How The NES Conquered A Skeptical America In 1985 | War Stories | Ars Technica

Today on War Stories, Ars Technica is joined by Gail Tilden, the visionary marketing mind behind Nintendo of America's triumphant launch of the NES in 1985. 35 years ago, Nintendo knew they had a winner on their hands with the revolutionary Nintendo Entertainment System. However, following the early-1980’s collapse of the U.S. video game market, skeptical retailers and consumers alike would prove a difficult obstacle in bringing their product to the masses. Learn surprising details about the ups and downs Gail and her band of colleagues overcame in making the NES the cultural icon it is today, the methodology and partnerships that went into convincing doubtful retailers, and how Nintendo ultimately persuaded millions of families to open their living rooms to more than "just the next fad." If Gail's interviews for "High Score" on Netflix left you wanting more, this episode has you covered.
--
00:00 Introduction
00:58 A Famicom For The U.S.
05:54 Convincing America That This Was New
10:52 The NES - Fun For The Whole Family
19:44 Now You’re Playing With Power
--
Footage used in this video:
News Report: Nintendo's Revival of the Video Game Industry. December 1988
• News Report: Nintendo'...
The Best NINTENDO Arcades
• Best NINTENDO Classics...
Game & Watch - Flagman (c)1980 Nintendo [MAME emulation footage]
• Game & Watch - Flagman...
Nintendo - Mario's Cement Factory Video Game Commercial - 1983
• Nintendo - Mario's Cem...
Very first Nintendo Family Computer Commercial [1983]
• Very first Nintendo Fa...
Famicom commercials
• Famicom commercials
NES TV Commercials (1986-1994) - NintendoComplete
• NES TV Commercials (19...
NUTS FOR NINTENDO special on ABC news 2020 from 1988
• NUTS FOR NINTENDO spec...
16 Minutes of Atari 2600 Commercials from the 70s / 80s
• 16 Minutes of Atari 26...
Excavating the Atari E.T. Video Game Burial Site-GameLife-WIRED
• Excavating the Atari E...
Early NES Nintendo Commercial featuring ROBtherobot
• Early NES Nintendo Com...
Nintendo Zapper Commercial
• Nintendo Zapper Commer...
Duck Hunt (NES) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
• Duck Hunt (NES) Playth...
Golf (NES) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
• Golf (NES) Playthrough...
Clu Clu Land - NES Gameplay
• Clu Clu Land - NES Gam...
Ice Climber - NES Gameplay
• Ice Climber - NES Game...
Parents Upset Over New Nintendo Console - Super Nintendo - Circa 1991
• Parents Upset Over New...
Ninja Kid - NES Gameplay
• Ninja Kid - NES Gameplay
Baseball (NES) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
• Baseball (NES) Playthr...
Mario Bros. (Nintendo, 1986) - NES Gameplay HD
• Mario Bros. (Nintendo,...
1980s Electrical store 1980s Dixons British Retail British Shops TV Eye 1986
• 1980s Electrical store...
Nintendo-Published NES Games (1985-1986)
• Nintendo-Published NES...
RealSports Tennis for the Atari 8-bit family
• RealSports Tennis for ...
The Console Wars -- XMas 1990
• The Console Wars -- X...
Teddy Ruxpin Commercial
• Teddy Ruxpin Commercial
Punch-Out!! - NES Gameplay
• Punch-Out!! - NES Game...
My Top 10 BEST Issues of Nintendo Power
• My Top 10 BEST Issues ...
1990 Nintendo Power Commercial
• 1990 Nintendo Power Co...
Connect with Ars Technica:
Visit ArsTechnica.com: arstechnica.com
Follow Ars Technica on Facebook: / arstechnica
Follow Ars Technica on Google+: plus.google.com/+ArsTechnica/...
Follow Ars Technica on Twitter: / arstechnica
How The NES Conquered A Skeptical America In 1985 | War Stories | Ars Technica

[@CSM100MK2]

I remember waking up at like 3am one night when I was about 6 and my parents were playing Super Mario 3 with the volume off and had gotten to the Desert Land.

[@pyxelpub8251]

That's just cruel, man. To leave you like that and try to beat the game without you. Cold stuff, my good man.

