The Complete History of Nintendo

SlappingOysters writes "Gameplayer are running a comprehensive feature on the history of Nintendo that runs through all 119 years of their existence, from humble card maker to gaming powerhouse. It is documented in chronological order and includes a stack of trivia about the company that will be thoroughly enjoyed by all Nintendo fans. As an interesting side note, it links to a sister article that explores how Mario can improve your sex life."

Plumbers lead to greater sex?

[Vertana (1094987)]

What does Mario leading to "greater sex" have anything to do with Nintendo's history? On a side note... I shoulda been a plumber. I never knew that plumbing and jumping would lead to better sex. Thanks for the life tip Slashdot!

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[renegadesx (977007)]

When you think about it, Mario does look sorta like Ron Jeramy!

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[electrictroy (912290)]

These stories really shouldn't be written by people who are younger than an NES/Famicom (the original Nintendo system). They are filled with too many errors & urban legend. Such as: - Donkey Kong was the first with an attract screen.

False. Instead the articles should be written by the older generation who was actually THERE and remember the events as they unfolded.

I am also surprised there is no mention about the Gaming Giant called Atari. Yes I know it's not an Atari article, but to ignore Atari i

I thought Lou Albano was Mario

[tepples (727027)]

• Google Image Search: Captain Lou Albano [google.com]
• Albano as Mario [joystiq.com]

At least Albano made a better Mario than, say, Bob Hoskins [google.com].

Re:Plumbers lead to greater sex?

[hkgroove (791170)]

You haven't been reading craigslist http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/orl/740493470.html [craigslist.org]

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[brouski (827510)]

What, you've never tried those mushrooms?

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[witherstaff (713820)]

The Plumbing Business Is Not As Glamorous As The Porn Industry Depicts [theonion.com]

I wish it were true....

[Naughty Bob (1004174)]

Fellow geeks. Mario cannot 'improve' your sex life.

Most mentions of Mario only have a deleterious effect on same.

Instead, be cool, don't appear desperate, and lower your sights. Unless you are horrific, you'll do fine. Just don't rely on Mario.

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[Tubal-Cain (1289912)]

Fellow geeks. Mario cannot 'improve' your sex life.

How do you know? None of us have one to be improved.

Re: I wish it were true....

[halsver (885120)]

Exactly, we are all aware that geeks are the best lovers.

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[xaxa (988988)]

Some of us want to remove the circular reference in our sex life.

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[fermion (181285)]

But it will do you old enough to to have a sex life [google.com]. (not work or school friendly)

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[Renraku (518261)]

Mario can, in fact, improve your sex life.

Believe me, plumbing pays decently since its a skilled profession. With about $40k/year median in most areas. At $40k/year, you can live pretty comfortably and still have money to buy the ladies drinks over the weekend. You could probably afford a half-decent car, too. Throw in some classier things and some good music and getting laid is inevitable.

Besides, some mushrooms are quite the aphrodisiac. At least, before the kidney and liver failure set in.

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[AmberBlackCat (829689)]

In one of my sociology classes, my teacher said the good news was that, for every person, there is somebody out there who is the perfect match. But the bad news is it is very unlikely that these two will ever meet. So if that's true then maybe setting up facebook and myspace accounts and adding as many "friends" as possible is the way to go.

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[RyoShin (610051)]

Mario can, however, get you a tremendous amount of cake.

8 pages?

[magus_melchior (262681)]

8 pages worth of stuff, 1/3 of which is denied by Privoxy/Adblock, and no "print version" in sight?

At least some of the big journos have done something right. Print version style sheets.

Okay, rant over.

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[halcyon1234 (834388)]

For anyone thinking this was a bastion of good reporting, it isn't. It's just a reprint of an article that appeared in Ultimate Nintendo (as referenced at the end of their 8 page long, ad filled reprint). So, yeah, here's the FTA, and fuck Game Player:

119 years have culminated in that little white box that sits beneath your TV. No bigger than a DVD case, the Wii is essentially the same machine - albeit slightly prettier and technically more robust - that Nintendo would release back in 1985.

Don't believe us

Re:8 pages?

[dafrazzman (1246706)]

I think he was pointing out how unprofessional this article is. I, for one, agree. Each of those pages has at most a few hundred words of text. It's a smallish article spaced out very unnecessarily.

If I turn off adblock and script block, it's even worse. Nothing on there needs to work, it's all ad junk and clutter. It may be interesting, but the quality of the site is not so good. I feel like slashdot should maintain a higher standard than this.

Not a history

[Darundal (891860)]

It is more of a timeline of the company that ends at 2006. Although, if anyone is interested in a good account of Nintendo's history, check out the book Game Over: Press Start to Continue by David Sheff. It is a bit dated, and doesn't cover anything newer than the n64 (and that depends on when the copy you look at was produced) but it goes into great depth regarding Nintendo's history.

Re:Not a history

[bigbigbison (104532)]

Unfortunately, it is also out of print. It is a pretty fun book and more or less the best Nintendo book. Maybe one of these days it will be back in print.

