News Report: Nintendo's Revival of the Video Game Industry. December 1988
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- Опубліковано 20 жов 2024
- This nine-minute December 30th, 1988 TV news report from MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour on PBS describes how Nintendo of America revived the once-dead video game market with its NES console. A rare look inside Nintendo of America in Redmond, WA including its assembly factory, R&D labs and game play counselor office. Howard Phillips and Masahiro Ishizuka are interviewed about their work for Nintendo. Child psychologist Laura Kastner is also interviewed concerning her theories on how video games may consume a child's time, and if parents should question the amount of gameplay time their child has.
Original Video Source: americanarchiv...
“The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour,” 1988-12-30, NewsHour Productions, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (WGBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, americanarchive....
Psychologist clearly doesn't know that Metroid's protagonist is a female
That was not common knowledge back then and you could beat the game without her gender being revealed.
@@brightcolorsarecool279 exactly!
@@brightcolorsarecool279 it was more of a joke but ok
She doesn’t know Samus is a girl, but Metroid fans are overwhelmingly men. Not even boys anymore. 😛
@@creativecatproductions probably because the boys who played Metroid NES are all grown up now
3:11 kudos to whoever was playing punch out there. That was some amazing gameplay
Never thought I would see anyone put the smackdown on Mike in my lifetime 😅
It was probably Howard Philips, the Game Master himself!
I can beat the whole game in 20 minutes without getting hit
@@madhatter3640 ok no need to brag. But honestly I'd love to see a youtube video of that as it sounds awesome!
@@trentoninnewjerseyThere are literal speed runners and people who can beat it blindfolded on UA-cam these days.
I can't get over how good the quality is of this news report from 1988! Thanks so much for uploading this. I love seeing news reports from this era as they deal with Nintendo's meteoric rise in popularity!
Yes! Nothing like it. Especially from this era.
@@nlee4566 To be fair the Cabbage Patch craze was about as big if not possibly bigger (not an apples to apples comparison so it's hard to say) but yeah, it's arguable that the reason video games even still exist is because of Nintendo.
This isn't 1978 Beta recorders and early VCR. 1988 had good recorders as long as the tapes were kept in a climate controlled environment all these years.
80s tv quality was so peaceful and magical 😊
I know! They didn't even spend 1/2 the news report talking about how much they hate Reagan/Bush....
December 1988, the date this was reported? The most magical time of my LIFE. I was 12, mom just bought me a NES, it was my dream. She took me to a KB Toys to let me pick out my first game, i was so torn! There were two games i wanted so badly, Kid Icarus, and Metroid. I chose Metroid and i never looked back. Dozens of games later over the next few years, i eventually sold most because i was so hyped about the SNES (it was the only way for me to fund my SNES!). I wish i had kept some of the NES games, but it's all good, both systems brought me memories that i will take with me to my grave.
Metroid definitely the wise choice.
did you ever buy another NES though for nostalgia?
I know exactly what you mean.
Thanks for preserving this, man!
Old news reports need to be preserved like this
They’re just as historically significant as any other piece of media
1:34 - I want to hear stories of those people who worked at the assembly line
If you're still interested, Nintendo brought back the phone line with interviews from a few of the people when the NES mini released. I can link you a video showing all of the small, but still interesting interviews.
@@Irreve-rsible What's the link?
@@joshwilliams7692 Here's a link to a GameXplain video, showing off all the content they released for it: ua-cam.com/video/6I4ocosREKY/v-deo.html
@@Irreve-rsible Thanks!
@@joshwilliams7692 You're welcome
What find particularly fascinating is at 3:48 because I think it kinda shows a little bit more of the process of how Nintendo localized their games for the west. First Nintendo of Japan would ship Famicom games to Nintendo of America in 2 ways: the first as mentioned in the news report was electronically, (I guess this worked almost like emailing the ROMS) and the people of Nintendo of America would use special EPROM programmers to put them on NES cartridges which they would test in an American NES console, and the second was shipping Famicom and Famicom disk system games to the US. In fact if you look on the desk, you can see a Sharp Twin Famicom, Presumably so they could play both Famicom and Famicom disk system games without the need of a Famicom and Famicom disk system separately. actually if you've ever seen The Gaming Historian documentary about the making of Super Mario Bros 2 (which all leave a link to at the bottom) then you'll know the story goes that when the Japanese Super Mario Bros 2 was shipped to Nintendo of America in the summer of 1986, Howard Phillips had tested the game to see if it should be sold in America. But when he played it he found that it not only looked way to similar to the first game but it was also so difficult he found it more frustrating then fun, And that's why the American Super Mario Bros 2 was instead a westernized version of Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic. It kinda makes me wonder if that Sharp Twin Famicom was the Famicom Phillips used to test the Japanese Super Mario Bros 2.
link to The Gaming Historian documentary about the making of Super Mario Bros 2: ua-cam.com/video/2EUYSN5aFcE/v-deo.html
And on a side note is that a Sega Master System on the desk?! Naughty Nintendo of America! Why did they have a master system on the desk? Maybe to get inspiration from the competition perhaps? who knows.
