Nintendo NES FamiCom Creator - Computerphile

Bring Donkey Kong home! - The unenviable task given to Masayuki Uemura by Nintendo bosses in the early '80s. Unimpressed by Atari's 2600 they set out to bring a true videogame arcade experience into the home.
Many thanks to The National Videogame Museum in Sheffield UK for setting up this interview: bit.ly/C_NVM
Thanks also to Akinori Nakamura for interpreting for us.
See the full (almost) un-edited interview here: • EXTRA BITS: Nintendo C...
/ computerphile
/ computer_phile
This video was filmed and edited by Sean Riley.
Computer Science at the University of Nottingham: bit.ly/nottsco...
Computerphile is a sister project to Brady Haran's Numberphile. More at www.bradyharan.com

[@mefaun]

RIP to a legend! thank you for all the wonderful childhood memories.

[@crayonaurora2111]

Rest in Peace, thank you for your gift to the world.

[@militantpacifist4087]

Rest In Peace, Legend.

[@Yupppi]

I wish there was a version of edit where you get his original voice with just translated subtitles :)

[@Feyangel23]

I'm with you I still found this interview very enjoyable and insightful

[@ToTheGAMES]

Inner weeb calling yea?

[@karlkastor]

The unedited version is linked in the description

[@Feyangel23]

@@karlkastor ahhhh thank you!

[@Yupppi]

@@karlkastor Thank you, should have noticed.

[@amber1862]

What a colossal badass.

[@amber1862]

@MichaelKingsfordGray You clearly aren't very intelligent; go read the Bible or something.

[@amber1862]

@MichaelKingsfordGray Are you one of those lonely KZbin trolls who tries to impress Reddit?

[@foxandbarrettshow6916]

@@amber1862 the idea that the Bible would be involved in a thread about gaming is beyond me

[@amber1862]

@@foxandbarrettshow6916 I'm messing with him - read the description on his KZbin channel haha.

[@DanieleGiorgino]

The creator of the NES says the 2600 was too simple for Japanese kids. I love it.

[@tomservo5007]

not to mention, Nintendo released multiple products similar to the 2600 but much simpler

[@foxandbarrettshow6916]

It was unconvincing it needed too much imagination

[@alvallac2171]

@@foxandbarrettshow6916 *unconvincing. It *imagination.

[@duffman18]

What's interesting is that originally Nintendo were going to get Atari to release the NES for them in the west, have it be the Atari Entertainment System or something similar, Atari branded, the official successor to the 2600 (because the 5200 was so terrible they pretty much tried to erase it from history, their next console the 7800 had complete backwards compatibility with the 2600 but the 5200 was completely forgotten). I'm not sure why that deal fell through. But it was probably for the best. We may not have had the gaming revolution the NES brought otherwise.

[@briangeer1024]

Damn... faithfully recreating it from scratch, with no high-level language, with barely over half the original storage space. I assume sprites were ported, though. In any case, a tough challenge!

[@PhantasmPhoton]

sprites were designed on graph paper back then so they prolly used the same graph paper

[@haruki_nyan]

The NES and Famicom programmers were impressive. Super Mario Bros. had 32KiB of program & 8KiB of graphics data, & used less than 2KiB of RAM. Even the largest NES game, Kirby’s Adventure, still only had 512KiB of program, 256KiB of graphics data, and 10KiB of RAM; less than 1MiB. And everything in assembly.

[@tanmaypanadi1414]

I hope some body teaches that to new devs while working with games to optimize them for the cheapest hardware and run adequately .

[@tanmaypanadi1414]

To be fair ID software does do that

[@BADC0FFEE]

Different resolution so even the sprites were remade

[@TrebleWing]

A an NES assembly programmer, this is now my favorite episode. What a legend.

[@TrebleWing]

​@MichaelKingsfordGray Feeling: LDA Embarrassment STA Self JMP Feeling

[@TrebleWing]

@Username I do something that brings me and those that get it happiness. That is never a pointless endeavor.

[@vuurniacsquarewave5091]

I could say the same, the NES showed me that I can actually program things.

[@TrebleWing]

@@vuurniacsquarewave5091 Awesome! It is funny enough the first coding language I learned. 6502 assembly specifically for NES.

[@rolandgerard6064]

These pioneers are always amazing...

