Former Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi dies aged 85

Nintendo released an official statement yesterday that the company “is in the mourning… from the sad loss of the former Nintendo president Mr Hiroshi Yamauchi, who sadly passed away this morning.”

The company then revealed that he passed away at a hospital in central Japan, due to pneumonia. His funeral will take place on Sunday.

Yamauchi first joined Nintendo in 1949, and served as president until he stepped down in 2002. He is widely credited with transforming the company’s business from small-time trading cards to  global electronic empire.

Under his leadership Nintendo produced global hits such as the NES, GameBoy, and Nintendo 64, as well as legendary franchises like Mario, Pokémon, and Zelda.

His work with Shigeru Miyamoto in the 1980s paved the way for the arcade game market in the US, and the infamous Donkey Kong remains one of the most successful arcade titles of all time.

 

Becky Mullen, Games Editor

It's not Wii, it's U

Gemma Joyce, Games Editor, waves so long to the Wii U and asks if there’s any place for Nintendo in the next gen market.

Gaming forums went wild recently when ASDA announced it had slashed the price of Nintendo’s Wii-U down to £149, making it £100 cheaper than when it was released around six months ago.

Things aren’t looking great for the Japanese gaming giant in terms of sales of their latest console, as it was reported that up until April it had sold less than five hundred thousand units. Despite the original Wii console selling around four million.

With the next generations of the Playstation and Xbox approaching fast, Nintendo is running out of time to get the Wii-U off the ground. This will not be an easy task.

The new CEO of Nintendo in America, Satoru Iwata, recently admitted the company felt “deeply responsible for not having tried hard enough to have consumers understand the product,” and also blamed the terrible sales figures on the lack of a defining title that did what Wii Sports did for the original Wii console.

Wii Sports was able to show off many of the original Wii’s capabilities to consumers who had never been in touch with such a device. The Wii-U’s ‘defining’ title could have been ZOMBIU, featuring a kickass trailer and plenty of intrigue.

However, the ambitious move to allow an 18+ game to be one of the main drivers of the Wii-U’s advertising campaign seemed to do more to alienate the original Wii’s primary audience than it did to attract a new one.

That’s not to say that the Wii-U’s family games weren’t a prominent part of its appeal, but even the slightest gritting-up of a console who’s predecessor was at its best when the family was accidently hitting each other with unnecessary tennis racket clip ons doesn’t seem to have been the best idea.

Following rumours that Nintendo are working to secure conversions of IOS games to be compatible with their new console, it does seem that efforts to boost sales are being put forward.

However, the appeal of IOS games on the big screen is questionable and it looks like Nintendo’s drawing board will be further strained if that’s all they can come up with.

Terrible sales are definitely hindering the amount of games made available for it, with the developers of the upcoming street-fighter Skull Girls tweeting that a Wii-U release would be unlikely if sales didn’t improve.

Nintendo announced that they would be revealing a new 3D Mario game that is, reportedly, “bigger than any Mario game to date” at this year’s E3 Expo in June, but keeping players waiting for news on the big releases of the year hasn’t proven a great plan so far.

Moreover, with many viewing the Wii-U as nothing but a glorified iPad, Microsoft has already released a potential rival that transforms the customer’s smart phone, tablet or PC into a controller. This doesn’t require the purchase of a new console, and is a more convenient alternative to the chunky Wii-U handset.

If the Wii-U is to survive alongside the next wave of big consoles it will have to do more to incentivise developers to make games that can utilise its quite specific hardware and give more to those who have already bought it.

They say that most products don’t beat the hype, but around the Wii-U there really isn’t any.

 

Gemma Joyce, Games Editor

A Day in the Life of: Mario

It’s a-me Mario!

Image Credit: threadless.com

That line, I’ve always hated that line. Ever since the suits first approached me back in ’81. “We want to use your likeness for our game” they said, “you’ll be a hero” they said.

They were right, all of it was right, within a few years I went from being an unemployed slob to an icon of the video game generation.

