Original subtitles

- They say there are no winners in a war.

- Last year in the United States,

home video game sales hit $1.1 billion.

- But in this case, everyone won.

[upbeat music]

id

- One in every three homes is equipped with a Nintendo Entertainment System.

- And Sega, also in the market.

Sales once again soared.

- The market's very healthy.

- Good, clean competition for most new ideas,

and new ideas are what we're all about.

- f Come on, let's get lost in the moment f

- Nintendo had weathered a market crash,

legal storms, copyright battles,

and a bitter console war.

- J / believe, | believe in electric motion f

- Tom Kalinske's shiny new Sega

had built a U.S. empire out of nothing,

and the once-dead U.S. video game industry

was not only alive but thriving.

There was room for competition,

and Nintendo, toughened and wiser,

opened the '90s swinging.

id

[cheers and applause]

[wondrous music]

id

- It may be the most addictive toy in history,

and it's definitely the hottest thing this Christmas--

Nintendo video games.

id

- The Mario Brothers have been playing long enough

on an 8-bit digital landscape.

This summer at the Consumer Electronics Show,

the video game giant has introduced

the Super Nintendo system,

which features 16-bit graphics,

more elaborate and more detailed games.

- Now you got a real fight, you know.

You got two pretty capable competitors

that are now gonna duke it out,

and Sega's put some points

on the board by showing up early,

and Nintendo comes in,

and they're not quite prepared.

They don't have their sea legs yet.

And, you know, the first round goes to Sega, right?

And the second round goes to Sega.

And now Nintendo's coming back

because Nintendo is really good at what they do.

- | think Sega took a Slightly more edgy point of view

with both the kind of games

that they were focused on, the characters,

how they presented those characters.

- Sega definitely understood marketing better than Nintendo,

and so they directly attacked Nintendo in their advertising.

- 16-bit sports action.

- f You can't do this on Nintendo. f

~ Genesis f - Does.

- J Genesis - Does.

- J Genesis I - Does.

- J Genesis - Does.

- J Genesis does S

- What Nintendon'tt.

- Buy a 16-bit Genesis system

between now and October 31st and get an extra game free.

- To some degree,

we didn't take the bait too seriously.

[vibrant music]

Nintendo's marketing team was very aware

of what was going on

in terms of market share, monitored it closely,

made sure that we were on track

with how many people were buying the system,

how much they were adapting,

how many cartridges they were buying.

id

[mellow electronic music]

id

- | was fortunate to first be exposed to Nintendo

as a consumer.

And for me, that very first system was the Super NES.

- "Super Mario World" is here.

It's one of the new generation of Nintendo games.

It comes only with Super Nintendo,

and it's like nothing you've ever faced.

Now you're playing with power. Super power.

- One of my favorite games ever of all time

was "Super Mario World."

| think from a design standpoint,

at the time, the music, the graphics--

| mean, it was pixel perfect.

Absolutely pixel perfect.

The jumps, the-- it was so polished.

| think it's the most polished game ever.

id

- | have many fond memories and many great stories

around my interaction with that system.

Playing for many, many hours, playing games

like "The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past,"

games like "Chrono Trigger,"

all of these fantastic experiences

that, for me, were my very first gaming experiences.

- The game business’ giant, Nintendo,

is no longer the only game in town,

but they're still the biggest game in town.

- | would be very surprised

if this is not one of the biggest hit products

for the Christmas of 1992.

And certainly Christmas 1991, this product is a sellout.

- Not only did the Super Nintendo

face stiff competition in America and Japan,

but an unexpected new obstacle presented itself.

Moms around the world couldn't understand why it was necessary to spend money

on another one of those Nintendos

if their children already had one.

- So that's the new Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

- What about it?

- They say it has 16-bit technology,

whatever that means.

- Ah, | see. What else do "they" say?

- That it has 3-D graphics and digital stereo sound

and that "Super Mario World" is included.

- Okay, okay. We'll get it for him.

- What makes Super Nintendo super

is a 16-bit computer chip,

which makes the game more vivid than the 8-bit Nintendo

now in one out of three U.S. homes.

But the suggested price is around $200--

more than double the original.

- Mom, look at the background. - Look at that!

- The background is so cool.

- The graphics on this new game are exceptionally colorful,

but so is the language from parents

when you ask them about spending 200 bucks for it.

- Well, I'm sad because it's not compatible with the other tapes,

and we got our Nintendo system

a couple years ago, so we must have about 50 tapes.

- So you gonna buy this one?

- No.

id

- What happened partly was,

I've heard that parents had invested heavily in the NES,

and they really couldn't see

why they should upgrade and pay Nintendo

yet again more money and get all new cartridges

that weren't backwards compatible to Nintendo.

But they could understand how a different company

could have come out with a better system,

and so sometimes it was just an easier sell for the kids

to convince their parents to buy something that was,

"Oh, but this is different,” than to buy another Nintendo.

