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Nintendo visionary Hiroshi Yamauchi dies aged 85

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Nintendo visionary Hiroshi Yamauchi dies aged 85

#31

Post by circuiter »

robotmay wrote: post #6
k-mcgrady wrote: post #3

The N64 was the first proper games console I owned (I got it as a gift when I was 7). I spent so much time on it and had a lot of fun (I even brought it on holiday with me :). I still love to dig it out of the attic every now and then. Even though I'm not 'a gamer' it holds a lot of happy memories for me. RIP.

My mum won our N64 in a toilet paper competition, which was great because we wouldn't have been able to afford it otherwise. My brother and I spent so much time together playing on it and I don't think I've ever enjoyed games quite as much as I did at that time.

> My mum won our N64 in a toilet paper competition,

What?

Re: Nintendo visionary Hiroshi Yamauchi dies aged 85

#32

Post by jimmaswell »

robotmay wrote: post #6
k-mcgrady wrote: post #3

The N64 was the first proper games console I owned (I got it as a gift when I was 7). I spent so much time on it and had a lot of fun (I even brought it on holiday with me :). I still love to dig it out of the attic every now and then. Even though I'm not 'a gamer' it holds a lot of happy memories for me. RIP.

My mum won our N64 in a toilet paper competition, which was great because we wouldn't have been able to afford it otherwise. My brother and I spent so much time together playing on it and I don't think I've ever enjoyed games quite as much as I did at that time.

What kind of toilet paper competition?

Re: Nintendo visionary Hiroshi Yamauchi dies aged 85

#33

Post by Spoom »

johnchristopher wrote: post #10
MattPearce wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a developer (and one who has worked with Nintendo as a third party), I have nothing but respect for the man. You are right in comparing him to Jobs: " In 1986, Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi noted that "Atari collapsed because they gave too much freedom to third-party developers and the market was swamped with rubbish games." In response, Nintendo limited the number of titles that third-party developers could…

As a child I used to wonder about that "Seal of Quality" because it was on every Nintendo game you could find. Every game had this seal. Either it was a Nintendo gimmick or the market didn't offer games that didn't have the seal. edit: lost myself in a double negation

The seal was basically the same as saying "this game is licensed by Nintendo." There were some games without the seal, but they were unauthorized and typically Nintendo sued them.

You couldn't get a game on a standard Nintendo cartridge without being licensed, so these games were actually put on reverse-engineered, custom manufactured cartridges[1] that overloaded the piracy detection circuit[2] on the NES.

Interestingly, when Nintendo built the Game Boy, they came up with a novel way of protecting it from unlicensed games: They made the system check that the console had a bitmap of the Nintendo logo at a specific part of the cartridge memory, and refused to boot if it was not there. Unlicensed cartridge manufacturers could then be sued for trademark infringement.[3] This logo was actually the one displayed when the console booted up, which is why if you booted the console without a cartridge inserted, you would see a black rectangle in the place where the Nintendo logo normally appeared.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_(Atari)

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10NES

[3] http://fantranslation.org/ja/node/16

Re: Nintendo visionary Hiroshi Yamauchi dies aged 85

#34

Post by JonnieCache »

circuiter wrote: post #31
robotmay wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mum won our N64 in a toilet paper competition, which was great because we wouldn't have been able to afford it otherwise. My brother and I spent so much time together playing on it and I don't think I've ever enjoyed games quite as much as I did at that time.

> My mum won our N64 in a toilet paper competition, What?

His mother won his family's N64 in a promotional prize draw by sending off coupons cut out of toiler paper packaging.

Re: Nintendo visionary Hiroshi Yamauchi dies aged 85

#35

Post by dpapathanasiou »

nness wrote: post #23

Leave Luck To Heaven.

For those who don't get it, that's the loose way of translating the three characters[1] which make up the name "Nintendo" in Japanese, though you wouldn't necessarily know it by looking them up one by one[2].

