The History of Nintendo 7

Famicom Is Out Worldwide


Finally, after 3 years of those damn Japanese hogging up all Nintendo to themselves, we get a taste of the glory! The NES’s worldwide release was possible in 1986 with the help of Worlds of Wonder. The system is launched with 15 games, which is 10 less than what was intended at first. The NES is selling like erm…hot bread and it completely beats all the competition. This backup gives Nintendo the ability to start making the Famicom Disk System.


Famicom Disk System


The Famicom Disk System was a way of buying games for a cheap price. You would buy a disk, and with that you could get a game recorded onto it for only around $10. Basically it was a floppy disk and you paid to have special machines called Disk Writers record a new game onto your disk. The good part of it was that you only needed one disk, but the downside was that once you got a game erased from your disk, it was for good and if you wanted to play it again it would be another $10 to have it re-recorded onto your disk. Even though it had the potential of being great, Nintendo dropped it because of how easy it was to make illegal copies of games and write them onto a disk. It’s hard to imagine how Nintendo didn’t foresee the problem of piracy during the development of the Famicom Disk System. After the years 3 more disk systems are rumored to have been under development but were all dropped for reasons that haven’t been confirmed.


Metroid Sucks In Japan – Excellent Overseas


Did you know that Gunpei’s greatest game ever was almost discarded and thought of as trash? Yes, when Metroid was released in 1986 in Japan for the Famicom, it was very unpopular as it wasn’t the type of game the Japanese liked. Just because it was one of Gunpei’s creations, Nintendo released it in America and Europe, and to everyone’s surprise, it was a big success! Another game that was released this year was Super Mario Bros. 2. This wasn’t out in America or Europe because people said it was too similar to Super Mario Bros., but in the SNES game Super Mario Allstars the game would appear as Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels. The beginning of a legendary series is made, The Legend of Zelda. The game is, as you should know, extremely popular and Nintendo pulls the old don’t-give-them-all-the-games-ordered-so-gamers-buy-2or3-instead-of-1 trick and it works!


Gunpei Yokoi Thinks About A New Handheld


In 1987 Gunpei shows his ideas of a new handheld system to Hiroshi that would be much more powerful than the Game & Watches. The name is Game Boy, and little do they know that it will become the most successful system in the history of gaming! Anyways, the second in the Zelda series is out, The Legend of Zelda: The Adventures of Link. Other games that people think of when they play NES that were released this year are Castlevania, Final Fantasy, and Mike Tyson’s Punchout. The NES is doing well and with the Game Boy under work the future looks bright for Nintendo!


Official Magazine


In 1988 NOA decides that it’s time for an official Nintendo magazine and Nintendo Power is born! Later on Europeans would get Nintendo Official Magazine, both are often referred to as NP and NOM. For American and European gamers, Super Mario Bros. 2 is released (it’s nothing like the Japanese SMB2). Minoru Arakawa sees the Tetris game in action and wants it to be a launch game with the Game Boy, and it ended up being so.