- There's no question that the Super Nintendo

was a technical advancement from its predecessor,

but was that enough?

- Nintendo's biggest rivals,

NEC TurboGrafx and Sega Genesis,

have been putting out hardware and software

in 16 bits for more than two years.

Nintendo claims to have 60 million game units in 8-bit

already in households around the country.

Sega Genesis people say they're ready for them in the new arena.

- We're 2 1/2 years ahead of 'em.

Our games are better, we have more systems out,

and | think their entering is better for our business.

- Why did the leader wait so long?

- We waited to introduce

the Super Nintendo Entertainment System

until we had a software game-packed library

that met Nintendo's players’ expectations for increased play, fun, and excitement.

id

- What the Super Nintendo games

would eventually show moms-- and the population at large--

is that the Super Nintendo

didn't win the 16-bit era because of better technology.

Once again, it was the experiences the system empowered the players with

that made the difference.

[exciting electronic music]

- There is still a realinterest in Super Nintendo.

This store, in fact, has a waiting list,

and they haven't even gotten the game in yet.

- Well, we sold 28 in two days.

- | saved up my allowance.

- You saved up $200 by yourself?

- Yeah.

- Ultimately, we always felt

through the Super NES years

that great software was really what it was all about.

- It's never really been about hardware.

Like, we have to be able to have more power

or more pixels on a screen or a faster frame rate.

It was always about the gaming experience

and providing a piece of hardware

that would provide a unique gaming experience.

- Alot of customers love their 8-bit Nintendo,

they love those games, they love those characters...

and so a lot of them were waiting

for a Nintendo 16-bit machine

and waiting for games in the brands that they really cared about.

- f And come alive f

[singers vocalizing]

id

~ Come alive I

[singers vocalizing]

id

f Feel it in the energy f

~ With open eyes f

S We come alive f

id

~£ So come alive f

- Some of the new games look like updated takes

on fairly well-known formats.

Oh, | guess | should watch where I'm driving instead of talking.

id

- It's 16-bit, and it's yours,

only if you get new Super Nintendo.

- With a chance to win thousands of free Super NES

"Super Mario Kart."

- Save the planet in "EarthBound" from Nintendo.

id

- But no matter how you play the game

or which game you play,

things definitely have come a long way since "Pac-Man."

- Now you're playing with power.

Super power.

[lively electronic music]

id

- The march of progress in art and technology is relentless,

and video games in the early 1990s were no exception.

Graphics were getting better, computers were getting faster,

and Hollywood was starting to blur the lines

between myth and reality.

id

- Rare, the developer in England that Nintendo had been working with,

had developed a very cool technique

to create free-rendered,

high-end 3-D-looking characters

on high-end, like, computer workstations,

and then change those characters

and convert them into sprite data.

2-D sprite data.

And then when they built the game out of it,

it looked like this beautiful 3-D-rendered world,

but it was all made of 2-D sprites.

And it really used the fact that the Super Nintendo

could display thousands of colors at once,

you know, to really create that rich imagery.

With the Super Nintendo,

Nintendo kind of brought things back.

| mean, a big reason for that was "Donkey Kong Country."

- Here's the hot new hero of the video game business.

This, substantially upgraded from its original image,

is Donkey Kong, in his latest game titled "Donkey Kong Country."

- When "Donkey Kong Country" came out,

Stamper brothers over in the U.K., Rare...

[electronic fanfare]

Everything about "Donkey Kong Country,"

it was like that took it up a level--

the colors, the animations,

the game play,

the size of the characters, you know,

‘cause you're used to kind of, like,

Mario as a smaller thing.

And the music.

- Honestly, just the music alone is, like, really--

it brings such good feelings.

[upbeat music]

- There's a story of "Donkey Kong Country"

being shown to Nintendo executives, who are like, "Hmm.

"Well, that looks okay, | guess, for a Nintendo 64 game."

And they were like, "No, no, no, no, no.

"This is a Super Nintendo game.

This is for your current platform."

And the thing is, "Donkey Kong Country"

didn't need a CD, and it didn't need a 32x.

You know, it really--

it rejuvenated what people thought was possible

with the Super Nintendo.

[serene music]

id

- Players wanted more from their games...

but how to leap this hurdle once again

with the 16-bit technology of the early '90s?

That was the real question.

Upstart British developer Argonaut Games

invented something that seemed

to make the impossible possible.

- "Star Fox" used a coprocessor chip called the Super FX chip,

which let the Super Nintendo do rudimentary polygons.

- Secretly known as "the Mario chip,"

a small computer processor was created

to allow additional polygon rendering--

or 3-D capabilities--

for Super Nintendo games.

- Nintendo also launched

its most powerful game technology ever

using the new Super FX chip.

This is a RISC processor that offers texture mapping,

light source shading, object rotation and scaling,

and 3-D polygon animation.

