Some Quirks of Pre-1980s Nintendo

The History of Nintendo (Volume 1) is finished, and all I have to say is - what a ride.

Nintendo's history is certainly a fascinating one, though looked at in context, it makes sense that they wound up in video games. They also seem somehow quintessentially Japanese to me, after having read about their development.

I mean, it seems like the company tried everything. They hit it big with cards, and meandered into arcade games to fill Japan's empty bowling alleys and then checked out early home consoles that ran sets of games. They're like a character in a magical girl anime who's always re-inventing themselves.

What really surprised me, though, was just how strong a tent pole Disney was for the company. When their business was flagging on the card front, running off Disney themed hanafuda and Western playing cards worked - not because people loved playing cards that much, but because the Disney characters on them made them collectable. What's more, these close ties to Disney make later developments like the similarities between the Kokiri and the Lost Boys of Never Never Land all the more pronounced.

The fact that Nintendo was working with the electronics division of Mitsubishi when they were first making consoles is also pretty crazy. Though none of the pre-Famicom stuff looks that great.

For the most part they're just consoles that have x number of games built into their chips, most of which just being re-colours or very slightly modified versions of a single game (usually Pong, or a wall-breaker). That the Color TV Racing 112 console came with a steering wheel controller is pretty cool., though that bit of tech was a bit too far ahead.

The preview of the Game and Watch games, which are the focus of Part II was definitely a great thing to whet the appetite, but learning that Part II is entirely devoted to them makes me wonder how neat a read it'll be.

To break things up a little though, Haruki Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase is the next book for this blog. Watch for it!