Donkey Kong (1981)

Introduced July 1981

Donkey Kong was the arcade game that established Nintendo as a success in the North American market – introducing two of their most iconic characters in the process. But unlike many other games from the golden age of arcades, the development story for Donkey Kong begins in failure.

Donkey Kong detail

In 1980, Nintendo had attempted to break into the US with a game called Radar Scope which was a 3D space shoot-‘em-up with some advanced graphics for the time. 3000 machines were built and shipped to the States, but sales were poor and 2000 of the cabinets were unsold, prompting a financial crisis for Nintendo.

Donkey Kong was developed initially as a way to reuse the existing cabinets. Instead of a space-based game, this was a platform game where an Italian plumber attempts to climb to the top of the level while being bombarded by barrels thrown down by a primate.

The names of these characters? If you hadn’t guessed, they were Mario and Donkey Kong. Unusually for a game of the time, the characters came first and the game followed after. This process eventually meant that Nintendo had a cast of digital stars they could put into their own games which helped them grow in popularity even more.

Nintendo reworked the logic board from the original Radar Scope game, Donkey Kong had simpler hardware requirement than the shoot-‘em-up, it still possessed colourful graphics, sound effects and music all powered by a Z80 CPU. It wasn’t hard to port it to the booming microcomputer marketplace, and licensed and unlicensed clones were soon everywhere.

Donkey Kong arcade machine

As well as direct sequels (many of which were based on the same hardware) a whole range of Nintendo games built on the characters and added many more. Mario in particular went on to star in what is probably the most successful video game franchise ever including Super Mario Bros, Mario Kart and many others. Donkey Kong starred in Donkey Kong Country and many other games, often crossing over with Mario.

It’s quite possible that if Nintendo hadn’t been sitting on a couple of thousand Radar Scope machines that such a novel concept might not have been risked. As it was, the descendants of the original Donkey Kong game gave Nintendo a unique edge in the future… which turned out to be not just shoot-‘em-ups after all.

Image credits:
Wordshore via Flickr - CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Microsiervos via Flickr – CC BY 2.0

Nintendo Game Boy Advance (2001)

Introduced March 2001

Nintendo had popularised handheld gaming, first with the simple but fun Game & Watch in 1980, then then Game Boy in 1990 and the Game Boy Color in 1998. By the early noughties, the technology for handheld devices was improving at a rapid rate – and it was into this market that the Game Boy Advance (or “GBA” for short) was born.

The original series of Game Boy devices used a weird Sharp CPU – the LR35902, which was a sort of cross between an Intel 8080 and a Zilog Z80. The new Game Boy Advance used a 32-bit ARM processor of the type that was eventually to become ubiquitous in handheld devices. The weird Sharp CPU was still there though, providing backwards compatibility with earlier Game Boy generations.

Game Boy Advance

Unlike earlier versions, the control buttons were on either side of the 2.9” colour display. But it was the display itself that was divisive – it didn’t have a backlight and was difficult to see in a lot of lighting conditions. Although 2001-era displays weren’t as good as they are today, the Game Boy Advance was a disappointment. However, power requirements were low and the unit would run for up to 15 hours on two AA batteries.

Limitations aside, it was a very successful device with a wide variety of games, including all those written for earlier Game Boy devices plus a large number of others written just for this console. The GBA also came in a wide variety of colours and special editions to tempt people to buy more than one. Less commonly used were adapters and link cables for playing multiplayer games and watching videos.

Game Boy Advance SP

Although it was a fundamentally good console, the poor screen held it back. In 2003 Nintendo launched the Game Boy Advance SP in a clamshell design with a front-light which improved matters, but a later revision in 2005 (the AGS-101) included a backlight and it finally made the GBA playable in all environments. The Nintendo DS effectively replaced the GBA and was compatible with most of its games, originally launched alongside the SP it eventually took over. Between all different models of the GBA, total sales were in excess of 80 million. If you want one today, prices vary significantly but an AGS-101 in good condition will start at around £150 but rarer variants can be much more expensive.
 

Image credits:
Evan-Amos via Wikimedia Commons – CC BY-SA 3.0
Evan-Amos via Wikimedia Commons – CC 0

Super Nintendo Entertainment System (1990)

 Introduced November 1990 (Japan)

The best-selling 16-bit gaming console, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (or just “SNES”) ruled the roost in the early 1990s, despite an epic battle with the Sega Mega Drive. Relatively late to the market, one of the key reasons for the success of the SNES was better games and good marketing.

Nintendo SNES (PAL Version)

Models varied throughout the world with different cases between North America, Japan and Europe with imcompatible cartridge slots and region locking in both hardware and software. In Japan the console was called the “Super Famicom”. At its heart was an unusual 16-bit development of the venerable 6502 processor called the Ricoh 5A22 – the previous generation Nintendo Entertainment System used another 6502 derivative, this time the Ricoh 2A03.

A wide range of colour graphics modes, an impressive audio subsystem called S-SMP (made by Sony) and ergonomically designed controllers made the SNES a capable hardware platform. But with games consoles, that’s just one of the ingredients you need for success.

What the SNES did have was games... lots of games. Super Mario, Mario Kart, Donkey Kong, Final Fantasy, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, SimCity and many more games were available. Many games were only available on Nintendo platforms, some (such as Mortal Kombat) were available of several. Nintendo did insist of elements of graphic violence being removed from games, which made them more family-friendly but ultimately probably lost them sales.