- But how would Nintendo incorporate this chip into millions of systems

that were already sitting in living rooms?

Simple. They wouldn't.

They put the chip

into every game cartridge,

and voila, enhanced 2-D or 3-D graphics.

[lively music]

- So Nintendo could now introduce a game

with 3-D polygonal graphics

on the console you already own.

- AS a game developer,

you're just-- you're blown away.

It was the first time we saw a machine

do that with "3-D" and, you know...

- It's a custom processor

which will work with the Super Nintendo,

and it can do many different things.

Again, as | said, in this game, it's used

just for the 3-D calculations in the polygons.

It also does some sprite scaling,

which is taking pictures and making them bigger and smaller,

which, before the Super FX chip,

was very difficult or even impossible in most cases.

- You could actually get some

really good 3-D sort of visuals on the game

‘cause it really required that recalculation of the polygons,

instead of just this flat screen.

So, yeah, | think it did--

| think it really did revolutionize 3-D gaming.

- For as much as they were really innovating with the Super FX chip

and the use of polygonal graphics on the Super NES,

actually quickly pulled back on that,

you know, because Nintendo famously created "Star Fox 2."

Finished the entire game.

Got it 100% done, bug checked.

Everything was done, and they canceled it.

And they canceled it because they wanted to create a contrast

between the 2-D of the Super Nintendo

and the leap into 3-D

that they were gonna do with the Nintendo 64.

[lively electronic music]

id

- Minus Gunpei Yokoi's failed VR system,

with three straight hits under their belt,

could they strike gold again?

id

A new challenger arose

from the most unlikely of places.

A former partner of theirs was gonna turn the entire video game industry upside down.

- Here comes a new challenger!

[dramatic music]

id

- If the video games are going to survive, they're going to have to accommodate

a new, upcoming technology-- interactive compact discs.

NEC already bases some of its games on the disc,

and at this year's CES, Nintendo announced

they would team with Philips and Sony towards the same end.

- The format was already the standard when it came to music in the mid-90s,

and games were the next frontier.

Nintendo knew this and announced a groundbreaking partnership with Sony,

the leader of the compact disc revolution,

for what they would call

the Super Nintendo CD-ROM.

- As the 16-bit era dawned, there was the sense that CD-ROMs

were gonna be a big part of the future of video games.

- CD-ROM media can store thousands and thousands

of times more information for about the same cost.

| mean, it's quite a leap forward.

id

- So, when Nintendo was bringing out

the Super Nintendo, they were like, "Oh, yeah.

We're gonna have a CD-ROM drive, too.”

- While that was happening, Sony was mulling over

what do they do about this industry and this market.

And they wanted to do some of the CD-ROM media

‘cause they were one of the leaders in CDs.

And they were also a strong music company that was using CDs, and they realized,

"You know, we understand some things about software.

"We understand things about consumer electronics "and hardware.

"We've got the Sony brand.

What can we do?"

And then they experimented

and explored what they might be able to do with Nintendo--

you know, combining what they're both good at.

- We had a game that we were showing.

It was the first time anyone had ever seen anything like this.

It was called "The 7th Guest,"

and we were doing it for PC CD-ROM.

So what a lot of people didn't know is,

Nintendo contacted Virgin,

and they had teamed up with Sony,

and they were going to do a disc-based

next-generation console.

And they saw "7th Guest"

in '93, and they said,

"We need to have this as the first gen, and we want to do a demo."

So we had actually received

a Nintendo machine...

[laughs] That was a disc-based machine,

and we had started doing "7th Guest"

on the "Nintendo" PlayStation.

[vibrant electronic music]

id

- Unprecedentea--

a word many would use for this new partnership

between Japan's arguably two largest corporations.

- A lot of CD-ROM-based gaming systems

start coming out like the 3-DO and the CD-i.

The PC engine or the TurboGrafx

had had a CD-ROM unit already.

Sega, when it had the Mega Drive in Japan--

the Genesis in the U.S.--

was saying, "Oh, we're gonna bring out

a CD-ROM drive for this as well."

- Sega rushed to market in '91 with the Sega CD,

which didn't improve the quality of the graphics,

just the size of the game.

Sega CD was dead on arrival,

so the new CD-based romance between Nintendo and Sony

could continue unhindered.

However, the honeymoon didn't last long.

- Sony had gone to Nintendo and said,

"Hey, listen, we're Sony.

"You know, we don't make video games.

"We're gonna make encyclopedias for CD-ROM.

"We're gonna make karaoke discs for CD-ROM.

You guys handle all the games."

Nintendo said, "Okay, great."

They sign a very open-ended kind of a handshake deal, right?

Later on, Sony starts to make rumblings

that they're actually gonna make games,

and Nintendo looks and says, "Oops.

"You know, we control the cartridge market with an iron fist, and we make money

"off of game cartridges, but Sony now has the rights

"to make whatever software it wants for the CD-ROMs,

"and Sony is now gonna start making games,

and we're not gonna get a cut of that."

