### ## ####### ### ## ####### ####### ### ## ####### ####### ## # ## ####### ## # ## ####### ## ## # ## ## ## ## ## ## # ## ### ## # ## ### ## ## # ## ## ## ## ## ## # ## ### ## # ## ### ####### ## # ## ## ## ## ## ## # ## ### ## # ## ### ## ## # ## ## ## ## ## ## # ## ####### ## # ## ### ## ## # ## ## ## ## ## ## ### ####### ## ### ### ####### ## ### ####### ####### N I N T E N D O F A Q V E R S I O N 0 . 8 ----------------------------------------------- n i n t e n d o f a q v e r s i o n 0 . 8 1/08/00 Written By: Outkast outkast325@hotmail.com Copyright Information This FAQ was written for your private use only. This FAQ may not be reproduced electronically under any circumstances unless you have my written permission to do so. All the websites that can use this FAQ are listed at the bottom in the conclusion section. It may not be sold nor used in anyway to earn a profit, whether it be selling it on a disk or CD, or publishing parts of it in a magazine. Information from it may be used in other FAQs as long as the writer of the FAQ has my permission. The site to visit that recieves an updated version of this FAQ first is GameFAQs (http://www.gamefaqs.com). This FAQ may not be altered or plagerized in anyway; doing so is a penalty against the law. The Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Nintendo 64, Gameboy, Gameboy Color, The Mario Series, The Zelda Series and all games are Copyright © 1985 - 1999 by Nintendo of America and Nintendo of Japan. This FAQ is Copyright © 1999-2000 by Steve Dreyson (Outkast). \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S --------------------------------- t a b l e o f c o n t e n t s \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ 1.) THE INTRODUCTION 1.1) The FAQ Intro 1.2) Author's Note I 1.3) Navigating 1.4) Update History 1.5) Information You Need 2.) NINTENDO: THE BEGINNING 2.1) Ideas/Planning 2.2) System Info 2.3) Frequently Asked Questions 3.) THE NINTENDO ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM (NES) 3.1) Nintendo's First Big Hit 3.2) How It Was Created 3.3) Frequently Asked Questions 3.4) The First Successful Game 3.5) Games 3.6) General Care Guide 3.7) Import Guide 3.8) Extra Information 4.) GAMEBOY 4.1) Nintendo's First Portable 4.2) How It Was Created 4.3) Frequently Asked Questions 4.4) General Care Guide 4.5) Games 5.) THE SUPER NINTENDO ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM 5.1) Nintendo's First/Only 16-Bit Power System 5.2) How It Was Created 5.3) Frequently Asked Questions 5.4) The Genesis Feud 5.5) Games 5.6) General Care Guide 6.) THE NINTENDO 64 6.1) The Only 64-Bit System Ever 6.2) How it Was Created 6.3) Frequently Asked Questions 6.4) Games 6.5) General Care Guide 7.) GAMEBOY COLOR 7.1) Gameboy Color Intro 7.2) Frequently Asked Questions 8.) UPCOMING SYSTEMS/RELEASES 8.1) Upcoming Systems Intro 8.2) The Dolphin / Nintendo 2000 8.3) Gameboy Advance 8.4) Frequently Asked Questions 8.5) Extra Information 9.) OTHER SYSTEMS 9.1) Other Systems 10.) EXTRA NINTENDO THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW 10.1) Extra Nintendo Things Intro 10.2) Nintendo People 10.21) Hiroshi Yamauchi 10.22) Gumpei Yokoi 10.23) Shigeru Miyamoto 10.3) Frequently Asked Questions 10.4) Rumor Killers 10.5) The Legacy Continues 10.51) Nintendo 10.52) Gameboy 10.53) The Most Successful Games 10.6) URL (World Wide Web) Information 10.7) Game Developers 10.8) Hardware 10.9) Extra Information 10.10) Corrections 10.11) Send Corrections 11.) THE CONCLUSION 11.1) The Conclusion Intro 11.2) URL Resources 11.3) Author's Note II 11.4) Credits 11.5) Legal Information \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S --------------------------------- t a b l e o f c o n t e n t s \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ ============================================================================= 1.) THE INTRODUCTION ============================================================================= The introduction supplies the basic stuff; it informs you of what is in the FAQ, welcomes you to it, gives you the basic information on what you are to expect, lets you know how you should navigate it being that it is large, and gives you the update history from version to version. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.1) The FAQ Intro ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Welcome to the Nintendo FAQ, written by The Crippler with the help of many contributers. A lot of people wonder what the point was of writing this FAQ.... Well, it actually is a giant FAQ answering all questions about Nintendo and its history, and it even answers questions about Nintendo's future as well. It is important that you read this entire Introduction section, because it will give you the information you need to navigate this FAQ. A common question asks me what is in this FAQ. Where do I start? The Intro, which you are reading now, is telling you the basic information about this FAQ, how it should be used, what to do in order to navigate it, the update history of it so you know what has been added if you miss a new realease of a particular version, and the general welcome that is included in about 95% of all FAQs. Next up is section number two, which is entitle Nintendo: The Beginning. This explains the real history of Nintendo giving information about the planning of ideas for the first ever system they made (before the NES, believe it or not) as well as what they wanted to do in order to make it more advanced. The next few sections (from section three to section seven) is all about the systems and portables (the main ones only) that Nintendo released (NES, Gameboy, Super NES, Nintendo 64, Gameboy Color). They all consist of frequently asked questions you may have if you own one or more of the systems, it has a general care guide, import information, the works. The next section regards Nintendo's future console and portable, The Dolphin and the Gameboy Advance. It stores FAQs and information about what we know so far about the both of them. Next is the extra stuff, which includes things about some of the game developers, the hardware, extra FAQs, and anything else you may be wondering about. Then there is the conclusion of the FAQ, stating the many resources I used to help compile this FAQ, the credits, the whole nine yards. A very special thanks goes out to Nintendorks (http://www.nintendorks.com) for helping out with some of the history section. They are definetely some of the biggest Nintendo fans you'll know. Note: This FAQ is absolutely, positively 100% Code/Walkthroughs free! It is all information and frequently asked questions about Nintendo, so if you came here for cheats or help on games, you've come to the wrong place! Questions and comments will be accepted like in all of my FAQs, but they must have a little bit of sense in them. For more information on this, scroll down a bit more to the author's note which is section 1.2 in this intro. This concludes the beginning to this FAQ; please be sure to inform me of any mistakes you find. Thank you. - Outkast outkast325@hotmail.