[@hteekay]

Thank you for making this historic documentation.

[@FloatingSunfish]

What a cool guy. I seriously want to give him a great big hug for helping make everyone's childhoods. 😊

[@enonibobble]

This guy is awesome.

[@devmiles]

This man earns a statue and forever fame for all our childhood memories

[@naota3k]

This man shaped so many childhoods and created lasting cultural impressions on a worldwide scale. Thank you, Uemura-san.

[@jhoughjr1]

the NES is in my soul. I was captivated at first sight when I saw it at Walmart. Then got to borrow one from my aunts neighbors when on vacation, then finally got one in 88-89. The suspense grew up with me.

[@yogidemis8513]

This man is my Hero, I wouldn't know where my childhood would be in the 80s if it wasn't for creating the Nes/Famicom. He actually video games made a comeback thanks to him after the Video Game Crash of 1983. I'll never forget those all nighters with friends trying to beat a game and spending hours & hours playing. Those were the days especially renting a game and hopefully it was a fun game and you got 2 days to beat it before returning it or get a late fee which was worth the 3 or 4 bucks for another couple days. I owe this man so much respect. I'm 40 now and I still rock the Nes.

[@TealTunic]

May this Man rest in peace. He made children smile and have fun even if they were having a bad day. - がとうござ, TealTunic

[@highseassailor]

WOW!!! Fantastic interview, thanks to all involved! The historical content and process explanation captured here is priceless, Arigatogozaimashita!

[@tasuku-koike]

I'd like to add Japanese subtitles to this video, since some of Japanese people who might be interested in this video might find it difficult to watch KZbin videos in English.

[@videopsybeam7220]

By all means, I'm sure it'd be much appreciated. I'll be checking this video occasionally to see if and when that happens.

[@rcookie5128]

That'd be great. I hope Computerphile reads this and enables translations for the community.

[@AlderDragon]

Thank you so much for doing this interview, and thanks to Mr. Uemura for sharing. I find early video game history extremely interesting, especially anything Nintendo.

[@TurboWindex]

Very inspiring, thank you so much for this awesome video !

[@krytod_peel]

The day may come for the Rushmore consisting of Yokoi, Yamauchi, Iwata and Uemera.

[@goodstufffromchina6236]

A real legend of the industry. He and others made videogames great again

[@HeatherSulu]

This is an amazing episode of computerphile! I would love to see more videos going into video games or video game history

[@kingsman428]

Eugene Jarvis, Larry Demar and this guy. Thanks guys for the outstanding coding, design and fantastic games you gave us. EG Robotron 2084 ❤️❤️❤️

[@GANHEDDO]

Thank you Uemura, rest in peace

[@cheaterman49]

This is incredible, I didn't realize Ricoh was involved, and I didn't know the NES used COTS 6502 because of budget constraints, as opposed to later purpose-made processors! Literally only has one chip to push pixels quickly, one chip to process audio (and user input IIRC), and that's it! Didn't realize they had studied the Atari first, I guess the elegance of both designs (in terms of simplicity and extensibility) speaks for itself!

[@totaltotalmonkey]

I knew it was Ricoh custom 6502, but not that they where a photocopy machine company, or that they where possibly the only Japanese company that could do LSI chips.

[@bogartwilley]

LMAO I looked the video and subscribed as soon as the chuckling began and he said "Yes" after mentioning Crash!

[@grywacz]

Amazing interview!

[@SudaNIm103]

Thank you, Uemura-san, bless your soul and keep your memory.

[@otakuatarigamer]

The creator of one of the best consoles of all time..

[@CalvinHikes]

That man is the Godfather of my childhood right there

[@campos3452]

He died at the age of 78 December 6, 2021. 78’ the year of Space Invaders release.

[@Jptoutant]

long live this king

[@hmdshokri]

he put unnecessary ejection thing because it's a toy for kids................. Visionary!

[@tanmaypanadi1414]

I have had bad experiences with the cartridges where the PCB from the cartridge would pop out and spoil my day

[@tanmaypanadi1414]

That ejection thing was really truly appreciate d

[@orozcoapaza1660]

偉いひとですね , 心から感謝しています．

[@Siwena]

Amazing interview thank you

[@lucasmachain]

such a nice interview

[@angrytacos5497]

Rest in peace Mr.Uemura

[@Bingo2501]

Awesome guy, cool interview! ☺👍

[@johnrickard8512]

You can learn a lot about a computer or game console by knowing what game it was designed to faithfully recreate.