[inquisitive music]

id

- After a thorough review of the initial contract,

Nintendo executives realized that the agreement

would grant Sony full distribution power

over Super Nintendo CD-ROM games.

Yamauchi, notoriously controlling,

turned the tables in a shrewd and some say brutal move.

- So Nintendo says,

"We're not gonna work with Sony anymore.

"We're gonna work with this other company, Philips,

"which is making a system called the CD-i.

"They're gonna be working with us "to make the add-on drive CD-ROMs

for the Super Nintendo."

- He announced that Nintendo

would now work exclusively with Philips

on their CD-based system, who offered better terms.

- This never comes out.

Nintendo never does a CD-ROM drive for the Super NES.

Nintendo, in fact, never does CD-ROMs at all

because Nintendo said it has to do with loading times,

and also, you know, we Sell to children a lot,

and the cartridges don't get damaged as much.

But a really big factor for Nintendo

was that they just made a lot more money

off of the cartridge-game business than they would have made on CDs.

- We initially had an arrangement with Sony

to develop a 32-bit system, and we walked away from that

because we felt that it was not a strong enough machine

to really make a breakthrough software experience.

- Nintendo had awoken a sleeping giant.

What could have been an epic partnership

turned into an epic competition.

[dramatic music]

id

- Rejected by Nintendo

and feeling like it had been shamed,

Sony decides that it is actually gonna get

into the video game business on its own,

and it's going to take this machine that it was developing

that was a Super Nintendo

with a CD-ROM drive inside of it,

and it was calling that the PlayStation,

and that it's going to take that brand, the PlayStation,

but create its own, you know, entirely Sony-owned,

CD-ROM-based video game platform.

It ends up doing so much more damage to Nintendo

than the Sega Genesis ever did.

- Not a lot of people know that, and, of course,

Sony and Nintendo split,

and because of that split,

Nintendo unleashed their biggest competitor

with the Sony PlayStation.

id

- The games are ready.

Are you?

id

- PlayStation.

- I'd like to talk to you about a menace

threatening humanity.

It's happening right here in our very homes

and corrupting the lives of our loved ones.

Yes, friends, I'm talking about this.

It may look like a harmless bagel toaster,

but inside is a deadly doughnut.

Here we have a normal, healthy young man.

And here we have a fellow who's been experimenting with PlayStation

for only a few minutes.

[chimp chattering]

Remember, do not underestimate the power of PlayStation.

[soft music]

id

- f Ninja Turtles, heroes in a half shell f

- While "The Shawshank Redemption"

and "Pulp Fiction" battled it out at the Oscars...

- Thank you.

- The first season of "Friends" came out on TV...

- You have to go down there and deal with them.

- And Britpop was born in the U.K.

id

Against this background came the arrival

of a true cultural shift in gaming.

[wondrous music]

Hell hath no fury

like a transnational corporation scorned.

Nintendo's betrayal

becomes PlayStation's origin story.

Sony slowly developed their CD-ROM

gaming project themselves,

released a relatively cheap 3-D-capable gaming machine,

developed a library of great games,

and within a matter of 18 months,

slipped into the number-one spot.

id

- Much as they might like to declare Crash Bandicoot the mascot,

Sony's marketers say it's up to the customers

to decide if Crash is here to stay.

- And Sony's PlayStation machines are far ahead,

having sold more than 5 million.

- With some analysts predicting that 5 years from now,

100 million will have flown off store shelves.

There are more PlayStations in Japanese homes

than personal computers.

PlayStation's creator, making his rounds, can hardly contain his enthusiasm.

- The current PlayStation now generates about 20% of Sony's revenue.

id

- Nintendo was the top of the heap, right?

They were the king of the mountain.

When you're number one,

when you're the heavyweight champion of the world,

everyone's gonna want your crown.

- PlayStation--

absolutely huge success, and really, it just, like--

it's amazing how much it crushed Nintendo,

especially in Japan.

- The great ads with Crash Bandicoot and his bullhorn outside of Nintendo, and--

- Hey, plumber boy, mustache man, your worst nightmare has arrived.

- How do you compete with that? They have more money than you.

They have more technology. They have more smart people than you.

- That really hurt Nintendo in that era.

id

- PlayStation.

- Anytime a company with both the financial

capabilities of Sony, the design ethos,

the kind of brand standing on a global basis--

when you think about the role of Sony

in consumer electronics, televisions, everything else,

you know that, as they move into this category,

they're gonna bring a lot of cachet with them.

- Sony, when it launched the PlayStation,

it launched it at the same time as Sega launched the Sega Saturn in Japan.

And it actually sort of maybe seemed like the Sega Saturn

was gonna be the big machine of that console generation.

Nintendo 64 was not out yet, so nobody really knew

what Nintendo was gonna do at that point.