[1] 任天堂

[2] http://tangorin.com/general/%E4%BB%BB%E5%A4%A9%E5%A0%82

Re: Nintendo visionary Hiroshi Yamauchi dies aged 85

#36

Post by rtpg »

Spoom wrote: post #33
johnchristopher wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a child I used to wonder about that "Seal of Quality" because it was on every Nintendo game you could find. Every game had this seal. Either it was a Nintendo gimmick or the market didn't offer games that didn't have the seal. edit: lost myself in a double negation

The seal was basically the same as saying "this game is licensed by Nintendo." There were some games without the seal, but they were unauthorized and typically Nintendo sued them. You couldn't get a game on a standard Nintendo cartridge without being licensed, so these games were actually put on reverse-engineered, custom manufactured cartridges[1] that overloaded the piracy detection circuit[2] on the NES. Interesti…

The trademark infringement strategy is great and super scary at the same time

Re: Nintendo visionary Hiroshi Yamauchi dies aged 85

#37

Post by Radix_ »

sspiff wrote: post #28
mathgeek wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't you feel a little sad when you vaguely remember those days? I'm only 26 but my memories about those "golden days" are becoming harder and harder to find. Creating those kinds of moments for your kids is even better than experiencing them as a kid yourself (for me, anyway).

I hope so, I'm not in that stage of my life yet. Right now, I fear that having children will just completely kill my ability to do anything as a hobby. I'm not sure how justified that is, but it's how I feel.

I'm 27 now and I feel the same way. I still think I won't end up with kids with time running short but I'm an uncle to two boys and a friends daughter calls me uncle. I just hope I have enough money to send them all on adventures. So I really hope what the gp says is true. Though it will be harder to have just the right kids books laying about.

Re: Nintendo visionary Hiroshi Yamauchi dies aged 85

#38

Post by fwonkas »

DanielleMolloy wrote: post #27
tinco wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well for example the shelve management of the cartride game systems. If you would want to produce a game for the SNES, to actually distribute it you would have to put it on a cartridge and sell it. But the design and specifications of these cartridges was protected by Nintendo, so the only way to distribute a game was to ask Nintendo for cartridges. Because Nintendo would only allow quality games on its shelves, it w…

I disagree. The quality control system of the major video game console manufacturers (not only Nintendo is doing this) is what keeps the amount of bugs and major game design flaws they contain at the release time in control (i.e. low) until today. It is the reason for that I still rather buy a just-released console title than a just-released PC game. Everybody who is watching the PC game industry will have come acros…

Actually, both Pac-Man and E.T. were developed and published by Atari itself. That's not to say that third-party garbage wasn't a major (and probably the primary) problem.

Re: Nintendo visionary Hiroshi Yamauchi dies aged 85

#39

Post by kyllo »

RIP. Hiroshi Yamauchi was also the majority owner of the Seattle Mariners baseball club, and is responsible for keeping the team in Seattle in the late 90s when there was a very high chance of it being sold off to another city. He never attended a Mariners game, and didn't even like baseball, but purchased it as a way of saying "thank you" to Seattle for its support of Nintendo (Nintendo of America is headquartered in Redmond, just a few miles from Microsoft).

Re: Nintendo visionary Hiroshi Yamauchi dies aged 85

#40

Post by Spoom »

rtpg wrote: post #36
Spoom wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The seal was basically the same as saying "this game is licensed by Nintendo." There were some games without the seal, but they were unauthorized and typically Nintendo sued them. You couldn't get a game on a standard Nintendo cartridge without being licensed, so these games were actually put on reverse-engineered, custom manufactured cartridges[1] that overloaded the piracy detection circuit[2] on the NES. Interesti…

The trademark infringement strategy is great and super scary at the same time

My understanding is that Sega v. Accolade[1] made it moot, so trademark infringement can no longer be claimed in such a manner (it's now considered fair use).

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_v._Accolade

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