[@gabrielli3095]

I love this video! Nice to know a litle bit of the history

[@Physhi]

I met this man two years ago. He always insisted that all game consoles are toys. I didn't argue.

[@Concentrum]

please elaborate your issue with this statement

[@the_berzi]

@@Concentrum The assumption is that only kids play. Which is something that has evidently changed over the years and it wasn't even always true in the past either (if we expand this beyond elecronics).

[@TheTurnipKing]

He's not wrong. A console is (or at least should be) essentially a toyified application of computing technology. That doesn't mean that it has to be solely for kids. But certainly most successful consoles have been usable by kids.

[@prunabluepepper]

@Phy :D yes I wouldn't have argued that either. Cool.

[@badreality2]

Well, you have to remember that he made grew up with and made this game system before stories were told via video games. Video games made before 1986 just repeated, and the point was to rack up as many points as you can, like a sport, or a board game. Also, if someone is not playing a video game for its story, then it is a toy. ...you are engaging with it for the fun of it. It gives you nothing, but enjoyment. You are not engaging it because it offers you something you need.

[@Mtaalas]

I'd love to have this interview with original audio but with subtitles... just let community handle that and it'll be fine :)

[@thatanimeweirdo]

What an awesome guest!

[@CrysisFear]

Rip Legend to the gaming industry.

[@foxandbarrettshow6916]

It's an amazing piece of toy the important thing is the cartridge eject system it's not necessary it's just a part of the toy. Use your eject button

[@cristianpalici8728]

I like this video very much!

[@bastardtubeuser]

Great, i hope some day, somewhere, an interview with Kazuaki Morita (programmer of Mario and ice climber) happens, i would love to hear about the development from the programmer instead the sales department/managers etc. Kazuaki Morita must have been treated very well by Nintendo because he seams to not care about his personal artistic legacy.

[@bastardtubeuser]

​@MichaelKingsfordGray The stunning gravity and accuracy of your assessment has pierced my heart and i am fainting, oh Lord.

[@tails_the_god]

This man a legend! :O

[@RahulNair88]

I am playing the video on loop cause I don’t want this video to get over , .. thank you so much for doing this interview!

[@Computerphile]

There's a little more in the extra bits (link in video description) >Sean

[@RahulNair88]

Computerphile 😻

[@CottonInDerTube]

Respect!

[@edwinmoney619]

Reminds me of my childhood, my neighbors were Japanese and had a FamiCom that I loved to play. When they moved they sold me the FamiCom and all it's attachments including the floppy drive and several games on Nintendo floppies, the orb ball controller, and about 40 games on cartridges, almost all of which were in Japanese..... Also had a small 13-14 inch PAL TV/Monitor included as NTSC TV/Monitors would NOT work for obvious reasons......

[@ArchinaGM]

"as NTSC TV/Monitors would NOT work for obvious reasons" I mean it should still work. Though it would be unable to translate the colour format; Resulting in a monochrome image.

[@wich1]

Mike Dwyer exactly, not PAL at all

[@LittleRainGames]

@@elrond_hubbard if i remember correctly there is a potentiometer in the famicon you can adjust to work on north american channel 3.

[@forple8930]

@@LittleRainGames by default it's channel 95 or 96.

[@alvallac2171]

*its attachments (possessive) it's = contraction of "it is/has"

[@accelerat0r747]

that man is a legend !

[@alvallac2171]

*legend!

[@totlyepic]

Edit: The un-edited interview is available in the description, so not so important. Minor complaint: Although pseudo-muting the original speaker to effectively dub them with the translator is convenient in some respects (i.e. saving time for the viewer), I think it's really important to leave the original audio audible so that native speakers can hear and verify the original language of the speaker.

[@ArchinaGM]

The person translating beside him is professional enough for it to be fine. source: I was there ~2 weeks ago for the presentation + Q+A.

[@totlyepic]

@@ArchinaGM Does not even begin to address why I made the comment.

[@MiniatureMasterClass]

Just use subtitles next time. We are all literate.

