Nintendo of Japan, was originally founded in 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, an artist and craftsworker during the Meiji period. Founded as a playing card company, Nintendo virtually meant "leave luck to heaven."1 Entering into the video game market in the seventies by joining with Coleco, an American video game company, Nintendo would achieve moderate success through such arcade games as Donkey Kong and Mario Brothers. They would also produce a majority of games for the Third Generation system Coleco Vision. But the gaming market crash at that time would destroy several companies, including Coleco, leaving Nintendo's future in video games uncertain. Teaming up with Mitsubishi to produce watches with simple LCD games built in, Nintendo would tread water for a few years, unable to truly achieve any kind of lasting prosperity.2 Upon learning of the success that other companies, such as Sega, were having in the U.S. Hirosi Yamauchi, a descendant of Fusajiro's, pressed Nintendo engineers to design their own home console. Yamauchi told his engineers to leave out all extraneous frills to save money and speed up production.3 The system was rushed by the pressures Yamauchi placed on his designers, and was released no more than six months since the release of the Sega Master System. The first shipments were riddled with defects because of the short design period, thus making many retailers very upset.8 However, using the marketing data already established by competing companies, Nintendo executives channeled nearly all of the company's resources into advertisements. These advertisements hit the American and Japanese consumers at the exact right time, because sales for the Nintendo Entertainment System would skyrocket over the next few months, and Nintendo would not be able to manufacture enough systems to keep the stores stocked.8
The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) would become the highest selling system in history, and also the most notorious. Nintendo would be involved in the intimidation of retailers, competing companies, and even licensed "partners." They would have countless lawsuits brought up against them, and fill the gaming community with inaccurate rumors and "vapor-ware" for the sole purpose of detracting public attention away from competitors. Ultimately, Nintendo would be brought up on charges of monopolizing, price fixing, and anti-trust violations by District Attorneys from all fifty states, and lose. However, most will agree, that the real loser in all of these battles, was the customer. |