But Sony ends up just crushing it with the PlayStation.

[lively electronic music]

- They were making video games look sleek and sexy to the public--

a Stark contrast to Nintendo's continued family friendly Mario approach.

- Most of the PlayStation buyers, in fact, is 18- to 34-year-old males.

That fits pretty good for us.

- The video game business

is not only getting faster and smarter,

it seems to be growing up as well.

- Now an over $7-billion-a-year industry,

video games can no longer be considered merely kid stuff.

Sherri Sylvester, CNN Los Angeles.

id

- Nintendo had unwittingly and unwillingly created a monster.

[electronic hum]

[electronic chimes]

- What do you mean? [stammers]

What do you write to it like mail?

- No, a lot of people use it and communicate.

| guess they can communicate with NBC writers and producers.

Allison, can you explain what Internet is?

- f On your mark, get set f

f We're riding on the Internet I

- Information superhighway.

- What's a webpage? Something ducks walk on?

- f Take a spin, now you're in f

JS With the techno set f

f You're going surfing on the Internet S

- Oh, | thought you were gonna tell us what this was.

- It's like a computer billboard.

- It's not in there.

- The webpage, the email, the instant message--

Yahoo, Amazon, and eBay...

- J It's on eBay J

- Were joining IBM and Microsoft on the world stage.

- The Internet is the most pro-competitive thing there could possibly be.

- People were becoming not only more familiar with the World Wide Web,

they were witnessing the world's newest video game system

take the number-one spot.

[dramatic music]

And for the first time since the mid-'80s,

it wasn't Nintendo.

- We're used to competing against Nintendo.

They used to have 90% share of the market,

and we took the leadership

away from them three years ago,

and we've held that leadership.

So we're used to competing against a big guy who spends a lot of money.

- And that's good, because for the last several months,

Sega's 32-bit Saturn system has been competing against another big guy,

Sony, which has had surprising success with its 32-bit PlayStation unit,

capturing a big chunk of the next generation market.

- Nintendo was down but not out.

Rather than scramble to release a half-baked 32-bit CD system,

Yamauchi watched and waited.

- So we've been watching their success,

but one of the things that we've learned is that the quality of the software

is much more important than the quantity of titles that are available.

- He wasn't waiting on Sega or Sony,

and he wasn't waiting on the marketplace.

He was waiting on Miyamoto.

- Miyamoto understood the limitations of video games,

but he did not want to be confined by them.

And what you see is a brilliant designer

who Is looking at

all of the limitations of the creative medium

and thinking, "How can | surpass these things?"

[wondrous music]

- He is a perfectionist, and, you know,

he kind of--he goes at game development

in a unique way, in that, first and foremost,

it's to find something that's new,

something that provides you with a reason that you want to pick it up and play it.

But his attention to detail

and his attention to play control

is critical, | think,

to the success of the games that he makes.

- You know, he's got a certain purity.

He's so clear in thinking about what's gonna really be fun,

and he's so committed to just wringing out of it

all of the possible potential for that.

He doesn't just settle for,

"Oh, yeah. This is good enough."

But Miyamoto-san is the best game designer in history.

id

- Having fun has always been the goal at Nintendo,

and it's been big business.

Since the mid-1980s, the company has sold more than a billion video game cartridges.

To keep you coming back for more, it's teamed up with

high-end computer maker SiliconGraphics.

- Nintendo, the world's leader in video games,

has joined forces with SiliconGraphics,

the world's leader in visual computing,

to introduce the most exhilarating,

breathtakingly realistic 3-D video entertainment ever witnessed--

Project Reality.

- The company's Project Reality, as it was code-named,

was planned for a 1995 release,

giving Nintendo only a 14-month lag

behind PlayStation's launch

and a fighting chance at catching up.

- We manufacture hardware

as well as publish great games.

That's because we're always thinking about

how to marry the hardware with the software

to bring new experiences fo life.

- Each console generation

really tries to set itself apart

from every other console that's out there on the market.

- Most people don't realize that, you know, every single hardware launch

is a whole new set of challenges.

[light electronic music]

We developed that with SiliconGraphics

and their technology called a reality engine.

And the whole ability was to take big-- it was, you know,

the size of a small freezer, the computer--

and bring that down into a chip form.

What that allowed the vision of Mr. Miyamoto to do

was to say, "Now that | have the ability to manipulate polygons in real time

"at a fast enough frame rate,

"then instead of just going back and forth,

"now | can run around in circles

or move into or out of the screen."

So it brought a whole new dimension to the game play.

id

- But everyone at Nintendo knew

that their new game console couldn't and wouldn't launch

without its most important asset.

- You can tell almost the entire history of all of video games

just by focusing on the Mario games,

what Nintendo has done with this one character.

[wondrous music]

id

- It's not just creating another Mario game.

The Mario game has to be something that's different

than all the other Mario games.

