Why Nintendo is so special

Although I didn't mention before, the objective of my research is to reveal what caused the emergence of modern video games. In my understanding, "the first modern video game" in history was made by two gifted game creators of Nintendo: Gunpei Yokoi and Shigeru Miyamoto. The game was so revolutionary that even today every successful video game follows the very formula they established then.

So, the question here is "how and why" they were able to achieve such an accomplishment.

The "how" part is very simple.

In short, they found the four key elements of successful video games and used them quite effectively. More precisely, three of them were found by the veteran creator Yokoi in between 1966 and 1969, and the last one, which opened up a new frontier of video games, was found in 1981 by Miyamoto, who had no experience of making games before then.

On the other hand, the "why" part is much more deep and important. So, I'll center my discussion on the part.

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Actually, they were not the only people who discovered those elements. "Spacewar!", one of the earliest video games, did contain one of them.

Youtube: Spacewar! on the Computer History Museum PDP-1 (Steve Russell, 1962)

"Pong" became the world's first successful commercial video game because Nolan Bushnell, a co-founder of Atari, found the second one.

Youtube: Original Atari PONG (Atari, 1972)

"Space Invaders", which once totally dominated Japanese game industry, is probably the first video game to effectively utilize the third one.

Youtube: Space Invaders (Taito, 1978)

And, "Pac-Man" is the perfect example of what happens when those three elements are fully utilized concurrently - he became an American idol.

Youtube: Pac-Man Arcade gameplay (Namco, 1980)

By the way, those innovative games, as you may know, have many followers and clones.

"Computer Space", Nolan Bushnell's first product, was a modified version of Spacewar! and Pong is said to be inspired by a table tennis game developed for Magnavox Odyssey, the world's first home video game console; Pong itself became a victim of cloning.

Although Pac-Man is truly unique game, it was apparently influenced by other dot-eating games like "Head On(SEGA)" to some extent; Ms. Pac-Man, its popular sequel, was originally a MOD version of it.

Youtube: Head-On (SEGA, 1979)

Even Nintendo earned money by selling a modified version of Space Invaders before Yokoi and Miyamoto got involved in the development of arcade video games.

Youtube: Arcade Game: Space Fever (Nintendo, 1979)

Copying or stealing core mechanics of successful video games is one of the most widespread disease in the industry(are there any First-person shooters that are not influenced at all by "Doom" or its predecessor "Wolfenstein 3D"?)

Youtube: Wolfenstein 3D - Dos (developed by iD Software, 1992)

But Miyamoto is completely immune to it and he never tolerates developers in Nintendo doing such a shameful thing.

Just take a look at Wii Fit, Animal Crossing, Tomodachi Life and Nintendogs - those games are beyond categorization and no other companies have succeeded in mimicking their success.


Why Nintendo is so special?


That's because Yokoi, its first developer, discovered the key elements of video games in a different field.

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As I told you in the last article, Yokoi started his career not as a game creator but as a toy designer. And more importantly, he had no one to consult with since he was the first developer in the company. So he had to find out what kind of products people wanted by himself. It was through this process that he found the three out of four key elements, and notably he did this work even before Pong was released.

So let's now talk about those elements, one by one.

The first and most essential element of video games is "instinctive pleasure" or, to put it more simply, "fun".

Whenever Shigeru Miyamoto, the most respected game creator on earth, develops a new game, he begins the process by researching what kinds of new fun he can provide.

For example, the earliest prototype of "Super Mario Bros." was extremely simple. There were no enemies, no background objects, even Mario was represented by a simple large rectangle because the single most important thing for him was to examine whether controlling a large character with a game pad could be a fun experience.

Shigeru Miyamoto (2010 @ Nintendo) :

Around December of 1984, I wanted to see what it would be like with a Mario jumping around who was about twice the size of the one in Mario Bros., so I asked the programmers at Nakago-san's company, SRD, to make a test version ...

- Iwata Asks: Super Mario Bros. 25th Anniversary

Link: https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Iwata-Asks/Super-Mario-Bros-25th-Anniversary/Vol-5-Original-Super-Mario-Developers/1-Using-the-D-pad-to-Jump/1-Using-the-D-pad-to-Jump-212727.html


As another example, when he created "Super Mario 64", the revolutionary 3D platformer, his approach was more radical. For him, moving Mario around in a open space was a truly fulfilling experience and it was all he cared about.

Shigeru Miyamoto (2007 @ Nintendo) :

This is quite an extreme view, but I actually felt at one point that this didn’t really have to be a game ... 

There was no other game before Mario 64 where you could truly move around freely in a 3D environment, so it was fun just moving Mario around and finding stars.

- Iwata Asks: Super Mario Galaxy

Link: https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Iwata-Asks/Iwata-Asks-Super-Mario-Galaxy/Volume-4-Shigeru-Miyamoto/2-It-s-Fun-Just-Playing-Around/2-It-s-Fun-Just-Playing-Around-220674.html


For Miyamoto, his most essential part of the job is to discover new fun experiences and realize them using available resources and technologies.

Shigeru Miyamoto (2007 @ Nintendo) :

My initial focus, and my primary focus throughout development, is not these individual elements of the game. When I'm creating a game, what I always try to envision, what I always think about, is the core element of fun within the game.

- The Game Developers Conference 2007 keynote speech

Youtube: Shigeru Miyamoto 2007 GDC Keynote - Part 3 (quoted part begins from 10:57)

Needless to say, he learned the idea from Yokoi.

Gunpei Yokoi - Nintendo's first developer (2)

Although Gunpei Yokoi majored in electrical engineering at a famous university in Japan, he failed to get a job in the electronics industry. As a matter of fact, Nintendo was the only company which offered him a job. But they hadn't developed any electronic toys yet and had no capability to do so; the company was made up mainly of old-style craftsmen and not so well-educated factory workers.

His main job was just to maintain electrical equipment in its playing cards factory. It was obviously not a perfectly suitable job for him considering he was only the second employee who had a college degree.

Why they hired him - were they aware of his creativity and planned to train him as a developer?

That was not the case.

They were just obligated to hire a qualified electrical engineer like Yokoi because a law took effect in 1965, the year of his graduation, forced them to do so.

Fortunately for him, the job didn't require much work because he was not hired to solve existing problems; he had no regular duties other than periodic checking of the equipment. Having had much spare time, he had been making some toys using the factory's machine tools even during his duty hours. Crafting was his favorite hobby from childhood but he didn't think he could make it his profession when he had to choose his future occupation.

One day Hiroshi Yamauchi, the third president, saw him playing with one of those handmade toys. Later that day, he was summoned to the president's office. He thought he would be accused of his lack of seriousness.

Instead, he heard unexpected words - the president ordered him to develop it as a commercial product. This was the moment when the modern history of Nintendo began without being noticed by anyone, including both of them.

Yokoi had no reason to oppose it since he had been dreaming of making some products by his own hand. After the conversation, he spent the following months improving its mechanical design to prepare for mass production.

The product, which was named "Ultra Hand" by the president, hit the market in 1966 and achieved a huge success - it sold more than a million units.

Link: beforemario: Nintendo Ultra Hand (Detailed infomation about the product)

Youtube: Demonstrating "Ultra Hand" (in Japanese)

As you can see in the video above, its use is very simple: you can stretch its arms and grab things with the hand at the end, using the handle.

So, it's just a toy; far from what you'd expect from today's Nintendo. But both historically and practically speaking, this is the true origin of all Nintendo products - that's the theme of next article.

Anyway, its success was enough to convince Yamauch to establish Nintendo's first ever development division; he bet his company's future on the inexperienced, but hopeful young creator.