Wii

Mario Over The Years

This year Super Mario Bros. celebrates its 30th anniversary, but Mario as a lonely brother has been around longer than that. Created by legendary games designer Shigeru Miyamoto, the first appearance of Mario was actually as ‘Jumpman’ in Donkey Kong in 1981. In the original game, Mario tries to rescue the damsel in distress known as Pauline from the ape Donkey Kong. Over the years, Mario has appeared in many Donkey Kong games, including those such as the sequel Donkey Kong Junior and the remake on the Game Boy.

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The first Mario Bros. game, which saw the debut of Luigi, was introduced as an arcade game in 1983, as well as Mario Bros. on the Game and Watch in the same year.  The popularity of the Mario Bros. didn’t occur until later, with the Super Mario Bros. game on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1985. The sequel Super Mario Bros 2. was released in 1986, and Super Mario Bros 3. in 1988 (1990 worldwide).

The basis of all the Super Mario Bros. games sees Mario traveling across the Mushroom Kingdom to save Princess Toadstool from Bowser, as well as his Koopalings in Super Mario Bros 3.  In the original Super Mario Bros. Mario had power ups such as the super mushroom and fire-flower, but Super Mario Bros. 3 included extra power-ups such as the super leaf and the frog suit. Super Mario Bros. 3 is widely considered by many to be one of the greatest video games of all time. The popularity of the game even had an animated television series made based around it.

As well as on home consoles, Mario has appeared in many hand-held console games. Famous Game Boy appearances of Mario included  Super Mario Land in 1989, Dr Mario and also Wario Land. The Game Boy saw Mario in many solo sporting outings, including Mario Golf and Tennis. The rest of the hand-held consoles over the years have continued in the trend to release many new Mario titles, as well as re-making old games.

Super Mario World on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) saw the introduction of the File:YoshiMarioParty9.pngmuch-loved dinosaur Yoshi. Yoshi reprised his role as the Mario Bros. sidekick in the SNES game Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island. The SNES also had the first Mario Kart game in the series in 1992.

On the Nintendo 64, we saw the first 3D Mario game, Super Mario 64. Other big Mario games that started out on the N64 included the first in the popular Super Smash Bros series, and the initial Paper Mario game. The GameCube saw another 3D Mario game with Super Mario Sunshine, which deviated from the usual Mushroom Kingdom rescue story by seeing Mario travel to Isle Delfino. On Isle Delfino, Mario had to save Princess Peach from the evil Shadow Mario.

With the Wii remote and nunchuk attachment for the Wii, sports games became popular, and Mario was no stranger to them. Mario and Sonic at the Olympics was the first game, followed 2 years later by Mario and Sonic at the Winter Olympics.  Another original Wii game, Super Mario Galaxy, saw the return of the familiar storyline of Mario rescuing Peach from Bowser; this time however, the game was set in outer space and Mario had to travel across galaxies to save her.

There have been many Mario games on the Wii U, but one in particular that deserves a mention is the creative Super Mario Maker that was recently released. Unlike any other game, Super Mario Maker allows the gamer to create and play their own custom Mario levels, and to share them online. With the chance to create something new, or pay homage to your old favourite Mario level, Mario Maker has quickly become a fan favourite.

Having appeared in over 200 games in his 30 years, Mario has definitely managed to stand the test of time. Considered to be the best-selling video game franchise of all time, Mario is set to have a long-continued history with Nintendo and the Nintendo fans that love him.

Why the choice of the new Nintendo president is a good thing

Recently, Nintendo announced that their new president will be Tatsumi Kimishima. He has big boots to fill following the death of the much-loved Satoru Iwata, but he is a good choice by Nintendo. He will be the 5th president of the company, and only the second to not be from the Yamauchi family.

Nintendo's New President Has Been Named

There was a lot of scepticism following the announcement, but what some people didn’t realise is the history that Tatsumi Kimishima has with Nintendo; he has played a big part in the company since 2002, and even before that he had a history with Nintendo being involved with the Pokemon company both in Japan and America. In 2002, he was appointed as the president of Nintendo America before Reggie Fils-Aimé took over in 2006, due to Kimishima being promoted to Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board. Before being appointed as the new president, he was the head of HR and managing director of Nintendo.