But the suits, they don’t tell you what the fame will mean. As soon as the money started rolling in so did the corporate policies. All of a sudden I had to start dressing a certain way, acting a certain way. I even had to grow a moustache.

Before I knew what was happening I had become a short Italian super-plumber, I’m from Stoke for Christ’s sake.

From there it didn’t let up, they had me appear time and time again, a new game practically every year. There were the console launch titles, and the party game titles, and the fighting titles and the sport titles…my face was on everything.

I tried getting out, really I did. I even managed to get so drunk during one production that they had to change Mario’s Mansion to Luigi’s Mansion halfway through. I thought that’d be it, but it turns out focus groups preferred the colour red to green…so I was roped back in.

That’s when the drugs started.

Image Credit: ssheltonimages.com

In the industry, mushrooms were practically given out. They had some that made you feel bigger, some that gave you that 1-up high…and some that made everyone look like little people with mushroom heads and silly little mushroom faces.

I was pulled over for trying to blue shell a police car and arrested for possession.

Still they wouldn’t let me go. I was cleaned up and remarketed as the ‘new’ Mario to get rid of my tarnished image. They’re still working on the spin, apparently I’m ‘HD’ now too.

Maybe this is a cry for help, or maybe I just thought you ought to know.

It’s a-me Mario

 

Jon Jones, Games Editor

My Life in Gaming: A NES Out of Nowhere

2^nd of January 1993 – Peter Seaman purchases a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) from a Boots retail store in Wellingborough.

3^rd of January 1993 – Thomas Seaman is born in Kettering General Hospital weighing in at around 8¹/₂ lbs.

Nintendo Entertainment System. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

It was an “interesting” choice from my father to decide to purchase his first games console two weeks after my heavily pregnant mother’s due date. A choice that most might see as irresponsible, immature, or perhaps just plain ridiculous. However, in a twisted logic kind of way, I owe that decision to my now love and fascination of video games.

My description of my father makes him sound like an avid gamer, a fanatic and die hard enthusiast. He is none of these things. I can only assume that on that faithful day he somehow misplaced himself whilst shopping and was bamboozled by some retail wizard, perhaps convincing my father that he was buying the latest in toaster technology. With no use for the grey block he’d purchased, he banished the system to serve a sentence of solitary confinement with my grandparents some 200 miles away.

For years it was left lonesome, yearning some attention, some appreciation of the gifts it was willing to offer. It wasn’t until 1996, a full ten years since it’s original European release, that myself and my sister uncovered this cream and grey gem from the back of a wardrobe, in a Narnia-esque fashion.

The main thing to note about the NES and many early gaming consoles, is that it had no save function, and thus no persistence. Every time you turn it on you’re back to square one. Game developers therefore had to design to make their games both extremely re-playable, and challenging enough so that players didn’t beat it on the day of purchase. In most modern games, as you progress you become stronger: whether it’s dropping points into strength or unlocking a kick ass new ability/item. However back then, you couldn’t rely on your character getting better, you had to get better! You had to develop better reflexes for Super Mario Bros., timing was key for Paperboy, and my god you had to jam your little finger at just under the speed of sound in order to qualify in Track and Field II. Games back then were hard…”Nintendo Hard”.

Image credit: tokyotimes.com

Despite this, as soon as I could excuse myself from my grandmother’s dinner table, I would rush to the TV to start another game of Super Mario Bros. 3. I had never completed it, never even gotten close. I was repeating the same few worlds for hours, over days, over years. But the controls were so tight, the visuals so striking and vibrant, and the difficulty was in that sweet spot creating a tough challenge without frustration.

This era of gaming has been the inspiration for many modern games, whether it’s the tight controls and difficulty of Super Meat Boy or perhaps the repeatability of many rogue-likes such as The Binding of Isaac. Either way, myself and modern gaming owes a lot to the pioneers of gameplay that helped make the NES something more than a multi-grey toned box.

 

Tom Seaman