[@basteagui]

its almost worse than catching them mid coitus. how did you cope with that trauma :D

[@sudochop]

@@basteagui lmao.

[@myfoodishere]

and they didnt tell you how they got there probably

[@Christophe3411]

Dude……This comment hit deep in the soul!

[@Epic_C]

I knew a bit about Nintendo history in the US before, but hearing her entire story was amazing. Awesome to hear how this all happened because Nintendo was a major part of my childhood.

[@Tornado1994]

NES launched in NYC on October 18,1985 and begin hitting Select Big Cities November 1st. By Christmas '85, it was mostly available in most of the US. It didn't hit Canada until September 1986 and reached the Deep South by February 19,1986. I should know, I was around then. Living in NJ, I Saw the NES for the first time in Halloween of 1985.

[@ApolloVIIIYouAreGoForTLI]

Get a book called "Console Wars”... Covers this period of Nintendo pretty well.

[@chitownsuperfan]

Gail started Nintendo Power! Legend! Modern day developers should watch this and see her genuine love of the games and the respect for the customer, and take notes. This is why Nintendo is so successful

[@kendarsin]

My first two games for nintendo were Metroid and Castlevania. As a 10 year old I was blown away.

[@jrvbamafan1]

You started out with 2 classics. Metroid and zelda were probably my two favorites, but I cant pick just 2. So many great games for that system

[@hypnos9336]

you are extremely lucky to play castlevania so early. not only did it probably make you very skilled, but it's one of the best games on the system.

[@tchitchouan]

really good games

[@kendarsin]

@@hypnos9336 I guess I just grew up at the right time. Our family had an atari, intellivision and a ColecoVision before the nintendo. Got it for xmas in 86.

[@Heymrk]

When I was in college, this was probably in 2005 or so, I had a classmate who was majoring in marketing and her minor was in journalism. I was a journalism major. We were in a journalism class together. She would go on and on about Gail Tilden being her hero for bringing video games back to North America. She's not at all a gamer, but truly admired the fact that one woman came up with a marketing plan so well that it created one of the biggest industries on the planet.

[@doraeguyakaneddie6586]

The video game crash only affected America. The industry was still thriving in Japan and Europe

[@Heymrk]

@@doraeguyakaneddie6586 Umm, that's what I said.

[@doraeguyakaneddie6586]

@@Heymrk Then why you say she created the industry

[@mathgasm8484]

@@doraeguyakaneddie6586 I got my NES when it first came out in West Germany. I loved it.

[@cartossin]

As a child, I took no promise more seriously than the Nintendo Seal of Quality.

[@fishforuranium]

Legit tho.

[@jrvbamafan1]

As an adult. I still take that promise seriously....lol

[@WestSide1207]

The seal isn't worth jack s***... Plenty of terrible games on the NES, look at all those LJN games, shovelware, etc. The console had some amazing games, but just as many crap ones. People let nostalgia cloud their minds, remembering the good and forgetting the bad. Believe me, I play my Famicom almost every day.

[@anarchyantz1564]

Wow they really suckered you in. Prepped you ready to believe the lies you get told as adult in Murica!

[@shane1489]

Was the seal only on NINTENDO developed games? I don’t remember.... If not then it was a joke because there were soooo many rip off terrible games.

[@StevenCasteelYT]

RPGs like Super Mario RPG, Earthbound, and Chrono Trigger helped me learn to read.

[@beedwarf]

That's one of the great benefits of gaming; reading, writing and math skills are vastly improved in order to succeed.

[@hjames78]

You definitely need to know how to read to play those games lol

[@Ernireg3]

For me it was Ocarina of Time. I had played Mario before it on the snes and 64. Oot was my first Zelda game and it changed my life! Even my grades went up!

[@Tinbeef22]

Lies

[@DisasterxUs]

The bonus level in Donkey Kong Country taught me how to spell N-I-N-T-E-N-D-O when I was 4... great marketing 😂

[@irotinmyskin]

i was 4, my dad surprised my sister and I with a nintendo and 2 games, mario and zelda, but he got hooked on zelda and he didn't let us play it cause he was a afraid we would overwrite his save

[@caleblatreille8224]

I could watch a whole episode just about the launch of Nintendo Power (or EGM, of which I was a long-time 90s subscriber). A really captivating speaker and time in video games, thanks for this great episode

[@Epic_C]

It's still fun reading through the first issues. I have my collection from the start, at least the first 100 issues. kzbin.info/www/bejne/fYC1ZmuQmrOri7c

[@moosemaimer]

I worked at a grocery store in high school... on my break I would grab a cup of coffee and read all the video game magazines on the rack. At one point I had 4 or 5 subscriptions running.