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.2) Author's Note I ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- I can't think of a better way to put this, so here goes.... I will be accepting the normal things from you, the readers of this FAQ, such as new information, mistakes I made, or questions you may have. But please do not send me junk mail or harsh criticism. Any negative mail you send me will not be acknowldeged nor responded to. I can tell that this FAQ will attract a lot of mail with people telling me that it is filled up with useless information in order to increase its size, and whatnot. To tell me that this FAQ is filled with spam is not only wrong, but it is unfair to me being that I spent seven (that's 7) months gathering information for this FAQ to help you or other people that come on the internet for help. This FAQ was originally started up on May 5, 1999, and the first release finally came on November 21, 1999. It is a large FAQ that literally zapped up my time, taking weeks to fix the slightest errors so hours and hours of my time and effort were put into perfecting it. I know from experience that a large FAQ will bring a lot of mail, and that half of it will be junk telling me how pathetic I am. Keep in mind that this was not whipped up in a few days. I notice that other FAQ writers are beginning to include a message like this to every FAQ they write; please don't make me have to do that. In some of my other large FAQs I have been forced to put a message on top of it telling people to stop bombarding me, so I will take the time now and reserve this space in order to inform you that harshly criticizing me will not be welcome. Thank you. Outkast outkast325@hotmail.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.3) Navigating ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a some info on this FAQ so here are a few things in order to help you to get through it more easily. - The contents are at the top of this FAQ, check them out to make surfing easier. - This was written in Windows 98 Wordpad, so if you would like to save it to your hard drive, go to File, Save As, and save it. Then open it up with Wordpad and you should have it. - I have personally signed up with my ISP Service to provide me a few megs of room for a web page and I will use it to HTMLize this FAQ. The URL will be posted when it is all ready. - You are most likely viewing this in a browser window in Netscape or Microsoft Internet Explorer. Get the latest versions of each browser to make the .txt (text) file more comprehensible. - The entire document has been spell-checked. The spell checker probably missed some words but comprehending type-o's shouldn't be an issue. Anything that you know of that I didn't list here? Please let me know, thanks. Outkast outkast325@hotmail.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.4) Update History ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Version 0.8 (1/8/00) I've updated the corrections section with some more stuff. Version 0.7 (1/7/00) I have updated and completely changed my personal alias along with my e-mail address, so please take note of the following: Outkast outkast325@hotmail.com P.S. - If you want the reason for the name change, mail me and let me know and I'll tell you (this isn't the place to explain). Version 0.6 (12/28/99) I have added more corrections as more starts to come on in. I guess that this FAQ isn't near error-freeness, but we'll get there soon, I hope. I also added a 'Send Corrections' section for the time being to help me out a little bit when people mail me with new information. Version 0.5 (12/21/99) I have added more corrections as more starts to come on in. I guess that this FAQ isn't near error-freeness, but we'll get there soon, I hope. I also added a 'Send Corrections' section for the time being to help me out a little bit when people mail me with new information. Version 0.4 (12/17/99) Some more corrections have come in... I think that this FAQ is now close to being error-free, but I'm not sure. If you happen to find a mistake, please feel free to let me know what it is so I can change it and give you full credit. Version 0.3 (12/14/99) Yes, I know I updated yesterday, but some very important corrections came into my mailbox that just had to be made... Version 0.2 (12/13/99) Like I mentioned in the first version of this FAQ, updates will come by the boat load. Also in the previous version, I mentioned that I know there will be a lot of mistakes, and I will need some of the readers' help to fix hem up. Well for this version, I have fixed a numerous amount of mistakes, as well as updated the credits section with the names and/or e-mail addresses that have pointed out some errors so far for me. I have also added a section in number 10, which is entitled "Corrections." This helps let everyone know which mistakes have been fixed from version to version. Finally, I've updated the Nintendo 64 section and the normal hardware section by adding memory pak info. Version 0.1 (11/22/99) This is obviously the first version of this FAQ. I usually sort the versions of my FAQs by 1.0, then 1.1 etc., but since this is a massive FAQ that will recieve updates by the load, I decided to start it at 0.1 to make it a bit easier. All of the information has been added (see the table of contents to see what is included), the entire first version has been spell-checked, and all of the other sections (intro, credits, etc.) have been added as well. E-Mail will be accepted for this FAQ but please read section 1.2 first; the author's note. I will be perfectly honest and tell you that this FAQ is far from complete. Please be patient as I work on updating it. Thanks. Good luck. The Crippler cripplerx@hotmail.