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[Jorophose (1062218)]

For the sake of preservation, I'm sure there's got to be someone out there with a copy and close to an OCR device. Either that or it's sitting around in the belly of the internet, along with every other book (and a clockwork orange of course).

It's a shame to see books out of print. Wasn't there a startup that designed and started selling these printers intended to print out books at a time for libraries and such, as a sort of on-demand-printing for them to make some money? Sort of like Lulu.com but this one

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[bigbigbison (104532)]

If it is out there on the internets I couldn't find it. I wanted my students to read it and searched and search but couldn't find it. I especially hope that the second edition is out there somewhere and someone will link to it since it has some corrections and new(er) material (not by Sheff though)

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[Darundal (891860)]

Yeah, but the newer material isn't nearly up to the quality of the other stuff. The corrections however definitely make finding a copy of the second edition (which was the one I recommended) worthwhile.

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[Jorophose (1062218)]

Well, have you tried the butthole of the internet? They get a lot of stuff washing up on their shores...

Re:Not a history

[Haoie (1277294)]

Yes, that's a good book.

The Ultimate History of Video Games [Steve Hunt] is also a very worthy read. The focus isn't on Nintendo, but still worthwhile.

busy schedule

[emart (1343753)]

video gaming has never, doesn't, and will never improve the sex life of any one. unless it happens to be a female who plays video games, in which case every male video game player wishes to have sex with her.

rosey palms

[globaljustin (574257)]

video gaming has never, doesn't, and will never improve the sex life of any one

hmm... DOA Volleyball... I'd say it doesn't improve any two people's sex lives

Seems to me, anyone this interested in video games

[unassimilatible (225662)]

Should be concentrating on learning, say, the history of Western Civ or the ancients.

Now, I'm off for some more BF2.

1400 pages about Nintendo history

[FornaxChemica (968594)]

This looks like an enhanced version of the company history Nintendo gives to the press, the one you can see on the European site too:
http://www.nintendo.co.uk/NOE/en_GB/service/corporate_2001.html [nintendo.co.uk]

Much more interesting, at least if you speak French, is the "History of Nintendo", so far only one book has been published:
http://editionspixnlove.fr/collectiondetail.php?ID=6 [editionspixnlove.fr]

The book is 228 pages long and showcases 500 Nintendo toys and games prior to 1980 (took them 6 years of research!). The whole series will have 6 volumes totalling more than 1400 pages. Flabbergasting I daresay.

In Florida??

[EEBaum (520514)]

From TFA: 1989 - The Wizard movie is released in the US. Starring Fred Savage, Christian Slater and Beau Bridges, it chronicles the story of a young boy with a talent for videogames who enters a Nintendo tournament in Florida. Nintendo uses it as a vehicle to promote the NES and unveil Super Mario Bros 3 in the West.

The tournament was in California (Universal Studios, Hollywood, to be precise), thank you very much. Hence the protagonist incessantly whining "California!" through half the film.

Yes, I saw it in theatres. The announcer's cry of "Super... Mario... Brothers... THREE!!!!" remains one of the more memorable moments of my childhood.

NES in 1987?????????

[keepper (24317)]

1987 - The Famicom is released in the US and Europe as the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System). Selling for $300, it would sell 60 million units worldwide.

Uh... maybe i'm wrong.. but i remember getting my NES x-mas of 1985.... and wikipedia confirms this...

Great "article".. they can't even copy paste well.

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[PKFC (580410)]

Yeah I'm reading this and finding things just from my memory that are incorrect. (So yeah if I'm wrong, a little wikipedia would help that)

1985 - Nintendo releases the Famicom (Family Computer) in Japan priced at 54,800 yen. Designed by Masayuki Uemura, it is released with 20 software titles, including a home port of Donkey Kong. The machine was originally beige and maroon and its game cartridges had to be slotted in through the top.

It was released in Japan in 1983 with three games. Donkey Kong, Mario Bro

media companies...

[cpotoso (606303)]

My favorite line in the saga (from the article):

1982 - Nintendo vs Universal

Donkey Kong's success caught the eye of Universal Studios, which felt the character was a direct infringement of its film King Kong. Nintendo was taken to court by the studio, but the judge ruled in Nintendo's favour after it was brought to light that in a previous court case Universal fought to prove that the character of King Kong was within the pubic domain so it could make its movie. Nintendo was awarded $1.8 million from Universal.

Quite amazing how media companies want to have their cake and it it too... Unbelievable: to sue someone for infringement for something they fought to be in the public domain (they were presumably the original infringers, eh?). This is one of the (many) reasons I am in a war against media companies. I have been violating their copyrights as much as I can. If they do not respect the rights of others I won't respect theirs either.

Wow, never seen this before

[gravis777 (123605)]

The site is slashdotted. Same content available here [wikipedia.org]

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[larry bagina (561269)]

You've never had a short, hairy, italian guy shove a plunger up your ass while you masturbate?

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[schon (31600)]

Don't judge me. Everybody experiments in college.

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[Joebert (946227)]

Actually I think it's supposed to be that Mario teaches you how to get into the Princesses' pants by dusting yourself off and trying again after rejection.