[@j.d.6915]

You might enjoy reading Console Wars by Blake J. Harris. IIRC, there's an entire chapter devoted to how the Nintendo Power came about.

[@bizm]

I hope they release the extended version of the interview like they did with Rand Miller (the co-creator of Myst). Gail Tilden seems like she has so many interesting stories to share!

[@chosento2988]

EGM...I still have the first issue I ever got, #12. Remember 'SUSHI-X' ??? He was the head game reviewer for EGM and was the original SF2 king in '92-93. Now....do any of you remember GAMEFAN magazine??? GF was hands down the BEST game magazine ever!

[@jesserogalski1402]

25 minutes covering old school Nintendo? My body is ready

[@gerasimosbedragging3982]

I'll be right over with my NES Power Glove, ready your body.

[@Lorfarius]

Thank you for this Gail, really wonderful to hear some of the smaller stories that happened back then. Such a huge part of my youth.

[@IllusionSector]

I have these sincere words for her from the bottom of my heart: Conglaturation !!! You have completed a great career. And prooved the justice of our culture. Now go and rest our heroes !

[@Fuuntag]

Gail seems like a genuinely lovely person.

[@BigSocksProds]

Lol what ? 🤦‍♂️

[@prodigalsongod]

@@BigSocksProds it's the voice, bro. fenton feels the voice.

[@BigSocksProds]

@@prodigalsongod 😂😂

[@chris-hayes]

This one you really get to see the bigger picture of game design, the whole product lifecycle. Very interesting!

[@onionheadguy7094]

I love seeing these unassuming people that played huge parts in creating the world that we live in today.

[@SinfulJon]

My family grew up with the NES, one thing I remember most was waking up and seeing my mom play Mario at like 3am with a blanket over her on our tiny little TV. We were all sleeping on the floor near the old fireplace because it was cold as heck and our floor cement so we had a blanket to lay on because it was too cold. My dad used to make coffee on that fireplace, that's how old it was! :D

[@MerkinMuffly]

I remember playing Zelda night and day as a kid. It caused my brother, in his twenties, to give up video games forever. He stayed up all night and finally found the secret grave stone after we'd been stuck for 3 days. He went to work without sleeping, when he came home he said, I'm out.

[@BirdsOfGlass]

I was lucky enough to have the 1st Nintendo Power that came with a map of hyrule.

[@sdjsfan4ever961]

His loss.

[@sdjsfan4ever961]

@@armamentarmedarm1699 Okay, hippie.

[@brannycedeno6823]

@@armamentarmedarm1699 And from friends, and from family, and from anything else that drives you astray from "inner peace" by that rule. Guess what, mr. buddhist? The only peace you will ever be able to find in this world is Jesus Christ and our Father. So yeah, video games won't make anybody happy, but neither will whatever it is you think you're doing, which in reality is nothing for you're worshiping an inexistent god, whatever it is.

[@brannycedeno6823]

It's okay if he didn't want to keep playing. Games are not for everyone. Furthermore, there is people that isn't able to control how much they play, and without proper guidance from parents, it's clearly a path for demise. But so is anything else in this life when you're not taught to balance things. Yes, including "good" things like work and study. Everything in excess is harmful, says an old saying in my culture, surely in yours too.

[@rogacien666]

That's SO cool to see her face, hear her voice. Read her name SO often in nintendo power when I was young!

[@Dousch]

This channel is my favorite discovery this year. You continue to deliver fascinating stories with top notch production value. Very inspiring to see.

[@matthewa9911]

Same here!

[@JoeCensored]

It is interesting being a kid at the time, being on the receiving end of this marketing campaign, and now seeing how the sausage was made.

[@dwilliams21]

Loved hearing this sharp woman discuss her career in the industry! I really would have eaten this interview up as a kid, I loved books like "Behind the Scenes at Sega" and read a lot of videogame magazines.