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.5) Information That You Need ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Terminology: NES - Nintendo Entertainment System (Nintendo's first big console) GB - Gameboy (Nintendo's first portable) SNES - Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Nintendo's second big console) N64 - Nintendo 64 (Nintendo's current/third big console) GBC - Gameboy Color (Nintendo's first color partable; gameboy upgrade) Famicom - Family Computer (Nintendo's First Console, name in Japan) Super Famicom - (A Japanese Famicom) VB - Virtual Boy (A virtual reality system that failed). Console Info: NES - 8-Bit SNES - 16-Bit N64 - 64-Bit People: Hishiro Yamauchi - The president of Nintendo from 1950 - current. Gumpei Yokoi - The creator of the Gameboy and other Nintendo systems/games. Shigeru Miyamoto - An arcade game maker as well as Nintendo game maker that made many games famous. Any other questions you may have about the terminology in this FAQ may be asked and will be posted here. The Crippler cripplerx@hotmail.com =========================================================================== 2.) NINTENDO: THE BEGINNING =========================================================================== This is the first informative section of this FAQ, it includes the ideas that were generated before the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System arrived as well as what it took to make it. Also, it lists some information on the people involved and how it was related to the Nintendo systems to come. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.1) Ideas/Planning --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ********************************************************************** NOTE: Special thanks to Nintendorks (http://www.nintendorks.com) for some of this info. Also to Nintendo (http://www.nintendo.com) for replying to an e-mail I sent them to supply information I was missing. One more, to the GBC FAQ (http://members.tripod.com/~Sh0gunZ/CGB/) for helping me out with some of the Gameboy Color info. ********************************************************************** If you were asked, "What was Nintendo's first system," you would most likely reply, "The NES." If you were asked when you thought Nintendo was established, you would probably reply, "Around the early 1980s." And if you were asked what kind of things Nintendo manufactured besides video games, systems, or anything electronics, you would probably reply, "Nothing." These are all normal answers that many people would give, but believe it or not, they are all wrong. Nintendo was established in 1890 as a card company founded by a man named Fusajiro Yamauchi. The playing card company was a hige success, and by the 1930s it had become the most popular card company overall. Sekiryo Kaneda then took over Fusajiro Yamauchi's job as he stepped down and gave up his president position. By the late 1940s, the playing cards reached the height of their popularity and the Nintendo company decided to expand into a company that produced more games. In 1950, Hiroshi Yamauchi took over as the Nintendo president. He was a good business man and was fit for the job, as he would tolerate no nonsense from any employees. In 1952, the company was renamed Nintendo Playing Cards Cards Co. and the business grew even more. Yamauchi was doing a great job, and had even hit a deal with Disney in the late 1950s which made his cards more and more popular. The company changed names once again in 1963 to Nintendo Co. Ltd. which is its name right now. Yamauchi noticed how strong his business was getting, and decided to expand it into several different industries. Every new product that Yamauchi made, however, failed miserably (a car business and quick home-made food to name a few). Yamauchi, upset with the way things were going, decided to stick to the industry that he was best in; the gaming industry. In the late 1960s, Nintendo hired a man that would become extremely important; Gumpei Yokoi. He presented a knew toy to Yamauchi that impressed him, and went on to sell over one million copies of it. Nintendo was back on track thanks to Yokoi, and Yamauchi asked him to make some more toys, which he did, and all were successful. Nintendo then hired a man that was an expert on light and the science of it. He and Yokoi teamed up to invent a laser gun toy that was a booming success in Japan. During the mid 70s, Yamauchi realized the big success of arcade games and began to work on his own. Though he didn't have the materials, he had created a system that was released in 1977 that didn't do well money wise. Yamauchi knew that the arcade games was where all the money was, and he and his company continued to work on one of their own. In 1977, Nintendo hired a man that would become essential to their business in the future, Shigeru Miyamoto (see section 9.2). He was a young game creator whose father had a hook up with Yamauchi. Though Nintendo had yet to release a successful system, Miyamoto would become useful in the very near future. Miyamoto released two arcade games, one of which that did fairly well in America, but one that did poorly in the United States. Yamauchi then brought together Miyamoto and Yokoi to work on an arcade game together. In 1981, their arcade game was finished, and hit the arcades for major money and great success. It starred a plumber named Mario, and the villian was an enormous gorilla named Donkey Kong. It was up to Mario to climb ladders while avoiding Donkey Kong's weapons. When Mario reached the top, the princess was saved. The addictiveness of the game brought arcade gamers back to the gameroom constantly. Nintendo was proven good in the arcade industry, so Yokoi announced another product of his, "The Game & Watch." It was a portable system that was the first to use a directional pad rather than an arcade-type analog stick to move your player around. The Game & Watch did well and sold millions; another great job done by Yokoi. Around 1982, Yamauchi had realized that other companies had released consoles, so he wanted to do the same. He got his employees to go to work on it; he wanted a system better than the others already on the market, yet more affordable than the others as well (which is tough to ask). Masayuki Uemura and his team were put to work in order to come up with Yamauchi's idea, though it was difficult to make. Because of the price factors, the team used cheaper products to put together the console which was named the Family Computer. The final question was which kind of directional button they should use on the controller, and because of the success of Yokoi's Game & Watch, they used the directional pad that he had made famous. in 1983, the Family Computer (which was renamed Famicom for short) was released for $100, which was twenty more than their goal. However, the console did very well in Japan, but