[@blabby102]

Although the interpreter (I believe he is a professor in the industry) added some additional information (probably because he is very familiar with Mr. Uemura), I can conform that the translation was fairly accurate.

[@yoyonel1808]

Amazing thx for this sharing!

[@TazoLatte]

He made the system that I first played he really did do a lot of amazing things.

[@SUBSCRIBERSWITHOUTVIDEOS-dj7vo]

the absolute madman

[@AcornElectron]

The man, the myth, the legend....

[@khandarwilliam5439]

A LEGEND!!!

[@chatsnoirblamo]

This wonderful video is truly inspiring. I would like to please do the transcription of this in English for closed captioning. Thank you.

[@Microwave414]

Well, I'd certainly not disagree with him calling it a toy. But it is a fun toy to this day.

[@jamildouna5715]

RIP

[@guilherme5094]

Thank you sir!

[@clunky9072]

What an incredible flex. Thank you Masayuki!

[@urkelheimer]

My hero

[@militantpacifist4087]

If Nintendo didn’t exist and wouldn’t have succeeded, then we wouldn’t have had the Nintendo Switch as well as Sony wouldn’t have the Play Station series.

[@TaiFerret]

We can't really be sure what would've happened if Nintendo didn't exist, but I guess Sega could've been the company that started the video game revolution. It doesn't seem too far fetched that they could've come up with the idea to port their arcade titles to a home console even without the influence of Nintendo.

[@johannus777]

One of the biggest Easter eggs I’ve realized has been King Hippo in Punch Out is based of off Donkey Kong

[@Xdetonando]

Coul you guys do a video about how NES games were made? i really cant figure out how they could set colors on characters, collision detection and etc on 6502 ASSEMBLY, i struggle to do that even in Java.

[@chris43123]

There is a video of a guy creating a NES game and explains how they made everything fit inside a real catridge but it mainly focuses on graphics rather than coding

[@rade-blunner7824]

What a catch for an interview! Good job editing around the awkwardness of translation. I'll never understand why that nice looking machine got redesigned into a giant grey brick for the West. Same happened with the SNES, although it was only America who lost out that time, in Europe we got the same design as Japan. I feel the same about the name change, it just seems arbitrary. I know the "Mega Drive" had to become "Genesis" in America because the trademark was already taken, but I really doubt that applies for "Famicom".

[@iProgramInCpp]

they wanted the NES to look more like a VCR so stores would sell it as a "video entertainment system" instead of a "game system" (At the time, retailers refused to sell video games.)

[@madmax2069]

I like the style we got in the US, I didn't like the Japanese design.

[@uuaschbaer6131]

@@iProgramInCpp woah, is that why they’re called video games? 🤯

[@iProgramInCpp]

@@uuaschbaer6131 No, the stores eventually got back into selling video games. I don't know the full story.

[@tanmaypanadi1414]

@@iProgramInCpp noice very curious now to find the story .

[@otakuribo]

植村さん、ありがとうございました Thank you for your gift, Uemura-san!

[@blackheart1842]

Finally Met the guy responsible for my bad grades.

[@sLiv256]

you meet him every day in your mirror

[@NickHermans]

Thank you

[@Agent_Eli]

That bit about the eject button. It's little design choices that really make Nintendo products special.

[@tomservo5007]

That jab at Atari being too simple for the kids of Japan --- Nintendo released various products that were simpler than the 2600 -- probably the correct answer is, the 2600 couldn't do what we wanted and since we had team of engineers, we will design something in house. A legend has no need to put down another company needlessly. Also, he didn't mention working with his buddy Gunpei Yokoi, (that could have been edited out)

[@johneygd]

I wish he was aware of the fact that you can do bankswitching on the atari 2600 to overcome some of it’s limitations, who ever knows what they would,ve done on it.

[@alvallac2171]

@@johneygd *Atari *its (possessive) *limitations. Who knows *would've

[@knightshousegames]

I wonder how involved he was in the development of the front loader NES America and Europe got? If he just developed the Famicom, he wouldn't have been familiar with the controller he was playing on at that demo station.

[@atariboy9084]

You forgot to ask him WHY there's a missing Pie Level stage on the home version as the arcade has four stages but the home version only has three in Donkey Kong.

[@bananya6020]

not enough space i assume

[@hillwin10]

1:35 -- woah.