Kimishima is not well-known outside of the Nintendo offices, and not much is known about what will happen to things like Iwata asks and Nintendo Directs, but what is known is that he has a good financial head on him. Before getting involved in the games industry, he worked for the Sanwa Bank of Japan for 27 years. He also foresaw the Wii U not being a great success, having said it was too similar to the Wii. With Satoru Iwata’s success with Nintendo, people have wondered will his plans he had for Nintendo continue or will things go in a completely different direction, but a translation of a an article had Kimishima saying that sticking to Iwata’s visions is the plan for now.

With Tatsumi Kimishima being given the role as the new president of the company, it gives the former acting presidents Shigeru Miyamoto and Genyo Takeda the chance to focus on what they are good at, making games and the technology behind them. This is reflected in their new titles, with Miyamoto being appointed as ‘Creative Fellow’ and Takeda the new ‘Technology Fellow’. As great as Miyamoto would be as the president, with him frequently having taken part in the Nintendo Directs over the years and him being a well-known face for the fans, not being the president of the company means he will still be able to have creative direction over the games Nintendo makes.

The History of Nintendo

I have been a Nintendo fan since the massive success that was the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), but they weren’t always such a well-known console corporation. Nintendo started out as a Hanafuda card company nearly 100 years before the NES even existed. Fusajiro Yamauchi founded the company in 1889 in Kyoto, and it was kept in the Yamauchi family until the late Satoru Iwata took over as president in 2002.

The first electronic games that Nintendo produced were the series of games on the hand-held Game and Watch in the 1980s. They came as individual hand-held games that were pre-installed and played on a LCD screen; this differed from the later hand-held consoles which allowed interchanging of games via cartridges. Over the years, the Game and Watch had over 50 games available on the various models, and remained popular until the release of the Game Boy.

The Game Boy came around in 1989, with the idea of combining the popularity of the portability of the Game and Watch, and the cartridge based interchangeability of the NES. Various advanced versions of the Game Boy were launched over time, including the Game Boy Colour and Game Boy Advance, before Nintendo moved onto something completely different with the Nintendo DS in 2004.

The DS still stands today as Nintendo’s most popular console, coming second only to the PlayStation 2 in the best-selling consoles of all time. It differed from the Game Boy because it had a dual screen that also enabled touch screen technology; the DS also had a built-in microphone and WiFi technology.

The Nintendo 3DS was the first hand-held console to incorporate 3D effects without the need for 3D glasses. Sadly the 3DS  proved to not be as popular as the original DS, with Nintendo’s profits plummeting and staff wages having to be cut; it has sold only one-third the amount of units that the original DS did. Complaints when the 3DS was 1st released included the short battery life and the awkward angle needed to get the 3D effects to work; the 3DS XL addressed these issues and was received well at launch.

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Nintendo’s first home console came in 1983 (1985 in America) with the Nintendo Entertainment System, or the Famicom as is was better known in Japan. The NES helped the video game market to recover after the famous American crash, and it was the first of the cartridge based consoles. The NES saw the launch of some of its most iconic franchises that still exist today, including Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda and Metroid; many online polls consider the NES to be the greatest console of all time. The controller was the classic A/B brick design, but there were numerous special controllers released for use with specific games, including the NES Zapper and R.O.B.

The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) arrived in 1990 in Japan and was worldwide by 1992. It was the first console of the 16 bit generation, but had tough competition from Sega’s new console, the Sega Mega Drive. Despite the competition, it was still the best-selling console at the time. It was considered the best console of the 16 bit generation due to the advance graphics and sound capabilities compared with the other available consoles. Whilst many classic games from the SNES are remembered, including those such as Super Mario World and Donkey Kong Country, perhaps the one that stands out most is Street Fighter II as it was the first console port of the popular arcade game.

The N64 came out in 1996, with the name deriving from the fact the console had a  64-bit central processing unit. When the N64 arrived, so did two very well-known games; GoldenEye launched a new genre of games known as first person shooters, and the action-adventure game The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is considered by many to be the greatest game of all time. The creation of the N64 brought about major controversy due the fact Nintendo were in talks with Sony about making a disc based console instead of one that used cartridges. When the deal fell through, Nintendo went ahead with the cartridge based N64, and Sony went on to launch the first PlayStation; whilst the N64 was still a success, the launch of the PlayStation negatively impacted upon Nintendo’s sales and shares. File:Nintendo-64-wController-L.jpg

The next up in the list of Nintendo consoles was the GameCube, and whilst it was well received, it faced tough competition from Sony’s PlayStation 2 and Microsoft’s new console, the Xbox. The PlayStation 2 is the best-selling console of all time, with greater than 155 millions units being sold compared to the GameCube’s poor 22 million.

