I believe there will be many exciting things about Nintendo products that gamers have misunderstood or never known so far.
Do you think you understand all about Nintendo, one of the most creative gaming companies? No matter how hard you are a fan of the company, there will undoubtedly be things that readers do not know or misunderstand about Nintendo products such as NES or icons of the game industry such as Mario, Donkey Kong,…
Upon a closer look at Nintendo’s product development history, it was discovered that there are many things that I have misunderstood. I also believe that a lot of people fall into the same situation. Therefore, in this article, I will summarize some exciting things about Nintendo that gamers may have misunderstood.
Mario’s original name was Jumpman
When Mario first debuted in the Donkey Kong game, he was not yet called Mario. According to many stories, Nintendo’s mascot was called Jumpman. This name is called, so many people mistakenly think this is Mario’s original name. But the reality is not so.
According to his father, Shigeru Miyamoto, who created Mario, ” I call [Jumpman] Mr. Video. I plan to use a single character in every game I create. And that is Mr. Video ”. Miyamoto is inspired by Alfred Hitchcock, who has always had small roles in his films (just like the cameo roles of Sir Stan Lee in MCU movies). Mr. Shigeru Miyamoto thought that Mr. Video could play the same role.
Finally, he recognized Mr. The video was tedious and changed the character’s name quickly. Miyamoto also thought that if he kept the name Mr. Video, Mario would never grow. Therefore, Mario’s original name was Mr. Video, then later came the word of Mario from the name of the owner of the premises leasing office of Nintendo in the US.
Mr. The video is not the only boring name that Miyamoto Shigeru came up with. Mario’s first muse, Pauline, was called Lady. Mario’s surname is just Mario (aka Mario Mario), which explains why Mario and Luigi are called Mario brothers. And the main character in The Legend of Zelda was initially called Link Link. We can see that Miyamoto is good at making games, but he is terrible at naming characters.
Donkey Kong is the wrong reading for “Monkey Kong.”
Another classic case in the works of Miyamoto Shigeru, Donkey Kong. The name of this game from the beginning made people feel perplexed. Many fans have suggested that Donkey (Monkey) should have been read as Monkey to suit a gorilla’s character. They believed that the game’s translation was faulty, so Nintendo was forced to use Donkey Kong.
The truth is not so. According to Miyamoto, ” I looked up the ‘Donkey’ in the dictionary and found that it was also used to mean ‘Goofy’ (silly). This means the real meaning of Donkey Kong is the Silly Monkey. The word ‘Kong’ is taken from King Kong. ”
Of course, for indigenous Americans, the name Donkey Kong has no meaning, and Miyamoto knows it. Nintendo in the US tried to explain to Miyamoto that no one spoke English called Donkey from Donkey. But Donkey Kong’s father insisted on keeping the name. Fortunately, Miyamoto did not change the game name to Donkey Donkey.
NES is Nintendo’s first home gaming console
NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) is one of Nintendo’s most famous home gaming systems. It is so popular that many people have assumed that this is the company’s first generation of home game consoles. In fact, before that, in the late 70s, Nintendo had released several home game consoles as Color TV-Games in Japan, bringing some of its biggest arcade games into the user’s living room.
But there’s one reason you’ve never heard of Nintendo’s Color TV-Game system: it’s a little wrong. The first two systems, Color TV-Game 6 and Color TV-Game 15, tried further to push this marker with games like Hockey or Volleyball. However, they were slightly different versions of the Pong game, so the audience is not interested.
Although not very successful, the Nintendo Color TV-Game generation cannot be considered a failure. This product line still sold about 3 million copies, bringing a relatively stable revenue source for Nintendo. Besides, the generation of Color TV-Game Block Breaker is the device developed by Mr. Shigeru Miyamoto himself. This is still a reasonably smooth start for the Nin family in the home gaming market.
Super Mario Bros. is a game released at the same time as NES.
All gamers acknowledge that Super Mario Bros. is one of the iconic games of the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System). However, many people misunderstand Mario as the originating game, the first game to be released on NES. This fact entirely not the case.
Back to the time Famicom (NES, another name) was released in Japan. It was on July 15, 1983. While developing Super Mario Bros. didn’t start until early 1985. For the US market, things seemed a bit more complicated. Video game historians have interviewed former US executives Howard Lincoln, Minoru Arakawa, and Howard Phillips. All agree that Super Mario Bros appeared in 1986, while NES was released in the US on October 18, 1985.
However, there are quite a few sources that disagree about the exact release date of Super Mario Bros. According to the official and public database of Nintendo, Super Mario Bros. was released at the same time as NES in the US on October 18, 1985. Meanwhile, Nintendo’s internal database (provided by an anonymous source) suggested that Mario’s release date was on the following month, which is November 17, 1985.
Now, if you find the source of the Super Mario Bros. release date on the internet, the results are a bit different when the release date is September 13, 1985. But according to many experts, Super Mario Bros. was released after the time NES launched in the market.
Blowing on electronic tape makes contact better.
This generation of gamers 8x 9x in Vietnam is also very familiar. I still remember that in the electronic age of tape was still prevalent in Vietnam, sometimes the contact between game tapes and machines was not good, so it caused some quite annoying petty errors. Gamers often whisper that if you blow the dust, the game tape will be in better contact. I don’t know if this works, but most times, it works.
Many researchers tried to figure out why blowing on game tapes worked during the NES generation’s golden years, but it was all in vain. One day, many people, after a long time of research, discovered this is called The Placebo Effect, also known as the placebo effect. That means the action of blowing into the ice has almost no effect. Gamers need to remove the electronic tape and reinstall it because the electronics’ contact has been improved. Blowing is simply an act of deception of our brain only.
Usually, after a long time of use, the game tape’s contacts and the machine’s slot often get quite dusty. Therefore, contact will be hindered. It was the act of unplugging it back that somehow pushed the dust away. Even if you do not blow, the act of repeatedly removing and re-plugging will undoubtedly work (unless your device is broken). Even the blown action of gamers is the cause of faster hardware failure.
The method of blowing the tape was so popular that until the N64 era, Nintendo had to state the warning on the game tape clearly.
According to Nintendo’s user manual, the company has warned that the user’s breath may corrode and contaminate the contact points. Besides, the moisture in human breath can also cause mold to grow faster inside the device.
Indeed, we have misunderstood the action of blowing into this game ice for many years.
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This is an article in a series about Interesting things about Nintendo that gamers have misunderstood.
- Exciting things about Nintendo that gamers misunderstood – P.1
- Exciting things about Nintendo that gamers misunderstood – Last