[@Radar_of_the_Stars]

This man reinvented video games

[@RobAlbright]

Please post this interview unedited. As additional content. Subtitled, maybe. This is really fantastic. Thanks

[@battmann7089]

Put Simply- Genius.

[@militantpacifist4087]

I honestly thought this was going to be either a GameXplain video or a DidYouKnowGaming? video.

[@hgbugalou]

If there was an computing and electronics hall of fame this guess should be in it.

[@debrucey]

I find it really endearing how the translator hardly uses any plurals

[@abdullakc]

U should have asked him how they and why they have put 1000 built in games for it

[@pao_lumu]

Nintendo NES... Nintendo Nintendo Entertainment System... ...I don't see a problem if you don't.

[@illustriouschin]

The history and present of video games would be completely different without this man.

[@nikotin777]

Thanks for this very interesting interview! But why I can't add subtitles? Message: "The video you requested isn't enabled for community contribution..." Can you turn on community contribution option for this video please?

[@miltiadiskoutsokeras9189]

Legend.

[@luisbanegassaybe6685]

Would like a long form interview with someone else from nintendo, but please with subtitles and original audio rather than the translator’s voice

[@djmakproto]

a link to a version subtitles and original audio is in the description

[@EvilFranky]

I thought the story was that the NES was designed independently, demo'd to Atari as a successor to the 2600, they turned it down, then shown to Nintendo who bought it?

[@iyatemu]

It was entirely developed by Nintendo and they tried to license it to Atari because the name was known in America.

[@EvilFranky]

@@iyatemu Thanks for the info.

[@EvilFranky]

@@JohnSmith-si8ib That could very well be where I am getting my wires crossed. Cheers.

[@FermentedGrumpyGrapeSqueezit]

My spirit animal

[@BeCurieUs]

In the doobly do, its Masayuki Uemura, not Masayiki, I believe.

[@Computerphile]

Oops, typo, thanks! -fixed now- Sean

[@BeCurieUs]

​@@Computerphile Cheers, and thanks for the great content!

[@tanmaypanadi1414]

Other audiences would have made an big mess on the socials not on this channel . Well I guess some marketers would say opportunity missed but it would have been an embarrassment to the producers and people who made it possible . Good job Sean I love they simplicity of the questions you asked .made my day

[@tanmaypanadi1414]

@@Computerphile hey man can you make a video of being the seems of how many problems and set backs you go thru before you get to this kind of access to legends and stuff .

[@Computerphile]

@@tanmaypanadi1414 thanks, but I think people would rather see actual computer scientists rather than me :0P

[@aliceanderson5154]

Hello computerphile, I have a request. I want to know what happened to iTron, the Japanese O.S./iot project.

[@basteagui]

how does he look so young

[@MozTS]

Bryan got them bernie sanders vibes

[@Chexsum]

i met chip tanaka one time

[@ivanpetrovsky.]

ah yes, the Nintendo Nintendo Enterteinment System.

[@johneygd]

I feel sorry for those programmers that they had to do the entire game from scratch just because nintendo was odd enough to opt for a 6502 chip rather then a Z80 and also because at the time there were no compilors and they had to fit the whole game on just 2 chips, i can only speculate what the nes would,ve be if it was Z80 based,hack even the gameboy was Z80 based so why not also the nes huh??? What if nintendo had already used bankswitching and what if memory was already cheap in 1983, who knows how much closer the nes version of DK would,ve be,,, Not mention since the gameboy was Z80 based later on, ported nes games had to be recompiled again to run on gameboy so it’s beyond me why nintendo choosed the hard way, thing is if the nes was just Z80 based, it would,ve be so much easier for nintendo to port games from one system to another,today we do have compilors so it should be not a big problem now.

[@alvallac2171]

*rather than *compilers *would've been *based. Heck, even (different meaning and pronunciation *DK would've been *Not to mention that since *Game Boy, so it's *Nintendo chose *way. The thing is, if *it would've been *another. Today *compilers, so

[@Nekotamer]

please, subtitles. let me hear his voice.

[@Computerphile]

Check the video description....

[@Nekotamer]

@@Computerphile oh!. thanks!.

[@peterfiser]

Humbling.

[@tomservo5007]

when he answers with a 'yes' at the beginning of the video, is that the English meaning of yes or one of the Japanese meaning of yes?