porblems were soon to rise. When the system started to reach the height of its popularity, complaints came in that the console was freezing and doing other things to ruin people's games. Making the Famicom as cheap as could be turned out to be a mistake, so Yamauchi recalled all Famicom systems which hit his wallet hard. Yamauchi needed something to save him from the lost money, and that's when Miayamoto released another arcade game that became a hit. Once again, it starred Mario the plummer, but this time with a brother named Luigi was in the game as well. Like mentioned already, this arcade game entitled Mario Brothers was a major success for both Miyamoto and Nintendo. In late 1983, the video game business hit a solid problem. Games were being rushed and a lot of people lost interest. Yamauchi wanted to re-reease the Famicom, but no stores were willing to take a chance and retail it. While Yamauchi and Nintendo of America searched for a retailer, the Nintendo design team fixed the Famicom and totally re-did it into a rectangular console names The Nintendo Entertainment System (also known as the NES). It wasn't until 1985 when Nintendo of America found a retailer in New York that would be willing to sell the NES. But before this happened, Miyamoto relased Super Mario Brothers for the Famicom in Japan. This was an upgrade to the arcade game he had come up with, as it allowed gamers to go through levels and stomp on all new enemies. It delivered a challenge which is what Japanese gamers were looking for in a console, and because of the success the game had in Japan, the NES sold extremely well in the U.S. Nintendo quickly sold 100,000 units in America. Because of the success it had, other retailers around the country began selling it, as it quickly grew to more games, and even a zapper gun to play shooter games with. The NES quickly gained competition, which was Sega's 8-bit console that was better than the NES according to technical abilities. Nintendo needed something to drive the competition, and found an answer when they advertised a lot and were soon out-selling Sega's console by a large number. The NES became more and more popular when it was being sold in Europe, and a new hardware piece for it was released in Japan which allowed people to put other games into the Famicom for play. In 1986, Miyamoto added to the NES' unstoppable power, when he created his next hit game, "The Legend of Zelda," which was released only in Japan for the Famicom, but was a major sensation for the people in Japan. By 1987, the NES had become the number one item in North America; it seemed like everyone had one. Miyamoto then released The Legend of Zelda on a cartridge for the NES in North America, and it quickly became a hit, becoming the first video game to sell one million copies in North America. Game developers wanted to make games for the NES, so Nintendo told them that if they wanted to develop NES games, they couldn't develop games for any other console. The developers abided by the rules and made games for the NES which completely blew the competition out of the water. Nintendo had sold over thirty million games through 1988, and increased their power by improving their advertising. Any retailers that sold the system earned a large profit from it, which would prove how unstoppable Nintendo really was. In 1988, Nintendo stepped it up again by advertising on Pepsi cans and creating their own Nintendo magazine. Even though Nintendo was literally unstoppable, Yokoi continues on his projects; his next was another portable system that he had been working on. His goal was to improve the Game & Watch system that he has created about eight years ago, and after finishing the product, he knew that saled would be large. Meanwhile, the NES continued with its success releasing another Mario game, and another Zelda game was what they had in mind. In 1989, Yokoi released The Gameboy, which was the portable system that he was working on. It seemed good because it was small enough to fit in your pocket, yet it came with all the buttons found on a standard NES controller, including a screen and small games that were inserted into a slot on the back of the system. The puzzle game entitled Tetris was released for the Gameboy, and was so addictive that lots of people bought Gameboy's in order to play the game. As the success of the Gameboy was booming, Nintendo realized that the NES had obtained some serious competition. NEC released a console that outsold the NES for a short time before the NES came back on top. But that was when Sega, who Nintendo had dominated a couple of years ago, released the Genesis, a 16-bit console that seemed unstoppable. The American people quickly realized that the Genesis was far better than NEC's 16-bit system, but it didn't completely take out the NES, it just slowed down sales slightly. Masayuki Uemura knew he had to do something, so he gathered his designing team up to assemble a 16-bit console of their own, that would eliminate their competition: Sega Genesis. But Nintendo soon found problems when a new gaming company called Tengen copied some of their NES games and sold them unlicensed on their own. Nintendo had to get a license for their games which they did to put the copying to an end, but this is when problems with Atari rised. Atari sued Nintendo for using a monopoly by selling unlicensed games. Retailers got angry and Nintendo realized that they needed something big to keep their sales up. This is when Nintendo once again turned to Miyamoto, who had created Super Mario Brothers 3. Nintendo did some extremely heavy advertising for the game, and in 1990, it sold more than anyone had predicted, and quickly became the best-selling video game of all time. In the meantime, the 16-bit Famicom was released in Japan and sold so much that there was a huge shortage of consoles in the country. Miyamoto created several hit games for the 16-bit Famicom which assisted its success, along with a new and advanced [in some people's opinion] controller. In 1990, Nintendo was literally the biggest company in the world. The 16-bit Famicom was renamed in Japan to the Super Famicom, and Nintendo wanted to create one for America, but was still making an enormous profit from the NES and Gameboy. Masayuki Uemura redesigned the Japanese Super Famicom for the U.S., and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (also knows as the SNES) was the result and was set for release in late 1991. The Sega Genesis was selling decently and was already out for a year. Nintendo had no fear of Sega's competition because