I don't think email was viable commercially until the early 90's. Yeah, the technology existed, but Internet infrastructure sucked. Second, not sure if email was sophisticated enough in the mid-80's to allow attachments. It's still possible that they could have been transmitted by terminal software, though, but at low baud rates. Then, you have to think about flashing the code to physical ROM chips. It wasn't as easy back then. I honestly think the news report is embellishing the process. That actual prototypes exist on cartridges is all the proof we need to know that the processes of flashing the EPROMS was likely done somewhere else and then physically shipped overnight or by slower method to Nintendo of America during the NES period/early SNES period. (And maybe even the N64 era)
@@gamewizardks thanks for the extra info
@@gamewizardks and I’m not saying that it was exactly like emailing an attachment I just said that as an analogy, But I think you’re right.
Even at the time, the file size of the game code was incredibly small. It would have been much faster and cheaper to transfer the files over long distance phone lines, rather than burn roms and ship them. Especially if the team in Japan was making daily revisions. There was plenty of PC software at the time to transfer files directly from one computer to another over a phone line. I’m actually surprised I never considered this process, but it totally makes sense.
@@gamewizardks email goes back to the 70s
Thank you for preserving this. I was born when the NES launched in the US so the earliest I remember is the tail end of the console’s domination before the SNES so seeing these early years is always fascinating to me.
I think that psychologist is projecting her own fantasy onto the ideal girl gam 😂
And people still think this.
You would think that after how long the industry has been around people would show it more respect and realize that it's a really creative form of art like movies. But I guess some things will never change.
She's pitiful!
2nd wave feminist type
@@danielpaul9523 lol she’s a psychologist not a kid. I doubt she plays games, hence wouldn’t know a good game. Not pitiful, just ignorant
1988 Psychologist: The only way to get girls interested in video games is to give them the goal of beating out men.
1989 Reality: Tetris
also Pac-Man 8-9 years earlier
@@chadwarden1179 names like that ruined another generation"feminism"🦹♂️🦹♀️
Truth 👨🚒
Truth be told Mike Tyson's PO Is only won if you follow the code's
That's y games died"the corporate latter"
Girls were discouraged by Adults in playing video game more then anything. I sure didn't care about saving a princess or even beating a game most of the time. I just enjoyed the experience.
i mean the princesses appear for like 30 seconds!
@Videospiel-Man5730 explains the crappy shoehorn nowadays lol I'm not gonna even get started on the failing all female gimmick esports team.
4:55 psychologist is right. It's crazy when people play 5+ hours per day. Does explain the console war elitists and addicts.
6:15 just sell the game over pay for help.
6:43 more men involved and she said that properly. Similarly, card games are 90% men.
7:43 she goofed. Could've just said female protagonist or puzzle games like tetris. I wouldn't expect her to know dq3 which got a coat of paint remake, but you can choose an all sexy/vamp women party that gets the most level growth.
seeing all those nes m82 demo unit is a thing of beauty lol
Howard Phillips from the "Howard and Nester" comics in Nintendo Power!🤩
I didn’t know that the minus world glitch was already found in the 80s
Same but his explaination was kinda weird
Yep I remember a bunch of kids used to hang out at the walmart where they had an NES on display to play. That's where all the secrets would get traded. Found out about the minus world, the JUSTIN BAILEY code, holding up and A on controller 2 to save the game in Zelda without dying, etc.
As a person that lived back then :D, I would hear about it at school and think they were lying because there was no way to prove it back then and you would hear all kind of crazy secrets in the games, and you couldn't tell what was real or not, didn't find out until later which ones actually were fact and fiction lol
The little intro jingle they played at the beginning gave me so much nostalgia for a time I only just barely remember
I collect every bit of vintage Nintendo news (1985 - roughly 1993) that I can, I was about 7 when the machine hit American stores so it's one of the fondest things from my childhood. I don't know if I've seen this footage before and even if I have, likely not in such great quality. Thanks a lot for this upload!