-A game wouldn't be built,

and then you pop a character in it.

It was the character and the personality

and all the different moves

and the other characters that would join--

all had to do with the personalities of those characters.

- You never know for sure, but the video game business

definitely learned from Mario that character-based games

were going to be very, very important.

- Nathan, you have this, and you have this.

- Here you go. Okay.

- Pokémon cards are to elementary schoolers like boots are to cowboys.

You just have to have ‘em.

They hit America last November as a Japanese cartoon series

that seemingly no adults get with instant, massive marketing.

[serene piano music]

id

- As the third-generation console war for living room TV screens was taking place

between Sony, Sega, and Nintendo,

a new phenomenon was evolving on a much smaller screen.

id

- So, while the N64 had been released,

the launch of Pokémon was amazing.

Anyone who's ever been to Japan or if you know enough about origami

or the beautiful way in which the Japanese wrap gifts

and they don't use tape and everything is just very finely-tuned

and beautifully done, that same philosophy,

which is what they live and breathe every day,

is what goes into the creation of these characters.

They're small.

They're detailed enough to have you have a relationship with the character.

But everything is done very purposefully

and done in a way that is cute, if that makes sense.

And it's for men and women and boys and girls,

and it's okay to like something that's cute.

Those characters give you comfort.

They're fun, they're on your side, even if you don't win.

That's just a very Japanese style that | think is so attractive to people.

- Pokémon had launched in Japan in 1996,

and they had taken a very multimedia approach to the franchise.

They were making the trading card game, TV shows, movies.

So, as that was happening,

at Nintendo of America, we were like,

"Wow, this is a really Japanese-seeming thing."

These names, like Pikachu, and all of the characters

were very Japanese-looking, in terms of their art style.

So the marketing department and Mr. Arakawa were looking

at ways to use the engine of the game to do something.

You know, we could just change the look and feel of it,

but all the while, in Japan,

it was becoming more and more of a phenomenon.

So, finally, Mr. Arakawa said,

"You know what? We're just going to do it.

"We're gonna localize it, and we're gonna bring it out,

just like we do every other game."

He happened to ask me to bring Pokémon out of Japan.

You know, got started working on Pokémon,

but I said, "You know, I'm a little worried that's not a very big job," like,

moving from "Nintendo Power" into Pokémon.

Obviously didn't anticipate

how giant the franchise was going to be.

[vibrant electronic music]

id

- The first Pokémon game was so successful,

it sold more Game Boy systems than N64s in Japan,

and the phenomenon only grew

when Arakawa and his Nintendo of America team

brought it to the United States.

- Next question concerns

how long this is gonna be around.

- | probably guarantee you

there's another year, year and a half to this craze.

- All right. - It hasn't even peaked yet.

- f Not drowning out f

tS We're up and down like kids again J

S We are alive f

f We're drawing lines here in the sand f

~ So come and cross it if you can I

Throw yourself against the wall f

~ Because you're bigger, smaller f

~ Bigger, smaller f

~ You're caving inf

f You started living right now J

- f Ooh-ooh Sf

J Why don't you take a look around? f

- f Ooh-ooh Sf

- Your heart is caving in I

f Like bigger, smaller, bigger, smaller I

I It's okay, your heart is bigger, smaller f

~ Bigger, smaller f

~< Yeah Jf

id

- Yamauchi knew a hit when he saw one

and smartly struck up a deal with creator Satoshi Tajiri

to create a joint venture

simply titled "The Pokémon Company."

[ethereal music]

This would bring the Pokémon story

and audience to Game Boy.

What follows is a kid cultural phenomenon

the world had never seen.

- We built it around, again, the grassroots effort,

So we really were speaking first to kids.

It was such a new concept and so interesting and enticing,

and it really goes to human ambition and entertainment

and kids wanting to achieve and collect and show.

- You see a lot of traditional gaming tropes in there

of collecting and growing and grinding,

like, all of these things that have been in games forever.

It's just kind of another example

of a franchise growing

so linked to the platform,

where they seem almost like they were created together.

- | like the cute monsters, and also, | like the challenge in the game.

- Well, | love fighting against the other people.

It's really fun,

and | love swapping with my friends and stuff.

- All the characters are champions.

The kids that play the game become champions.

It's all about positive things and dedication, focus.

So the Pokémon characters have been very good to my son Nick.

I've been a big fan.

The movies, the video games, the cards-- they're all a bunch of fun.

- And last year my son, who turned 30,

already on his Christmas list is the new Pokémon game,

so he's, you know, true to form

of right where they're headed.

- Pokémon surpassed "Star Wars" this year

for the number-one IP

in the world.

That's incredible to think about.

- There's no denying that we all live

in a Pokémon world.

And let me be the first one to break the bad news

to you parents out there.

It's not going away.

It's just gonna get bigger and better.

- September 29th will be actually the street date

when consumers can find it in the stores.

