Nintendo releases a limited batch of Nintendo Entertainment Systems in New York City, quietly launching the most influential video-game platform of all time.
The American video-game market was in shambles. Sales of game machines by Atari, Mattel, and Coleco had risen to dizzying heights, then collapsed even more quickly. In America, video games were dead, dead, dead. Personal computers were the future, and anything that just played games but couldn’t do your taxes was hopelessly backward. To get away from the term video game, Nintendo (see here) took its marketing emphasis off the controller and focused on two accessories it had released for Famicon, the Japanese version.
The Zapper light gun played the target-shooting game Duck Hunt. And R.O.B. the Robot Operating Buddy whirred and spun around, taking commands from the television, helping you play complex games like Gyromite. This was light-years ahead of Atari, went the message: It has a robot!
Nintendo launched the system with seventeen games, including Baseball, Golf, Tennis, Pinball, and Donkey Kong Jr. Math. (The trump card, Super Mario Bros., had just been released in Japan but wasn’t ready for America.) At this point, you’re expecting to hear that the Nintendo Entertainment System was a huge surprise hit, flying off the shelves. But that’s not what happened. In fact, Nintendo only sold about 50,000 consoles that holiday season—half of what it had manufactured.
But it was enough to convince retailers that Nintendo had a viable product. In early 1986, Nintendo expanded into Los Angeles, then Chicago, then San Francisco. At the end of that year, NES went national, with Mario leading the charge. Video games were back.—CK