Depending on market, the SNES was around for about a decade and sold an astonishing 49 million units compared to the Mega Drive’s 32 million or so. A few revisions were made to the hardware, along with quite a lot of hardware expansions that had a limited audience, but ultimately the success of the SNES continued well into the 32-bit console era.

There’s a healthy retro gaming community around the SNES – used units are inexpensive, although game cartridges – especially rare ones – can be worth much more that the systems themselves. In 2017, Nintendo released the Super NES Classic Edition – a modern take on the classic console. There are also emulators and other reimagined versions out there – even after 30 years, the SNES still has the power to captivate gamers.

Image credit: JCD1981NL via Wikimedia Commons - CC BY 3.0

Nintendo Game & Watch (1980)

Nintendo Game & Watch - original "Ball" game

Launched April 1980

Legend has it that one day Nintendo engineer Gunpei Yokoi was observing a Japanese worker playing with a pocket calculator when he suddenly had an idea to take the basic components of a calculator and turn them into a handheld game.

It wasn’t an entirely new idea. Mattel’s rudimentary Auto Race game in 1976 was arguably the first, with the Coleco Electronic Quarterback machine of 1978 also proved popular. Both of those games were bulky and used simple LED displays, however technology had moved on and by the end of the 1970s inexpensive LCD displays were appearing all over the place – including in a range of low-cost and very portable pocket calculators. There were even pocket calculator game books which – with some effort – could make these little gadgets more entertaining.

Yokoi’s design took the LCD display, but instead of having it display numbers it could display a series of predefined graphics instead. Inside was a 4-bit Sharp calculator battery, and power was provided by button cells which kept the size and weight down. This was launched as the Nintendo Game & Watch (as it also included a clock).

The first game was simply called “Ball” and it was a simple enough game where you had to throw and catch a ball, but many more followed. Each game required its own hardware, typically with “A” and “B” variants with different gameplay. At first the games had a single screen and simple control buttons, but dual screen ones followed and in 1982 a handheld version of Donkey Kong also introduced the now ubiquitous D-pad controller. Screens also got bigger and layer ones had coloured sections printed onto the display to give a bit more visual interest.

Rare Super Mario Bros Game & Watch

Dozens of different versions came to market over the next decade or so with games titles many of which featured the Mario Brothers and Donkey Kong, plus a whole lot of Disney characters and ports of arcade games. Nintendo placed a lot of emphasis on gameplay because of the strictly limited hardware, which had the effect of making the games both addictive and relatively inexpensive.

Millions of Game & Watch devices were sold, but in the end technology had moved on. Yokoi had also designed the Nintendo Game Boy, using lessons learned from the Game & Watch but in a much more flexible package where new games could be loaded on with a cartridge.

In fact Gunpei Yokoi had been a prolific designer of products for Nintendo, starting with successful toys such as the Ultra Hand in the 1960s. Not all the products were successful, but his design philosophy of (roughly translated) “lateral thinking with seasoned technology” is still an important part of the way Nintendo designs products – in other words, using existing and inexpensive technologies in innovative ways rather than pursuing the highest technology available. Yokoi left Nintendo in 1996 to form his own company, but he was killed in a car accident in October 1997. However, his influential legacy lives on.

Today Game & Watch devices are very collectable, with rare items such as the yellow Super Mario Bros (YM-901) selling for thousands of pounds, with more common or later ones such as Donkey Kong 3 selling for less than £100.

Image credits:
masatsu via Flickr - CC BY-SA 2.0
Sturmjäger via Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 3.0

Nintendo Game Boy (1990)

Launched September 1990 (Europe)

This month marks the 25th anniversary of the launch of the Nintendo Game Boy in Europe. This relatively simple 8-bit device proved to be hugely popular and the Game Boy turned out to be a game changer.

The Game Boy wasn't the first hand-held gaming console, but it hit the sweet spot when it came to technical features, design, prices and software. By today's standards the Game Boy seems primitive - it had a 8-bit CPU with a 2.6" monochrome display and loaded games in with a cartridge - and even in 1990 it wasn't exactly high-tech. But the Game Boy retailed for just $90 in the US, which made it very affordable.

The hardware comprised of a Sharp LR35902 processor clocked at 4.2 MHz (a sort-of-cross between an Intel 8080 and Zilog Z80), a pitiful 8Kb of RAM (plus 8Kb of video memory), a 160 x 144 pixel display that could display four shades of.. errr.. green and a slot that could take a cartridge of up to 8MB.

The Game Boy had simple but elegant controls ("START", "SELECT", "A" and "B") housed in an unfussy and cleanly designed box. Power was provided by four AA batteries which could give between 15 to 30 hours play time.

Perhaps the killer application that the Game Boy had was the bundled Tetris game, but there were quite a wide range of other games available too (helped by the fact that Europe had to wait a year for the Game Boy after Japan and the US). Although cartridges were relatively expensive, it was at least a simple solution. A very popular later series of games were based around Pokémon characters.

The Game Boy series continued until 2008, selling a massive 200 million units overall. Although mobile gaming would have probably happened even without the Game Boy, it is likely that this little device raised people's expectations and helped to create demand for the vibrant market that we have today.

Today, an original Game Boy in working order will set you back between €35 to €70 or more depending on condition and the number of games it comes with. Thankfully, rechargeable batteries are a lot better than they were 25 years ago!


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