the SNES was to be more advanced and far better than the Genesis. In addition to this, Nintendo announced that some of the new games for the SNES would include a new Mario game and a new Zelda game. After hearing this news, Sega knew that it was up to them to create a hit game, so they used a character named Sonic The Hedgehog to become Sega's "Mario." This was important for Sega because the only thing the Genesis had that the SNES didn't was a fast CPU which allowed Sonic to be more capable of doing things that characters in Nintendo games couldn't. Sonic The Hedgehog was released for the Genesis and it became automatically popular, increasing the Genesis' sales substantially. In addition to this, Sega had inked a deal with the game developers named Electronic Arts who made sports games as good as they could be. The Super Nintendo outsold the Genesis when it was released, but the Genesis ws offily close which was the exact opposite of what Nintendo predicted would happen. Mario was released for the SNES and outsold Sonic The Hedgehog slightly, and Nintendo was shocked and certainly had to do something. The heated battle between Sega and Nintendo continued when Sega took shots at Nintendo in their advertising. The rival between the two companies was an advantage for gamers because the games got better and better. Sega announced that they would be adding a CD-ROM to attach to the Genesis to give it more qualities that the SNES already had, so Nintendo countered by announcing that they would do the same. A new developer named Argonaut Software wanted to make 3D games for the SNES, but the SNES didn't have the chip that it needed in order for games to be in 3D. So Nintendo paid Argonaut Software to make a chip so that they could make 3D graphics, and in the meantime, Miyamoto worked on the game that would be in 3D. In 1992, Nintendo released two games that were instant hits: The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past, and Street Fighter II. In Japan, the SNES was topping the Genesis thanks to certain developers such as Square making great RPGs for them. Nintendo released their next hit, Mario Kart, and it seemed as though the Genesis was drifting away. In order to increase sales, Sega released Sonic The Hedgehog 2, and continues their hard advertising by bashing Mario Kart's speed compared to Sonic 2's speed. As for the CD Add-on that was being made for the SNES, Nintendo teamed up with Phillips for their CD-I creation which seemed to be the CD technology that everyone would want. But Nintendo was forced to back out of the Phillips deal and team up with Sony to make the Playstation (PSX) who was also making a CD-based console, due to a deal Nintendo had signed with Sony in 1998. When Nintendo began working with Sony, the deal they made gave Sony all of the control over the making of the games. This made Nintendo upset and they left the Sony deal and teamed back up with Phillips for the CD-I. Sony took Nintendo to court and threatened to sue, but Nintendo convinced them that the PSX would still be successful without Nintendo's help. The CD-I had been completed but was not ready to release it in late 1993. Nintendo was still beating out Sega in 1993, so in order to counter the big money that Nintendo was making, Sega released their CD Add-on. The problem with it was that it costed $300 while the CD-I, which was ready for release would only cost $200. And to add to Nintendo's prosperity, Argonaut had finished working on the high-tech chip that the SNES was waiting for. It was used in a new 1993 game entitled StarFox. The game was a major hit, and Nintendo responded to Sega's ads by putting down Sonic in one of their own. But Sega used their CD Add-on to put down Nintendo even more in their adds and their games were certainly advanced with the add-on, although Nintendo was still on top. The next thing that happened was a critical point in the Sega Genesis vs. Super Nintendo battle. A new fighting game entitled, "Mortal Kombat," was released for both 16-bit consoles. The game was insanely violent so Nintendo told Acclaim to remove the blood from the game. This caused problems with the graphics and sound on the SNES version, and the game was super popular and was much better on the Genesis. To add to Sega's point of highness, they had a great sports lineup that made them big bucks thanks to Electronic Arts. Sega had overtaken Nintendo for the number one position. After months and months of delays, the 32-bit Phillips CD project was cancelled. Nintendo thought it was taking up too much of their time, while Sega and Sony were both almost done with their upcoming 32-bit CD consoles. So to beat out both Sony and Sega, Nintendo teamed up with another company to make a 64-bit system to blow both the PSX and Sega Saturn out of the water. But many people saw difficulty in the upcoming 64-bit system (entitled Project Reality), being that it would take too much time and the size of the games wouldn't be large enough. But Nintendo claimed that they're 64-bit console would be ready in the Fall of 1995 for a price of under $300. This is where Sega and Nintendo saw their situations differently and Nintendo capitalized. Nintendo joined up with Rare, a good-potential developer to create a hit game for the SNES so that Nintendo could knock Sega off the top in the 16-bit console war. But Sega decided that the 16-bit war was over now because Sega, Sony and Nintendo were working on new systems anyway. So while the #1 Sega slowed down their work on the Genesis to work on the Saturn, Nintendo worked hard on their new 16-bit game with Rare. The game, "Donkey King Country," was released in late 1994 and was a huge hit. In addition to this, Nintendo told Acclaim that it was ok for them to make their games uncensored, which brought Nintendo's SNES sales up. Nintendo had finally come back to the number one spot over the Genesis. Thoughout 1994 and 1995, Nintendo didn't say much about Project Reality, until they announced that the games would be on cartridges and not CDs. This surprised nearly everyone, because they questioned how well the graphics could be on a cartridge as well as the amount of size a cartridge could hold. But Nintendo told them that CDs weren't fast enough to run their games, and then Nintendo hired a team of five of the best developers (Rare, Angel Studios, Williams, Lucas Arts and DMA). Nintendo also renamed the console to the Ultra 64, and it looked like trouble for Nintendo because the new Sega and Sony consoles had already been released in Japan. Yokoi continued work on a new system called, the