[@shane1489]

I got a NINTENDO at age 4.... because of NINTENDO POWER I was able to read on a basic level in Kindergarten. I’ll always be thankful for that head start. Also Miyamoto is like the Walt Disney of video games IMO.

[@gregoriolobato3033]

Excelent and unique material. This channel is something else.

[@rob_4227]

These 3 sisters babysat for me when I was a kid and they always brought over their NES. It was sooo awesome! They didn’t know it, but they created a gamer for life.

[@skeletankmcgraw7343]

I have heard the stories about the early days of the NoA and the NES before; however, it was nice to see an actual audio/video interview with one of them. Everyone who worked for NoA in those days are the ones who really made NoA, or even Nintendo in the West in general, what it is today. They did the hard work in making the brand gold in a time where everyone was against them due to the video game crash of 1984. For anyone who has worked for NoA since, they have had it relatively easy due to the fact that Nintendo is now a household name. All they really have to do now is just make sure they don't do anything outrageously dumb.

[@Abelhawk]

I love War Stories so much. Knowing the behind the scenes of stuff like this makes me appreciate them so much more. I know it's a stretch, but I would love to know more about the Overlord PC games series if at all possible.

[@Mike-sy5zn]

One things now stands out to me from Nintendo Power and that is, if I’m remembering correctly, a message written into Nintendo from issue 27. This writer said something on the lines that there will be many many Mario games. One such game will be called Super Mario Galaxy. I only remember the name of the game he was guessing, but I wonder if he or she realizes today how accurate that prediction was?

[@battledwarf8872]

Maybe an indicator that some video games are, perhaps, years in the making; maybe Super Mario Galaxy was conceptualized long ago but did not materialized once the game developers formed a creative team; maybe the technology to bring the game into action wasn't ready yet 'cause it's all about execution; as anyone can see, Nintendo is about perfection.

[@LunaTulpa]

@@battledwarf8872 super mario land, world, galaxy is a pretty natural next step in naming top I feel

[@nickwallette6201]

Did the letter predict the future, or did the letter _inspire_ the future? Woooaaaahhhh... X-D

[@pstrap1311]

I remember this lady from the Gaming Historian video.

[@Kylefassbinderful]

I remember her from the Netflix docuseries _High_ _Score_

[@milkcarton6654]

30+ years ago i read her name so many times opening my nintendo power issues (that I still have btw, kept all of them) but that's all she was to me, a name. It was nice to put a face to the name and hear her talk about this period and how instrumental she was to nintendo's success in North America. I know she'll never read this but either way, thank you Gail for having a part in making our childhood much more magical. Your job might have come down to making money for Nintendo, but it incidentally brought us who were kids then a lot of happiness.

[@davidanderson7643]

Thank you, Gail, you're an angel! Because you're such a good saleswoman, here we are with the amazing Nintendo Switch! I grew up with the NES and the SNES and thank you for showing the marketplace the way.

[@elialexander-tanner5784]

Amazing to get Gail Tilden for this interview. Every word is solid gold.

[@motojunkie8348]

I was born in 82 and was considered a "latch key kid" by the age of 8. Nintendo was my life when I was a child. My fondest memories include me and my mother playing Mario and Donkey Kong on the first 3 Nintendo systems. While I haven't really been into gaming since I was 18, I now have a 3 year old son who I'm looking forward to making memories for him as well.

[@beedwarf]

Nintendo did it through marked perseverance, tremendous research and tireless creativity.

[@shane1489]

None of that would matter if the product was trash..

[@theamazingj7172]

@@shane1489 games were good. Now people have a reason to call games bad because of gun violence. :(

[@dinohermann1887]

@@theamazingj7172 The problem was, that Nintendo didn't stop inept publishers like LJN from releasing their "games" on the NES!

[@theamazingj7172]

@@dinohermann1887 true. Those “Games” LJN made were a piece of crap.

[@dinohermann1887]

@@theamazingj7172 Purple for putrid gameplay, blue for bad musical abominations, green for graphical farts and garls, yellow for piss poor lack of loyalty to the source material, orange for aren't you a f*ckin' idiot, and red for high stress anger inducing masochism! Put that all together and you got a sh*t rainbow, hooray LJN!