- Okay...

- The price point for a Nintendo 64 will be $199.95.

It's a very exciting year for the video game industry,

as consumers sort of look to what's a real leap in entertainment experience,

and we think this system clearly delivers that.

[wondrous music]

id

- Miyamoto reluctantly finished his 3-D Mario opus

with 15 levels, instead of the 40 he wanted.

And with that, Yamauchi's waiting game was over.

id

- Yahoo!

id

- Blowing everyone else away at this year's E3 was Nintendo.

They definitely had one of the biggest and most crowded stands, and why?

Because they were officially showing their new N64 machine

and a Selection of the titles planned for it.

- Nintendo! - Nintendo 64!

Oh, my gosh!

- At long last, Nintendo's Project Reality,

now dubbed the N64,

was released with its flagship game, "Super Mario 64."

- It's a-me, Mario!

- The transition between 2-D side-scrollers

and a full 3-D world,

that was the one thing that made the gaming industry

go from, you know, this to this.

And that was the N64 and, most importantly, "Super Mario 64,"

which was just a brilliant game.

- Nintendo is famous for introducing

entirely new types of games and new types of game play.

And with Nintendo 64,

"Super Mario 64" definitely revolutionized the industry.

It basically invented a new genre.

- Because now you're in a world,

as opposed to just a flat, two-dimensional screen

or being able to shoot things in the distance.

Now you're able to go through doors

and jump through windows, and all kinds of really cool stuff.

So, for me, that was probably the most innovative,

unique game of all the games | ever played.

- Based on that game alone,

the Nintendo 64 was definitely a game changer.

- |! remember when | first saw that game.

| thought, "This is revolutionary.

This is gonna change gaming for everyone forever."

- | just can remember being the first time that | ever saw Mario in 3-D.

| went to Shoshinkai in Japan,

and | watched Mr. Miyamoto do a demo.

And it just made me feel like it's a real boy.

id

[dramatic music]

id

- Not only did Nintendo's new machine

have a whopping 64 bits to PlayStation's 32,

it incorporated a first-of-its kind,

move around in 3-D space joystick,

four controller ports,

and the promise

of a whole new kind of Mario.

- Unlike the PlayStation, unlike the Saturn,

Nintendo 64 was really, really built

with beautiful 3-D graphics in mind.

That really is the Nintendo 64's legacy.

- The camera was also a big problem, because where do you put the camera?

And it took a while for them to figure out

that the camera should be floating

over your shoulder, just over there.

- The game play experience was always the controller

and giving the developer something--

you know, a new palette of colors to play with.

And the controller was actually designed with an analog joystick,

to be able to control that movement.

And that's how the N64 was actually created

and why the controller was designed the way it was.

- It wasn't just about being in 3-D.

It was about the introduction of an analog controller

with a very funky, spaceship-looking controller.

Nintendo recognized it wasn't just about the hardware--

it was also about the user interface and intuitiveness of it all.

- This is your normal jump button here.

- The N64 also comes with a new ergonomically-redesigned controller

with a lot more buttons and a precise, thumb-operated joystick.

- The analog control stick and how well

that was integrated into the games

that came out for the N64,

and you added the 3-D factor to it as well,

and it gave a whole new sort of feel.

- You push the stick a little bit,

the character walks forward.

You push the stick all the way, the character runs.

- The Nintendo 64 controller was super weird, | think, when people first looked at it,

because it had three prongs. It had the D-pad and the buttons

and a third prong with the analog stick on it.

But there was, like, a learning curve to it.

People didn't know how to use it.

- | still don't understand the controller,

I'll just be honest, when | play.

| guess what it is, is kind of multiple controllers in one.

You needed three hands to play that.

- Immediately Sony and Sega, which had not had these sorts

of analog thumb sticks on their controllers,

had to rush to put them on as soon as they possibly could,

‘cause they realized, "Oh, yeah. This is right."

Like, "This is what you need for 3-D gaming."

- | think it was the first "Mario Party"

where you had to use the joystick

with your hand like this.

People would get blisters on their hand,

and we actually had to send out,

free of charge, golf gloves

that people could actually put on their hand,

so they wouldn't wear it out.

So we had to go out and buy all these golf gloves.

But by the end of it, we had to scrap, like,

a couple hundred thousand left gloves

because so many right-handed people...

[laughs] So...

- Oh, God. Come on, guys! - You've got it, Sam.

- No! - Yeah, Sam! One versus many.

- Oh, my God.

[lively music]

- 3-D changed the game.

When you actually had a true three-dimensional environment

to move through, you lose the linearity

that game designers were able to put in.

What the N64 and "Super Mario 64"

did so well was design the world's first sandbox game,

where wandering off the path was not discouraged.

Wandering off the path was the goal.

- [gasps]

Whoa. Dude, bro.