Virtual Boy that used a high-tech chip. As you may have guessed, it was a virtual reality system, but the problem was that it couldn't display things in full color. Yamauchi wanted them to sell it anyway in hopes that it would sell good, but the PSX was taking over and the Virtual Boy would cost too much for Yokoi to improve, so Nintendo released the system to much failure. Nintendo still didn't say much about the Ultra 64, while the PSX was pretty much murdering Sega's 32-bit console in Japan and North America. This is when it seemed like the PSX would be ruling the video game world. One of gaming's best developers and a long time friend of Nintendo, Square, who originated the famous Final Fantasy series, made a new Final Fantasy game for the Ultra 64. But the Ultra 64 continues to be hit with delays, and Square and other developers realized that their new big games would require a lot of memory, which a cartridge just wouldn't have. But the PSX had memory-packed CD's, so Square made the Final Fantasy games for the PSX and other developers bagan using their best ideas for PSX games. In late 1995, Nintendo was ready to display the Ultra 64, which they renamed for one last time, the Nintendo 64. Miyamoto created the first 3D game for it, which was a Mario game, as he wanted to show everyone that Nintendo could re-define the technology of games like he did with Super Mario Brothers for the NES nine years ago. Screenshots of the console as well as the controller were released; the controller included both a directional pad and an analog stick. Super Mario 64 was first playable in 1995 at a show in Japan. The graphics were simply breath-taking and there was no question about how powerful the machine was. The only problem was that there were only two games available to play with only about five or six in creation. Yamauchi than added to the hype of the Nintendo 64 by announcing that they would release a disk drive that would hold 64 megabytes. To make this sound even better, Yamauchi also announced that the first two games to be made for the 64 disk drive would be a new Zelda game and a new Dragon Quest game. But the Nintendo 64 was delayed in Japan until the summer of 1996, and delayed in North America until late September, 1996, while we were promised it would be here in the fall of 1995. Things then went wrong within Nintendo as Yamauchi and Yokoi has personal problems. Apparently, Yokoi was being blamed by Yamauchi about the failure of the Virtual Boy. In 1995, Yokoi quit his position although he says he still has a good relationship with Nintendo. To make things worse, Square just didn't want to wait for the Nintendo 64, and went with the PSX giving them their new Final Fantasy games. But Yamauchi believed that when the 64 disk drive was out, that Square would change their minds and develop for Nintendo. Sales on the SNES slowed down by a longshot; it was time for Nintendo to release their 64-bit console. The excitement grew, and everyone couldn't wait for the Nintendo 64 and Super Mario 64. On June 20th, 1996, the Nintendo 64 was released in Japan along with Super Mario 64 and two other games. Three months later, on September 29, 1996, the Nintendo 64 was released in North America to immediate success. Super Mario 64 blew gamers away, and it seemed that Nintendo would once again dominate the gaming world over Sega and even Sony. But problems soon followed when Nintendo had barely any games and gamers would have to wait a while until another game was released. In addition to this, Sony responded to Nintendo's American success when Final Fantasy 7, the RPG by Square, was released in late 1996 and sold like hot cakes. Sony was taking over the North American gaming world. In 1997, ex-Nintendo game maker Gumpei Yokoi was hit by a car and died at the age of 56 (R.I.P.). But it was a game he made before he quit Nintendo that would keep Nintendo going. Pocket Monsters (or Pokemon) was released as an RPG for the gameboy. The addictive gameplay kept everyone playing it, and it soon became the best-selling game in Japan since Super Mario Brothers. Hiroshi Yamauchi then announced that he would step down from his position with Nintendo in the year 2000, after holding his job as President since 1950. But Nintendo wasn't quite finished off with their portables now that the original creator of the most successful portable had passed. The Nintendo design team found out a new way to use technology in order to make the Gameboy display its games in full color. They announced in March of 1998 that they would release this portable and call it the Gameboy Color (GBC). It was in late November of the same year when they released the GBC in Japan, Europe and North America to great success. Now, games could be taken nearly everywhere and fit in anyone's pocket and be played in full color. And this is where we are at today......... ********************************************************************** NOTE: Special thanks to Nintendorks (http://www.nintendorks.com) for some of this info. Also to Nintendo (http://www.nintendo.com) for replying to an e-mail I sent them to supply information I was missing. One more, to the GBC FAQ (http://members.tripod.com/~Sh0gunZ/CGB/) for helping me out with some of the Gameboy Color info. ********************************************************************** --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.2) System Info --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ***** Nintendo has made several different systems. Some are consoles, some are portables, some were either of the two that were never released. I have listed them here so you have information about them. They are presented in the order they came out from the first system to the currect system. ***** Color TV Game System Creator: Hiroshi Yamauchi Released: 1977 Info: Unknown Arcade Game Name: Radar Scope Creator: Shigeru Miyamoto Released: 1979 Info: A Shoot 'Em Up game that flopped miserably Arcade Game Name: Sheriff Creator: Shigeru Miyamoto Released: 1979 Info: Another Shoot 'Em Up game that flopped miserably Arcade Game Name: Donkey Kong Creators: Gumpei Yokoi and Shigeru Miyamoto Released: 1981 Info: A huge success; Nintendo's first ever gaming hit. It starred Mario as a plummer who was wo save the princess from the evil gorilla named Donkey Kong. Game & Watch Creator: Gumpei Yokoi Released: 1981 Info: Nintendo's first portable system; a big hit; the first system ever to use the directional pad (+) to move rather than an analog stick. Family Computer (Famicom) Creators: Hiroshi Yamauchi, Masayuki Uemura