But hey, if it's Mario and plumbers crack that turns you on this is America afterall. Hell, there's probably a few of us here who would pay top dollar to see Yoshi laying the wood to the Princess donkey show style while Toadstool watches and jerks Luigi off with his feet in the corner.

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[Joebert (946227)]

If you were Zelda and had a choice between Gannon who is about to rule up in this bitch, or Link who is some bum who lives with his dad in a little shack and cuts grass with a fucking sword for a few bucks here and there, wouldn't you make up some crazy story about being kidnapped to explain to Link what you were doing with Gannon so you could let him down easy ?

Shit, the whole triforce bit was just to get Link to stay busy & quit cock-blockin long enough for a bitch to get her swerve on.

I can't b

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[Rhapsody Scarlet (1139063)]

Well who can blame them? I'd detail my experiences with the GameCube, but I might as well just write a review of Super Smash Bros. Melee instead, that was the only truly remarkable game I played on it. Super Mario Sunshine? Patently inferior to Super Mario 64. Soul Calibur II? Can't match the original. Mario Kart: Double Dash? Simply couldn't hold my interest.

I know I'm missing some good stuff (Metroid Prime, why did I never play that?), but my experiences were poor. SSBM is the only game to not be surpasse

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[Sabz5150 (1230938)]

One word sums up my GameCube experience: Ikaruga. Incredible sounds, beautiful graphics, gameplay rivaled only (ironically enough) by Radiant Silvergun. There is no better game for the 'Cube IMHO.

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[renegadesx (977007)]

As somebody who owned all 3 consoles (4 if you include the Dreamcast) I must say the cube did have its place deserved in my living room.

Metroid Prime was extremly well done, props to Retro Studio's for that one, Prime 2? Good but didn't do anything new. Double Dash wasn't a major step up but still an improvment

There were quite a few awesome games that were either Cube exclusives or timed exclusives, RE4 being the best of them (IMO best game of last gen). Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes, Eternal Darknes,

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[Jorophose (1062218)]

No, they did quite well all around... I'm wondering how many Xbox sales were for XBMC? And how many PS2s went unsold and were for sale now?

It could have gotten #1, but I think the problems were mainly due to piracy... And sadly it's a double-edged sword.

I can't find most of those classic gamecube games. I found a lot. But games like Tales of Symphonia, Luigi's Mansion, Double Dash, Metroid Prime, etc. I have to borrow, and games like RE4, MGS: TS, ED, and Ikaruga (along with the original pikmin) can't be fo

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[renegadesx (977007)]

Nah, it was never going to get #1, devs were still burnt after the way Nintendo treated them during the first period so they were never going to get all the major multiplatform hits and less exclusives than say Sony.

Also dont forget the PS2 won by a very large margin. In 2004 they were in 2nd place but in 3rd by the 360's launch. The PS2 really dominated towards the end due to titles like Singstar, all of a sudden teenage girls wanted PS2's which really skyrocketed sales by turning it into a glorified ka

Re:No Gamecube

[Jorophose (1062218)]

The only problem with Nintendo's methodology is that they don't want shit games.

When Sony opened the floodgates you got all the shovelware games. Haven't you noticed that?

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[CronoCloud (590650)]

No, what I notice is the fact that I can get more than 1 or 2 RPG's a year, and the fact that more games from Japan are released in the US. Sony respected the US market in a way Nintendo never did. Sony actively recruited non-Japanese devs early in the PSones life, hell they even encouraged ports of some PC games. List the "greatest" N64/Gamecube games, and then list the greatest PS1/PS2 games. There's more diversity of developers and gameplay in the PS1/PS2 list, while for the N64/Gamecube they're almos

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[Darkness404 (1287218)]

The PS2 had an early head start with the DVD format. At the time of its launch, it was an affordable DVD player that played games. Secondly, it was backwards compatibly with all the PS1 games giving it a larger library of games. Third, it had a lot of exclusive system selling titles such as Final Fantasy. The Xbox had Halo which was a system seller. But the Gamecube had a lot of exclusive titles but just never managed for them to sell systems, Melee was a great game, and Tales of Symphonia is one of the bes

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[CronoCloud (590650)]

The thing that I really liked about the gamecube was the short load times compared to the PS2 and Xbox. Seriously, it seemed to take at least a minute to go back to the world map after a battle in Final Fantasy...

Extended load times in PS2 and PS1 games are a sure sign your PS2 (or PS1) is about to give up the ghost and give you DRE's. It shouldn't take a minute to get back to the world map in FFX. Some games are very hard on the drive, Everquest Online Adventures for example, if your PS2 is going bad, yo

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[wanderingknight (1103573)]

lol @ Soul Calibur II being worse than SC1 when most hardcore fans (that is, the tournament-goers pros, not the scrubs) would agree that it's the best of the series.

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[MagicDude (727944)]

Windwaker is fantastic. For my part, it's surpassed only by OOT. Don't believe anyone who says the cell shaded art takes away from it. If you haven't played it, I strongly recommend it.

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[i.of.the.storm (907783)]

I don't know whether to be more surprised that you RTFA or that they left off the Gamecube. Melee was THE party game for many people until Brawl came out.