- The only way to find out

everything that's going on in the game is to play,

is to wander around and slide down the hills

and climb up the mountains and jump in the water

and see what's going on.

- In "Zelda: Ocarina of Time," you can't push a button

to make Link jump, right?

And everybody was like, "Where's the jump button?"

And a big part of that was because,

if you had Link and you were running around a 3-D world

and jumping, jumping, jumping,

it would feel like a Mario game.

And they really were trying to figure out,

"How do we make a distinction between Mario and Zelda?"

When Mario traditionally was side-scrolling.

Zelda was top-down.

Now they're from the same camera angle--

over the shoulder of the player character.

Now they look very similar, but what's the difference?

And so jumping versus not jumping was one of the big differences.

- When you first put in "Wave Race 64,"

which was the very first

American-made, first-party Nintendo,

and you saw the--and the water,

oh, my gosh, and the 3-D and everything.

- The game "Wave Race,"

when you were turning corners

with that analog stick, it really--you know,

you can almost feel like you were riding it.

- Industry insiders loved the N64,

including "Time" magazine, who named it Machine of the Year in 1996.

[wondrous music]

- Something about N64

was right at that level of, like, accessibility

and, you know, and magical display.

And N64 was a special threshold.

God, we played the hell out of that.

Yeah. It was a special time.

- The Nintendo 64

brings a very sophisticated gaming experience--

the quality of graphics and the quality of sound--

right to the unsophisticated user.

You plug in a cartridge, you turn it on, you're up and running.

- AS sales would soon show,

with the exception of a certain MI6 agent with a license to kill,

all other third-party or non-Nintendo-branded games

paled in comparison to the popularity of the plumber and his pals.

id

- You know, | don't have that many machines

hooked up in my media room,

but the N64 is one of them.

And EA made some great games for that machine.

| still remember how much fun it was

making the TV commercials for "BattleTanx,"

where we had a tank knock a house down

and run over the little laundry room bear.

id

- "Mario 64" sold incredibly huge numbers,

and so did "Ocarina of Time."

Everybody loved "GoldenEye."

- When we were making the "GoldenEye" product,

everybody was so excited about it.

Such an amazing, fun, fun game.

- | think the "game changer," pun intended,

was "GoldenEye"--

from a four-player split screen,

Unbelievable.

Like, the frame rate

was like nothing you'd ever seen before.

The graphics, the fun factor, the--everything, oh, my gosh.

You can zoom in, like-- pew, pew.

That was something special.

Multiplayer was born from that.

That was spectacular.

No one had ever seen anything like that.

- Yeah, because you lost.

Yeah.

[lively music]

- But would their souped-up new system be enough

to take back the living room?

- It once ruled the $15 billion video game market

but is fighting a come-from-behind battle.

- The biggest wild card...

- The PlayStation 2 isn't really a video game anymore.

- | found myself

sitting in a car with Howard Lincoln,

driving back to the Nintendo office from lunch,

and he said to me, "You know, Trip,

"when Sony came along, we had no idea what we were dealing with."

- Video game war is heating up tonight.

Nintendo's game-- - 99 pounds.

Your PlayStation 2 will not only run your games,

but also play your DVD movies.

- Created a console that's two to three times

more powerful than anything that's out there.

- Sony has about 70% of the console world market,

trailed by Nintendo.

- Nintendo is cutting the price of its GameCube consoles

after saying last week that it wouldn't.

- We can't achieve the kind of quality we have with "Super Mario 64"

every time out.

- [chuckles]

- The era of broadband games has arrived.

[dramatic music]

id

- It's the dream of everyone to play a 225-pound plumber running around.

That's our main goal in life,

is to one day aspire to be that guy.

[man chuckles]

id

- | don't know how this happened.

| don't know why this happened, but this is a constant

across every group of siblings that played Nintendo games.

The older child was always Mario,

and the younger child is always Luigi,

which is weird, 'cause Luigi is a little cooler than Mario.

He's a little weird-- he has to work a little harder

than Mario does to get what he deserves

for doing exactly the same amount of work,

but | was the older brother in my house,

so | was always Mario...

id

- The original Donkey Kong is Cranky Kong.

So, in, like, "Donkey Kong Country,"

| think he's, like, the old kind of grumpy grandpa.

Grumpy Grandpa Kong. [laughs]

id

- | don't know what's going on with Mario here.

id

- They weren't coming to the shelf

because they were attracted to the box art.

They were coming to the shelf to find

another cool Nintendo product.

They would race home, put that game in, play, you know,

forget to pee, forget to eat. [laughs]

It really was truly, like...

"Just a minute.

One more level. One more time."

Yeah. - Yeah.

- Exactly. Yeah.

id

- Every single one of us that was playing games in the late '80s

has experienced the absolute horror

of coming home from school,

and your mom has unplugged your console

and lost everything that you worked so hard for the night before.

And all of this goes into the game design decisions

that are made now in the 21st century.