This was fantastic, I've already recommended a few of my friends watch this.
some antifa millennials?
Take it from me. I lived through this time. You either had one or you were a square.
3:42 Dude just said the early NES games sent “electronically” to the United States from Japan. 😳
Early internet FTW! 🙌
Computer File transfer protocol were a thing sinse the 60's, internet was just a marketing name invented to sell it
@@jross9919 file transfer isn't the same as the internet. It's all networking anyway, the Internet was just the biggest world wide network
no one gonna talk about how my man gave some kid the wrong instructions on how to get in -1 at 5:50???
lmaooo the minus world
Oh yeah, every little girl wants to play "climb the corporate ladder", lol, that child psychologist could not be more wrong on everything she said.
I remember those "game counselors"! LOL. Life before internet.
Would love to see some game counselors be interviewed..
*They are out-of-work now and broke!?* ☹️
@@afriend9428 Damn that took a turn
Kids are polite back then now we have fortnite squekers.
@@kawaiipotatoes7888 Oh no don't even mention them
“Let’s make a game about beating up men and going up in the corporate ladder” said no game developer ever.
Modern video game developers are self hating men and lesbian cat moms.
Idk, I met some girls when I was in middle school that had a Nintendo and loved it, mostly for Super Mario Bros.
Also, the ending music of McNeil Show made me think of my father who used to watch this. I lost him last July due to complications with Diabetes and Dementia. I miss him so much.
These games were way ahead of their time and easily still hold up today.
I still own my nes snes n64 and game boys. All still work. My Xbox consoles don’t. Things back then were made to last. Now things are made to be disposed of and replaced in a couple years
@@locksmith9580 Nintendo mastered to be here for both a long and good time.
Imagine going back in time and showing them what we have now.
Nothing. I was alive back than and i already was imagining photo-realistic games.
What? You think we were stupid?
bet you're soo stupid you donate to solar roadways instead of real science like ionic field superposition or finding gravitons escaping our universe. I bet you're soo stupid you don't even know what light is which is electromagnetic wavelength with photon particle carriers based on upquarks downquarks strangequarks, etc. With antiquark equivalent with gluon particle binders located at apex of bulbous areas of higgs boson field. Hey idiots i bet even your telomeres are retarded and couldn't reduce an iota of oxidation of ion channels.
It's idiots like you who don't know crap
We legit invented everything you use today idiot!
The reason we have stuff like this now is because of stuff back then
8:29 Dragon *TREE*
he must have misunderstood the japanese pronuciation of the word 'three'
When I was a kid there were a few rules if my siblings and I are either play games or watching TV.
1. Homework first (if any)
2. Read two chapters in a book (if there is no homework).
3. 1hr & ½ for television (unless it was Friday night or Saturday).
I love this stuff its fascinating
Thanks for this upload
Nintendo made people care about video games again through sheer force of will. It’s honestly one of the most remarkable marketing achievements ever.
"None have surpassed Zelda in popularity. The game is a complex high-tech adventure fantasy, and it can take up to 90 HOURS to successfully complete..."
90 HOURS?!! Who the heck is taking 90 HOURS to beat the original Zelda??
Of course it's waaaay shorter than that when you know what to do, but back then it very well could have taken some people that long to figure out all the cryptic nonsense without help or a guide.
Does everyone look up cheats and guides now? Most nes games were never beat by the kids who owned them. I know that's hard for some young people to comprehend.
@@lightfeather9953 lol I grew up in the early 80s. I had at least a half dozen friends who all had their own copies of the original Zelda. Not a single one of them took 90 hours to beat it. Sure, we didn't have the benefit of the internet and walkthroughs, but we had Nintendo Power, and the playground, where countless gaming strategies and theories were shared between kids.
I do not know a single person who took 90 hours to beat Zelda. The claim in this video is simply hyperbole.
Yeah lol, no one would take 90 hours to beat Zelda. Like 20 max, if you got stuck you are not going to just wander the game world for an aditional 70 hours, you would just give up.
It was a different time my friend.
No walkthroughs on UA-cam, no let’s plays, no online forums.
Games were more ‘figure it out as you go’ back in the day. Unless you bought a dedicated strategy guide or a copy of a gaming magazine, you’d basically have to play for hours on end until you found what you were looking for.
The past is fascinating isn't it ok well it's interesting seeing how things have changed
Fascinating stuff! Stuff like this makes the experience of playing these classics somehow more immersive
The jump in technology from 1990 (Super Mario World) to 1996 (Super Mario 64) was phenomenal. Nothing like that today, where a 6 year period of time is that significant.