[@SorcererLance]

This is all interesting stuff, but personally I'm more amazed how well Mrs Gail Tilden has aged over the past 35 years after being an Advertising Manager back in '85

[@King-ci8sk]

Thank you! You're part of something that changed my life forever.

[@imnotgivingmynametoamachine683]

I'm glad you guys put the spotlight on a non-technical person, its easy to forget how many people it takes to make something successful and it is a massive team effort. Its hard to imagine how things would be if people like Gail were not successful in getting the brilliant technical work to the masses.

[@tezkhaos]

I would love to see a dedicated video on Nintendo Power with Gail

[@ENOB19]

What an amazing episode! So great to hear about this from a different angle, the one that is typically not emphasized but in reality made it possible for us to get our hands on this wonderful machine and the ones that followed. I also liked the 'bug factor' concept, so cool! And what a nice person the speaker seems to be. Thank you!

[@Mastorguhch]

this could be written into a movie honestly

[@RetroDoneRight]

Like most, I've heard these stories lots of times, but it's way more interesting listening to someone who was actually the in the middle of it. She's a very entertaining speaker.

[@BjornThePaladin]

This was a fantastic episode! I plan to share this video with my Strategic Marketing instructor. Lots of great information!

[@garb7477]

Couldn't agree more on NES golf. IDK why but I love that game

[@seanc.5310]

Ditto. It was a classic. Like Excitebike

[@jedgrahek1426]

This was so, so wonderful... I was one of those kids reading Nintendo Power from the start... I remember the joy every time a new issue came, I would always just look at the contents and see what was there, and save it for first thing early on Saturday morning (kids wake up ready to do things so amazingly) to pour over in detail. It's so neat to see your face and hear your voice and know you were intimately involved in making things that I loved as a kid.

[@MandoMTL]

You helped convince my dad to splurge (he was a blue collar Joe like most) for the whole Mario/Duck Hunt + 2 remote + light gun and storage cabinet combo. Sincerely, thank you.

[@andywolan]

As a kid, I used to memorize the tips discussed in each issue and wow kids in school with my gaming knowledge, and I would study the maps before diving into a game. Keeping the last level and boss a secret was as good idea; never liked it when later strategy guides would not follow that rule. I would say that just having the magazine go over the first few levels of each game was helpful enough for me to decide if the game would be fun to me or not without having to rent it first. Made many wise purchases thanks to NP!

[@Jnice6901]

Thank u so much for bringing Nintendo to the states Gale!!! You made my childhood the best it could be....so many great memories!!!

[@nh8444]

Mario and Zelda on the NES were some of my first memories of video games. Late nights with the volume down and the lights off. Those were the days.

[@moosemaimer]

When our Atari was getting long in the tooth my dad took me to Montgomery Ward and we looked at the Sega Master System. I thought we would get one until I came home one day and there was an NES all hooked up.

[@MariaM-dp9jo]

Fascinating interview. She was also a big part of the US launch of Pokemon. PLEASE interview her about that sometime!

[@jamiecampbell8855]

Great work. We need more videos of this quality preserving the history of gaming.

[@wesleyackerman8211]

So nice seeing an interview with her and incredibly interesting!

[@MrLurchsThings]

I guess today, it’s easy to forget that Nintendo America in the early days was not a big company and after the game crash it really would have been a struggle to get the NES in stores and selling.

[@kuntdestroyer5093]

She’s awesome what a treat for her to share her story with us. Truly an honour.

[@blakfloyd]

I really got rope-a-doped by her calm, sweet demeanor before the bombshell at 6:49 lol.

[@meowplow]

Fantastic interview. Thank You for making this.

[@Yungbeck]

What a lovely lady! I love these War Stories, great production even during this recorded-calls-era.

[@diegoleao]

Thank you for all your work :) You did a great job ^^

[@ctw195]

So much nostalgia...

[@erickgregoryful]

Terrific. Thank you for this. So interesting. Seriously...........thank you.

[@fensoxx]

That was so damn awesome. I lived through that as a kid who saw ROB in a toys r us catalog back then and randomly put it on my Christmas list not even knowing what the hell it was (I was 7). Still playing today.

[@wizzgamer]

For a 1983 console the NES was very impressive the most impressive for it's generation considering it's age.