and his design team Released: 1983 Info: It was good until the holiday season when a lot of people bought it and discovered bugs in it due to cheap chips because Yamauchi wanted it to cost less money than other systems. All of them were recalled and costed Nintendo millions. Arcade Game Name: Mario Bros. Creator: Shigeru Miyamoto Info: The main character Mario was also used in Miyamoto's first arcade game; in this one he is joined by Luigi, his brother, this is the first Mario Brothers game ever made, now a days there are dozens of different versions; barely anyone knows that Mario Bros. was ever an arcade game (but you know now). The Advanced Video System (AVS) Creators: Hiroshi Yamauchi, Masayuki Uemura and his design team Released: Never was released due to heavy expenses Info: This was a fixed version of the Famicom but as mentioned, was too expensive for Nintendo to put out on the market. The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) Creators: Hiroshi Yamauchi, Masayuki Uemura and his design team Released: 1985 Info: The first hit console that Nintendo ever had; a huge success in Japan and America, opened the gate for consoles of the future, 8-bits of power that starred games like Super Mario Brothers, The Legend of Zelda and Dragon Warrior. NEW INFO This was sent in by JT Kauffman who lives in Japan: The Super Nintendo was never called the Super Famicom here in Japan, the Famicom name was for the NES only. The Gameboy (GB) Creator: Gumpei Yokoi Released: 1989 Info: Nintendo's second portable system; much more successful than the first one (Game & Watch), opened the gate for portables of the future, became popular with the game Tetris. The Super Family Computer (Super Famicom) Creators: Hiroshi Yamauchi, Masayuki Uemura and his design team Released: 1990 (Japan) Info: Better knows as the Super Nintendo here in America, the Super Famicom was a major success in Japan; some people even started riots if they went to a store that didn't have one; Nintendo's first 16-bit console to compete with Sega's Genesis. The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) Creators: Hiroshi Yamauchi, Masayuki Uemura and his design team Released: 1991 (North America) Info: The American version of the Super Famicom, put out to compete with Sega's Genesis; began battles between Nintendo and Sega; did well with sales due to advanced new games such as Mario and Zelda. Phillips 32-bit CD-ROM Creators: Nintendo and Phillips Released: Never was released due to expenses and speed failure Info: This was going to be an add-on to the SNES but Nintendo backed out of the deal due to the expense of it being to high and the slowness of it; it was put out to compete with the Sega Genesis CD add-on; work started on it in 1991, it was done in 1992, it was delayed in 1992 into 1993, then cancelled at the end of 1993; it was the device that began problems between Nintendo and Sony. The Virtual Boy Creator: Gumpei Yokoi Released: 1994 (Japan only) Info: It was supposed to be the technology of the future using virtual reality, but it was only in 2 colors because using full color would cost Nintendo far too much money; it flopped in Japan; it started problems betweem Yokoi and Yamauchi because Yamauchi blamed the failure of it on Yokoi. The Nintendo 64 (N64) Creators: Hiroshi Yamauchi, Rare, Angel Studios, DMA Design, Lucas Arts, Williams, many Nintendo design teams. Released: June 20th, 1996 (Japan), September 29th, 1996 (North America) Info: It was originally named Project Reality, then was renamed to Ultra 64, then was renamed once more to its current name, the Nintendo 64; the only 64-bit console ever; rivals with Sony's Playstation for years; kept Nintendo games on cartridges to many's surprise, being that cartridges gave less space and worse sound quality (and the Sega Saturn and PSX used CDs) but Nintendo argued that a CDs load time just wouldn't do the job for their stunning 3D graphics. The Gameboy Color (GBC) Creators: Gumpei Yokoi, Nintendo design teams Released: March of 1998 (North America) Info: An upgrade to Gumpei Yokoi's Gameboy made in 1989 (same size, same buttons, same everything hardware-related), but games are displayed in full color. ***** That's right, 16 different systems including some I probably didn't mention (ones that were released in Japan only). Before reading this, you could probably name about 5 gaming consoles/products that Nintendo has made (NES, SNES, GB, N64, GBC). ***** --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.3) Frequently Asked Questions --------------------------------------------------------------------------- After those last two sections, I'm sure that a lot of questions have risen in your head. I'm going to fire off as many answers as I can here; you may have disagreed with my information and think that I have a lot of explaining to do. Please feel free to send me any other questions you have regarding sections 2.1 and 2.2, but please be as specific as possible so I know what you're referring to. The Crippler cripplerx@hotmail.com *************************************************************************** Q1: How do you know that your story about the history of Nintendo is accurate? A1: Like mentioned in the intro a bit earlier, this FAQ took a long time to write, and I took an extra special long time working on the history to make sure it was accurate. When I was finished with the rough copy, I sent it via e-mail to Nintendo.com asking if it was accurate. I got a response pointing out a few things I missed. I fixed those up, and printed out the final copy. I sent that to Nintendo via actual mail, and they wrote back about three weeks later saying that one of the dates was incorrect, but besides that, it was correct. So being that Nintendo has confirmed my story to be written correctly, I can assure you that the history is all factual and accurate. *************************************************************************** Q2: Are the Dolphin and Gameboy Advance confirmed to be released? If so, why didn't you include the info about them in the system info section? A2: The Dolphin and Gameboy Advance both are confirmed to come out but there is not a lot of information about them yet. The Gameboy Advance is set for release before the holiday season of 2001, but Nintendo isn't sayinf much about it. As for the Dolphin, Nintendo is apparently waiting to see what Sony will be doing for their next console, which means it may be a few years before we see the Dolphin. I have dedicated a section of this FAQ (section #8) to the information we know so far about the