Thaindian News

Oct 18 (THAINDIAN NEWS) Twenty five years ago today, on October 18, 1985, the video gaming market of the US was a mess. Gaming machines such as Mattel, Coleco, and Atari had soared to amazing heights and were crashing quickly with no chance of recovery. Video games were a thing of the past in America, and the personal computer was taking over.

No one wanted to even try to sell the game which a Japanese company called Nintendo was pushing. Retailers would not even discuss the prospect, and would not even give the company a chance to present their product.

But the president of Nintendo, Hiroshi Yamauchi, who grandad has started the company off as a playing card business almost one hundred years earlier, believed in their product, and was determined to launch it in the United States. He told his company to sell the gaming system in New York, which was considered to be the hardest selling market of all. If they could make it in NY, then they knew they could make it anywhere.

The only problem was that they didn’t make it in New York. Retailers there would not even take the product, so the son in law of Hiroshi Yamauchi, a man by the name of Minoru Arakawa took a big gamble behind his father in law’s back.

He offered the stores a deal; he would give them the displays and provide all of the products, and all they were required to do was pay for the ones which they sold and return the ones which did not. A few retailers agreed, and Nintendo was on it’s way to becoming one of the largest sellers of video games in America.

The original seventeen games which were launched by Nintendo were:

Duck Hunt (included with console), Gyromite (included with console), 10-Yard Fight, Baseball, Clu Clu Land, Donkey Kong Jr. Math, Excitebike, Golf, Hogan’s Alley, Ice Climber, Kung Fu, Mach Rider, Pinball, Stack-Up, Tennis, Wild Gunman, and Wrecking Crew. Their “Ace in the Hole” did not come to the USA until a year later when they launched Super Mario Bro in 1986.