[@annmimi_extraextra]

Interesting interview! I didn't know it was shipped away at night! Lots of other interesting stories as well. Nice to get the whole story told by the person who was in charge of the whole operation!

[@jakesteel2423]

This story is amazing!

[@zeldamike]

I loved reading Nintendo Power so much. Even if I didn't have all the games the posters were great and seeing all that fan artwork was just cool growing up.

[@123coffeeshop]

@arstechnica was where I first really got into READING about games, and now I meet the woman who helped launch the entire category of WRITING about video games. Full circle! =)

[@amlesion9142]

One of my biggest regrets in life is giving away my NES and collection of games (~30) to charity.

[@mrflamewars]

Emulators are a thing. Don't forget.

[@amuzulo]

@@mrflamewars Funny to think that for the price of an NES game back then, you can now pay the same price to get a handheld that plays the entire library. 😮

[@ShaunCurrier]

Really interesting stuff. Love the war stories episodes.

[@andocobo]

Another excellent vid - I love this series

[@jonwallace6204]

I still trust the Nintendo brand as a mark of quality. Since they don’t really announce their games way ahead of time, they don’t rush out unfinished games. It’s the only brand I’ll buy a game before the first patch is released.

[@ColbyWanShinobi]

Such a great interview! 😄

[@komemiute]

Absolutely brilliant!

[@Keithustus]

1:15 in and she’s established credibility: has a favorite Game & Watch game from the pre-NES years. (Also I recognized her name from all the Nintendo Power references years and years ago.)

[@kristianTV1974]

Great interview. However, these US-centric docs usually don't take into account the fact that other regions (specifically UK/Europe) at the time (around 82-83) were just ramping up, with home computers rather than consoles being the real driver of gaming growth. I worked for an indie computer shop from 87-97 in the UK, and we were all Sega console (Master System, then Megadrive in terms of systems and carts sold) until the GB/SNES arrived, so the story is slightly different here. We did stock the NES and games, but the ratio of sales was 20 Sega to 1 Nintendo for quite a while How times changed though!

[@GreyWolfLeaderTW]

I believe that the Gaming Crash of 1983 also hit Europe (and Great Britain) really hard, but also caused a surge in personal home computer video game interest. It played out differently there than here in the States, where microcomputers were largely unheard of in the home in the 1980s, as the ZX Spectrum was completely absent and the other home computers like the Commodore 64, IBM 5150, Apple II, and others only had modest success and were almost strictly for business-minded consumers (or schools) and not gamers. Rare was the breakout crossover success of games like the Apple II version of the Oregon Trail, Lode Runner, and Microsoft Flight Simulator. The US has always had a much more console-focused gaming market than PC market.

[@mielthesquid6536]

​@@GreyWolfLeaderTW Atari was still strong in some Europe countries like France in 1985. There is no know market crash in Europe about video games. This is a common misconception from US residents that the crash was worldwide.

[@herakets3259]

@@mielthesquid6536 The US was always a larger market than Europe though, especially in the 80's and 90's. To say that only the American market was hit seems like a bit of understatement. Japan specifically targeted North America, and when that market went under, rather than head to Europe, they seem to have gotten more insular until the NES/SNES. In other words, whether Europe knew they were hit or not, they clearly were not receiving the NES games en masse for a reason, and that reason was the videogame market crash. What affects one major world market affects all others by default, because the money is not flowing in and products are not being produced.

[@medes5597]

The NES was exclusive to Boots stores in the UK until 1991 though? How did you stock it?

[@javisanchez7488]

Home computers were far from growing the industry, after the 1983 crash video game revenues worldwide dropped considerably. While the NES didn't do as successful in Europe, the NES bringing America back into gaming made the industry flourish worldwide

[@TheSultan79]

I absolutely love Nintendo and it’s games they are so fun to play still even play them to this day

[@kelblueskies3937]

Self proclaim "experts" were wrong, imagine that, you could have ask me at the time as being a young teenager, I would have told you this is awesome, this machine will be a huge hit.

[@NESADDICT]

She started 2 days after my 2nd birthday and by the time i was 8 I had an NES!

[@howyoudurrinhunneh]

I was given a brand new Atari 2600 for Christmas 1985 and soon after all of the neighbor kids got one too. I had no idea how outdated they were until the summer of 87 when I saw my cousin's NES and had to wait for Christmas of 89 for mine.

