Nintendo Entertainment System: The Console That Saved an Industry
Book Details
Author(s)Brent Van Leeuwen
ISBN / ASINB00M5B7ZJQ
ISBN-13978B00M5B7ZJ6
Sales Rank1,032,119
MarketplaceUnited States 🇺🇸
Description
This book takes you back in time for a look at the key developments in the video game industry that led up to the 1985 release of the NES. The century-long history of Nintendo (the Company) is explored including the company’s products, key individuals and important strategic decisions.
The NES console itself is investigated, including the development process, specifications and licensing and content guidelines. NES games and their creation as well as their diverse genres and the game publishing companies that created them are reviewed. Dozens of accessories and peripherals created for use with the NES including the Zapper Light Gun and Power Glove are discussed and analyzed.
A number of other topics that are part of NES lore such as The Wizard (the movie), the Nintendo World Championships and Nintendo Power (the magazine) are considered.
Finally, the legacy of the NES is contemplated and a list of resources to help further your quest for knowledge about the most influential video game console of all time is provided.
I spent a good deal of time researching and writing this book and hope that you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it. With that said, if you are an avid NES aficionado and have read every book, magazine article and internet posting on the topic of the Nintendo Entertainment System, there is likely little in this book that you don’t already know. I only mention that as I don’t want folks to purchase this book and feel that their time and money was not well spent. If you are a casual or moderate NES fan, I believe that you will enjoy this book considerably and learn a good deal in the process.
Excerpt from Chapter 1:
"While it may seem laughable today, things were so bleak in 1985 that many business and industry analysts said the North American video game industry had no future. No future, can you imagine that? Clearly these analysts did not foresee a relatively unknown Japanese company releasing a video game console in test markets before Christmas of that same year that would forever change the industry. Yet that is exactly what happened.
Amid the doom and gloom and against all conventional wisdom, Nintendo announced plans to release the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in North America in late 1985. Electronic Games magazine (the first dedicated video game magazine published in North America) stated in their March 1985 issue that "the videogame market in America has virtually disappeared" and that releasing the NES "could be a miscalculation on Nintendo's part." How wrong they were. The NES not only single-handedly rescued the dying industry but propelled it to stratospheric new heights.
The NES is the #1 video game console of all time according to IGN’s Top 25 list. Remarkable, isn’t it? There were perhaps a dozen consoles released before the NES and there have been dozens since, yet the NES is #1 and probably always will be.
Newer consoles are superior to the NES in every empirical way, yet the impact the NES had far exceeds all of them. The stars aligned to make this happen. Nintendo entered the market at a time when there was virtually no competition as a result of the collapse of the North American video game industry.
Further, there were comparatively fewer options for entertainment than there are today. There were no cell phones, no text messages, no email, no Facebook, YouTube or Twitter and, as far as the masses were concerned at least, no computers or internet. We didn’t even know it but we were starving for the NES. And when it was released, it was like nothing we had ever seen. The 8-bit graphics and sound. The characters and game play. They pulled us in and didn’t let go. At the time, as far as we were concerned, the NES represented perfection."
The NES console itself is investigated, including the development process, specifications and licensing and content guidelines. NES games and their creation as well as their diverse genres and the game publishing companies that created them are reviewed. Dozens of accessories and peripherals created for use with the NES including the Zapper Light Gun and Power Glove are discussed and analyzed.
A number of other topics that are part of NES lore such as The Wizard (the movie), the Nintendo World Championships and Nintendo Power (the magazine) are considered.
Finally, the legacy of the NES is contemplated and a list of resources to help further your quest for knowledge about the most influential video game console of all time is provided.
I spent a good deal of time researching and writing this book and hope that you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it. With that said, if you are an avid NES aficionado and have read every book, magazine article and internet posting on the topic of the Nintendo Entertainment System, there is likely little in this book that you don’t already know. I only mention that as I don’t want folks to purchase this book and feel that their time and money was not well spent. If you are a casual or moderate NES fan, I believe that you will enjoy this book considerably and learn a good deal in the process.
Excerpt from Chapter 1:
"While it may seem laughable today, things were so bleak in 1985 that many business and industry analysts said the North American video game industry had no future. No future, can you imagine that? Clearly these analysts did not foresee a relatively unknown Japanese company releasing a video game console in test markets before Christmas of that same year that would forever change the industry. Yet that is exactly what happened.
Amid the doom and gloom and against all conventional wisdom, Nintendo announced plans to release the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in North America in late 1985. Electronic Games magazine (the first dedicated video game magazine published in North America) stated in their March 1985 issue that "the videogame market in America has virtually disappeared" and that releasing the NES "could be a miscalculation on Nintendo's part." How wrong they were. The NES not only single-handedly rescued the dying industry but propelled it to stratospheric new heights.
The NES is the #1 video game console of all time according to IGN’s Top 25 list. Remarkable, isn’t it? There were perhaps a dozen consoles released before the NES and there have been dozens since, yet the NES is #1 and probably always will be.
Newer consoles are superior to the NES in every empirical way, yet the impact the NES had far exceeds all of them. The stars aligned to make this happen. Nintendo entered the market at a time when there was virtually no competition as a result of the collapse of the North American video game industry.
Further, there were comparatively fewer options for entertainment than there are today. There were no cell phones, no text messages, no email, no Facebook, YouTube or Twitter and, as far as the masses were concerned at least, no computers or internet. We didn’t even know it but we were starving for the NES. And when it was released, it was like nothing we had ever seen. The 8-bit graphics and sound. The characters and game play. They pulled us in and didn’t let go. At the time, as far as we were concerned, the NES represented perfection."