Holy shit. I forgot about the Nintendo Tip Line. They had them in the back of the manuals for like 1.99 a minute knowing damn well its gonna be kids calling it with their parents cc info.Even back then video game makers were scamming us lol. Now they do it with microtransactions.
"To.... jump on.... the Shy Guy's head... many... factors must be... considered. The wind... is blowing from the west at... a rate of... 8.... 8... knots..." "C'mon, c'mon, don't you know this is costing me money?!"
I wonder how many children back then were dragging their parents to the TV when this ran to show them which Christmas present they were wishing for that year
The punk kid at 5:42 with the Black Flag T-shirt. Awesome!
If you're doing "Then" and "Now" comparisons in 1988... you're not going to see much of a difference, but I guess even then they realized Atari looked like shit even with similar 8-bit hardware out
Thanks for updating this! 😎
I always get tried of people saying we will have another crash i always rolled my eyes at this when the industry is at a all time high hell you can't even find a new ps5 or a sx
We don't have retail glut nowadays, so yes. There will never be another video game crash, let alone a global one.
You can’t find a ps5 because they just didn’t release nearly enough systems. I can understand not being able to easily get one at launch but it’s been almost a year and it’s still very hard to find a ps5, that’s ridiculous. Sony mismanaged the hell out of this release.
@@southsidesaiyan8641 Yeah, well part of the reason is because they're spending resources still making PS4's. That's why it's much easier to find a Series X or absolutely a Series S where you can just walk into your local Target or Walmart and buy one
Yet now 2024 UA-cam and Reddit comments are filled with people whining that the industry is worse than ever, saying that it won't be solved unless we have a communist revolution to 'end corporate greed'
5:40 That kid's nail is black from playing the game so much. That and his two friends have pulled out half of their hair watching! Note that the half they each pulled out is the half closest to the game screen, quite devilish! :)
I was 14 when this video was made... how come I didn’t know there was game counselors to give you game tips, I feel cheated 😂 oh well I always figured the games out myself
They were advertised in the Nintendo Power magazine, that's how I knew about them. I never got the chance to use them because it was a 900 number that would charge you based on how long the call was, so I didn't want to increase my parents phone bill.
If you didn’t have Nintendo Power magazine then you were out of the loop so to speak
I’m realizing that’s how you get the full value out of a game. Now with people uploading gameplay on UA-cam, it makes it harder to not cheat. Final Fantasy is one where I am losing that value.
The console and games industry will never be what it was .it will need a miracle to be better
"Video game sales hit $1.1 billion." It's funny how quaint this seems 34 years later, when individual games regularly do that.
5 years before that in 1983, it was triple that at $3 billion.
Oh man cherry tomatoes are so freaking flavorful and easy to grow. During the summer you can cook this every day with just what ripened that afternoon 😋
meanwhile at sega the sega genesis have been release in japan and it will be in america in 1989
Great upload! Thank you👍
1988: NINTENDOES ARE TOO ADDICTING
2020: THE OCULUS IS TOO ADDICTING
As a girl who remembers when Zelda and Metroid, I loved Zelda for the secrets. Metroid I loved because she was a kick ass girl. Rare in those days.
And little did they know at this time. Samus was a female the whole time....
When that Nintendo was here I was shopping for arcade machines instead
I love these videos coming from the video game industries. I was not raised in the US😢. Nintendo is known in my country from mid 1991.
I suppose I should be greatful these clueless reporters got any details right at all, but "Dragon 3"? Imagine if you were watching a forign news report on Xbox games and they put in as much care to get things right.
Oh The American games are ones like Grand Auto. Duty Call. Mad Anne Football. Fort Nighttime.
Right? I mean it was right freaking there! The title was clearly shown and it’s written in English: Dragon QUEST 3. How can they butcher that into Dragon 3? It doesn’t make sense.
it is like that in brazil, the news called streamers professional gamers just because they play video games and are rich
Metroid NES, the 1st game I ever finished! (that actually had an ending, and not just an endless loop like most Atari 2600 games)
...
gwad, loved Metroid & it's atmosphere!
Had these kids never heard of cigarettes, alcohol, and weed??
XD
4:32 What is going on with that hybrid grip?!
Thats how u play contra if you wanna beat the game
"beating out men going up the corporate ladder"....oh god...i think I'd actually like to see that game...X rated for sure!!
Good afternoon! Please tell me if it is possible to use fragments from this video for public purposes - for editing a documentary being created about the history of computer games?