The Wii was available in 2006 and it was another major hit for Nintendo that helped them recover from poor File:Wii-Console.pngGameCube sales.  The revolutionary motion control sensor and wireless remote provided gamers with an alternative experience to that which Sony and Microsoft had to offer. The Wii outsold the PS3 and the Xbox 360 for a time, selling over 100 million units compares to roughly 84 million for the PS3 and Xbox 360. The success of the Wii is thought to have been due to the fact Nintendo tried to aim their new console at a different market to those that Sony and Microsoft were aiming at. They tried to incorporate the casual games market, as well as young children and families. The focus on fitness based games gave the Wii an edge over the other consoles, which they later tried to copy.

The most recent console, the Wii U,  saw Nintendo’s staff having to take another pay-cut due to terrible sales at launch. Even today, the Wii U has only sold just over 10 million units, which is on par with the low sales of Sega’s Saturn and Dream Cast consoles that caused Sega’s existence on the console scene to crumble.  Whilst the Wii U did differ from the Wii with its new gamepad technology, a lack of games at launch contributed towards poor sales.  The sales and number of games available have slowly been improving over time, but it might be a case of too little too late for the Wii U.

The future of the next Nintendo console is currently unknown, but there are plenty of rumours. The consoles code name is the NX, and it is thought that it might incorporate virtual reality. It would not be surprising if Nintendo did go down the virtual reality route as they are a very innovative company, but whatever the future holds for Nintendo, the next console will need to sell well to help them get back on top.

My Tribute to Satoru Iwata

On my  business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer. – Satoru Iwata, GDC 2005

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Satoru Iwata at GDC 2011

The famous words by the Nintendo legend Satoru Iwata. These words reflected exactly the kind of man who Iwata was; a man who put the games and the company he was CEO of before himself. He was well-known for taking a 50% pay-cut rather than make employees redundant when Nintendo saw their profits drop dramatically, with it happening more than once. Although Nintendo sales are fine for now, he took a wage cut after both the initial launch of the 3DS and in 2014 after Wii U sales weren’t doing as well as predicted.

He was the first president of Nintendo that wasn’t a relative of the Yamauchi family, and only the fourth there ever had been. He took over as CEO of Nintendo when Hiroshi Yamauchi retired, who had turned Nintendo from a small Hanafudu playing cards company to the video games giant it is today. 

Born in Sapporo Japan, he had an interest in video games from a young age. Starting out by making games on a simple school calculator, he later went on to study computer science at the Tokyo School of Technology whilst doing freelance work for HAL Laboratory; even whilst at HAL he had a big hand to play in Nintendo, having worked on the Kirby and various Pokemon games. Iwata was eventually made a full-time employee of Nintendo in 2000 when he was appointed as the head of the corporate planning division, before becoming the president of Nintendo in 2002.

With Nintendo Directs and ‘Iwata Asks’, Satoru Iwata made Nintendo a much more personable company to its fans. Through Nintendo Direct press events, we got to see the side of Iwata that the public came to love. Ever humorous in his approach to the creation of everyone’s favourite Nintendo titles, he showed us all the fun side of games development.

‘Video games are meant to be for just one thing: fun. Fun for everyone!’ – Satoru Iwata, GDC 2006

As a girl who grew up on Nintendo, I have been a part of the Nintendo community for over 20 years. My first console was the NES, shortly followed by the original Game Boy, and I have been a fan-girl ever since. Iwata played a  crucial role in the development of many of the games I played as a child, such as Kirby and Super Smash Bros. During Iwata’s time as president, the now much loved Nintendo DS and the revolutionary Wii were launched.
An open, electric blue original Nintendo DS system.
Games studios across the world have been paying tribute to Iwata today with fan art.

Even rival company Sony paid tribute on their PlayStation twitter account.

After having to miss E3 last year due to his battles with cancer, he sadly passed away on July 11th 2015 at the age of only 55. With his passing, people are left wondering who will be able to replace such an icon of the industry, but for now the world is in mourning for such a wonderful man. RIP Satoru Iwata, you will sorely be missed by many gamers around the world.
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