[@david-spliso1928]

We weren't aware of the video game crash in the 80s. The UK had its own homegrown booming market that only went upwards throughout.

[@Lifesizemortal]

yeah we completely missed the cassette era

[@akxmedia0]

@@Lifesizemortal From what I've read over the years, you didn't miss much. Nothing but horror stories on getting those to work/load, load times were atrocious etc. Even the Famicom had a data cassette recorder iirc.

[@medes5597]

@@akxmedia0 3 - 5 minute load times weren't bad because people had nothing to compare it to. Buying full games for less than a fiver while Americans paid six times that was pretty good.

[@medes5597]

Except we did? Atari was popular here and people got sick of the over saturation and switched to computers that they felt could do much. Atari lost market share here at a comparable rate to the US at the same time. Acorn and Sinclair both lost thousands, if not millions, in the American Market where they attempted to launch as game machines, leading to both companies being sold to pay off massive debts. We had a crash and we had losses in the UK industry because of it. The "no crash in the UK!" narrative is a myth pushed by Larry Bundy Jr because he dislikes the NES and doesn't like UK based people covering it.

[@david-spliso1928]

In no universe can you genuinely say that the UK had a videogame crash. Fortunately we were immune because of the homegrown home computer market which remained rich and diverse throughout.

[@ignorantrempit]

It's interesting that Gail said the ad campaign for the NES, which positioned the console as a social activity for the whole family, is potentially dated or corny today. After the failure of the WiiU, the marketing for the Switch and Nintendo's rethinking of how to position their system among current gen and next gen consoles really saved the company from obsolescence and brought it back to the top again-and what were the ads like? Nintendo as a social activity for the whole family (and friends).

[@stphinkle]

Interesting story of how the NES overcame unbelievable odds at the time and became the #1 video game console in the USA back in the late 1980s.

[@williamstewart1638]

Thanks Gail for the insight into the NES.

[@nategreatgames78]

This lady and the people she worked with back then to launch the NES were geniuses

[@ogedeh]

Xmas 1990,one happy kid with his nes wired up to the old black and white

[@markmerberger7997]

I started before Nintendo in gaming but, they was the top of world. The Nintendo Power was so helpful and not all them downing ads in most mags, and you really was ready to see the ads for the next game. it was one of the best system games I ever played and had tons of fun. trying to work on the spinning top with the robot yes I still remember it and will always be part of my gaming world Thank you very much from a Old Gamer !

[@PaulBosanova]

Great snippet of Nintendo history, thankyou.

[@pyxelpub8251]

This right here is the world's most badass grandma. Be grateful, people!

[@firecode3495]

You did a great job!.

[@Cobra-yo7fx]

Very very nice!

[@bluethunder7391]

Very interesting. Nice to know the point of view from inside nintendo.

[@thogameskanaal]

I think redesigning it to make it look less like a computer, and really catering to kids and make it easy to pick up and play with the simple but intuitive Famicom controller is what made it so successful in the end. It's really a combination of multiple factors that made it a hit. The staff at NOA at the time really did their homework with field research, and really tweaking this product to be the best it could be.

[@packers12to80]

You say it looks kinda corny...yet, that's what my family looks like . I grew up playing video games unlike my parents. So I play every day with my kids.

[@robross6462]

This is such a great video. Felt like I was having coffee with Gail, could have talked for hours.

[@MrWesford]

“This game is an oldie, well, it’s an oldie... where I come from.”

[@kamilorado6979]

Awesome!!

[@DerrickRuthless]

Exceptionally cool!

[@John-pg9vk]

Super Mario 3 💚💚💚

[@ValenceFlux]

I remember adults calling it the hypnotic music box back then.

[@123hellstorm]

enjoyed watching.

[@AaronRose2421]

I absolutely love this series.

[@johncriscione4298]

I got my first NES when I was 7, in 88 as a Christmas present. I was so excited. I got Zelda with it. I played non stop but unfortunately, the NES broke within a year. The store, I think Toy R US, let me return it. I ended up switching to the Sega Master System, with the 3d glasses. It was such an underrated system. I ended up playing it just as much as the NES.

[@matthewmerola8735]

This is so good.