You're certainly welcome to, but I'm not the owner of the video, the original source of the video is in the description: americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_507-h41jh3dq9s#at_2903.324065_s
2:19 oh yeah Howard Philipps !!!!
The psychologist was annoying as hell.
Thank you!
7:34 --- you can't make this stuff up.
Today, video game business is really big.... I mean really bigger than sports, NBA, Netflix, etc.
Incredible
5:49 Bro straight up tells that kid how to get stuck forever is Super Mario Bros.
Good old times
Nice video!
1:04 before anyone knew what iron Mike sounded like
Minus world? That's really quite interesting
*They forgot to mention that Zelda was the most expensive video game back then for $40 or $50 Dollars a pop back then!?!*
Little punk rock kid rockin the black flag while nerdin out on Zelda. Righteous.
My first NES game was Final Fantasy
4:59 honestly that’s nothing compared to the grind today and sea of thieves if you’re trying to get a blessing or a curse now a days I’d rather take the 90 hours instead of weeks months, or even years to grind
I'm still in school.
I did not expect a feminist from before I was born talking about how the concept of a "princess in another castle" attracting young boys to play NES games, and an attractive game for girls being to crush men in a business ladder.
I disagree with both, but it's interesting to see that these discussions were a thing even back then.
This kind of crap has been slowly creeping to prominence for over 100 years. By the '80s it was already institutionalized.
@@heinoustentacles5719 crap? Video games aren't crap.
The feminist 🤣🤣🤦♂️
If I owned a company producing games, I would advertise my product this way: "Give your son a video game, because while he is addicted to video games, he will not be using drugs."
Dragon Threee
I’m most surprised they used to make Nintendo products in the US! Probably also in Japan not in China
I did recall Atari all looked the same. It's also way too complicated for me as a kid but games like astroid were good. I think NES had way more variety to their games. Most of them were simple like simply move to the right until you're done. But some games had good variety like Contra I recall you had like 3 different types of game. A move to the right, a move going upwards, and then a move going forward. So it felt like you're doing something different and fun.
My sister was born in 1988
My grandmother called it "nee-yendo" but I called it a good childhood...
I'd truly seen Nintendo commercials & playing used to in 1980's as a autistic kid.
Hrm I don't remember these counselors.
thats me in the 80's having the nes :p
Dragon tree is my favorite game
I wish they made a Dragon III II but instead they made that Dragon IV series instead....
Man, I sure wonder where Dragon V went!
@@revaryk6868 They don't want us to talk about Dragon V
Dragon Tree was the best game
GOOD VIDEO
Wow nintendo had factories in the USA, is it still true today or is everything made in asia (china, vietnam, india,etc)?
It’s all made in China today.
I've got some cool gameplay for that girl's corporate ladder game the psychologist suggested. It's a game where the girls have to freeze eggs and monkey branch on a carousel to avoid crashing into a wall. Something tells me those girls would have loved that game! 🤣
I believe our channel names require us to be mortal enemies for the rest of time.
Lol
That doctor never heard of Metroid
7:36 Feminists saying stupid things since 1988.
ZELDA!!!! Awesome video!
5:53 is this talking about mario bros???
I don't know but I'm watching this in at 240p like it should be... lol
90 hours to beat Zelda 1. Jesus Christ what was taking so long?
Bad game with stupidly high difficulty, that gave no directions, and the few hints it did it delivered in broken nonsensical engrish will artificially extend a 10 hour game into 90 easily before the age of the internet. And I say this as a massive Zelda fan but those two first ones on NES aged like crap.
No maps
Well, 90 hours is probably an exaggeration, but the point was that this was before the internet and there were only the most vague hints of what to do or where to go. So yes, if you were playing the Legend of Zelda in 1987, it did indeed mean many hours of wandering around trial and error, attempting to burn every bush you see, bomb every wall, learn every possible secret you could. Maybe even draw your own maps by hand on paper. Such things were not uncommon. The fact that the game can be speedrun now in less than an hour is the whole exact opposite of what the original Zelda experience was like when I was a kid. It truly was this massive adventure.
@@AlexRN and tge limited attack range
8:26 dragon 3? Lol
That’s Dragon Quest III he didn’t say the word quest
@@Ayumuobsessed yes ,. and that was my point ^^
4:23 90 hours to successfully beat Zelda 1??
.....eh without a guide perhaps in the 80s lol
I do miss the 80s
These games will never catch on.
Omg parents should not tell their kids how long they can play for, mines never did .