click the "Next Page" buttons to see the entire article)

Website With Information and Images of Hanfuda Cards

Image of Nintendo's Ultra Hand

Image of Wario Perfoming the "Ultra Hand Return" Special Move, an homage to Nintendo's 1st big toy

Image of Nintendo's Ultra Machine

Image of Nintendo's Ultra Scope

Watch a Video of One of Nintendo's Early Light Gun Toys from 1970

**__ Nintendo History - Early Games __**
Watch a Video of "Wild Gunman," the 16mm Film Game from 1974 that used Nintendo's Light Gun Technology

Nintendo Color TV-Game 6 - 1977 (be sure to click on the pictures!)

Nintendo Color TV-Game 15 - 1978 (be sure to click on the pictures!)

Nintendo Color TV Block Kuzushi (Block Buster) - 1978 (be sure to click on the pictures!)

Nintendo Color TV Mach Racer - 1978 (be sure to click on the pictures!)

Mattel Auto Race 1977 - First All-Electronic Handheld (Using LCD Lights)

Mattel Football 1977

Game & Watch Collection - Remember to Click through all of the Individual Games in the "My Collection" Link on the side!

Mr. Game & Watch, as he appeared in the 2001 and 2008 Smash Bros. Video Games

Nintendo's Sheriff - 1980

Nintendo Sky Skipper (Arcade) - 1981

Nintendo Radarscope - 1980

Watch a Video of Radarscope in Action

Donkey Kong Info

Play Donkey Kong Online (without sound for some reason)

- OR - Play Only The First Level With Sound