releases of Nintendo's upcoming systems. *************************************************************************** Q3: Of Nintendo's top five systems, which one was the most popular? A3: There is no actual way to determine this. When the NES came out, it was the biggest thing in North America. Then the Gameboy came out and quickly became the most successful portable, followed by the Super NES which also sold well. You would probably have to count out the Gameboy because it wasn't sold as much as the NES, and count out the SNES as well because it had steep competition with Sega's Genesis which cut back sales substantially. The Nintendo 64 re-defined what gaming meant and proved how much power video games and systems could have. It sold extremely well when it first came out and games are still selling good now a days. The Gameboy Color came out recently so you would have to count that out although it has been nominated for invention of the year several times with different award shows (but it's only had a little bit over a year to sell). So when you come right down to it, the biggest money makers were the NES and N64, but this actually doesn't determine which Nintendo system was the most popular because the power and new technology has changed gaming over the years (for example, the NES made more money than the Super NES, but when the NES was at its height of popularity, nobody knew that an upgraded machine would be made). *************************************************************************** Q4: What are Nintendo's top selling games of all time? A4: Respectively, the biggest selling game that Nintendo has ever made is Pokemon which was created by the late Gumpei Yokoi before he passed away. The game, which was originally made for Gameboy, has been expanded into Nintendo 64 games, cartoons, movies, merchandise and many other things making it the biggest money making game ever. Other Nintendo games that did well were The Legend of Zelda (the original for NES) which was the first game to sell one million copies on its own, Super Mario Brothers 3 (for NES) which is the second biggest money-making game of all time, and the original Tetris made for Gameboy because it was the biggest Gameboy game when the Gameboy was first invented. *************************************************************************** Q5: Of Nintendo's top five systems, how many of them do you own and which ones are your favorites? A5: I know that I am going to get heat for this, but the only Nintendo system I don't own of the top five (NES, SNES, GB, N64, GBC) is the Super NES because ironically, I bought a Sega Genesis instead. Being that I am 15 now, I was about 9 or 10 when Sega released Sonic The Hedgehog which was aimed right at my age group. But I have played the SNES, and I have played its hit games such as Zelda III and Donkey Kong Country, and I plan on buying one soon. When asked what my favorite is, I have to say it was the original NES. I like both the Gameboy and Gameboy Color, but I enjoy consoles more than portable so I would have to rule them out. I like the N64 but the only good RPG it has is Zelda 64, and I am RPG-obsessed, so I can't say that this is my favorite yet. When I buy the SNES, I'll probably love it now that I am wiser and will play games like Zelda III, the Final Fantasy games and Mario RPG, but for now, the NES is my all-time favorite. It had so many classic games including the original Super Mario Brothers and my favorite game of all-time, the original Legend of Zelda. I also owned the RPG Dragon Warrior which is a certified classic in my book, as well as Mike Tyson's Punchout and other great games that had me playing for hours.... After writing this, I think I'm going to dust off my NES, find the games, and play away! *************************************************************************** Q6: What are the best games that Nintendo ever made? A6: Like mentioned earlier, Pokemon, Super Mario Brothers 3 and Tetris were the top three money makers, but I enjoyed others as well. I have played the first hit game they ever had entitled Donkey Kong, an arcade game and had a blast playing it. I haven't ever played a Zelda game that I didn't enjoy, and the Dragon Warrior series blew me away. All of the Super Mario Bros. games and the Final Fantasy series were all hits; there's too many to name..... *************************************************************************** Q7: Did Shigeru Miyamoto invent the Nintendo Entertainment System? A7: Though many people think so, Shigeru Miyamoto did not invent the NES. It was invented by Hishiro Yamauchi (the president of Nintendo) and a design team that he hired. However, Miyamoto is the man that invented all those hit games for the NES as well as other Nintendo systems. *************************************************************************** Q8: What were some of the games that Shigeru Miyamoto invented? A8: All of the Zelda games and Mario games were his ideas, which says a lot being that they are Nintendo's two biggest series ever made. Also, he came up with F-Zero, Super Smash Brothers, Mario Kart and so many others.... Pretty much the only two games that he made that weren't successful were the two arcade games that he made to begin his career of game-developing. *************************************************************************** Q9: Can you still play the early arcade games that Miyamoto and Yokoi made in arcades? A9: Donkey Kong, which was the successful arcade game that they made is still around, but "Radar Scope," and "Sheriff," the first two arcade games that Miyamoto invented are no longer around. *************************************************************************** Q10: Can you buy the Famicom and Super Famicom as imports from Japan? A10: Some people don't understand that the Famicom is the same thing as the NES and the Super Famicom is the same thing as the Super NES. You can buy these two systems as imports and buy games for them as imports, but the text and language will be Japanese. *************************************************************************** Q11: Does Electronic Arts develop games only for Sega, only for the Genesis, or for different gaming companies along with Sega? A11: They used to develop for all different gaming companies, but then inked a deal with Sega to make their sports games only for the Genesis, but now that the Genesis is not Sega's top system anymore, EA Sports is allowed to develop for other companies. *************************************************************************** Q12: During the 16-bit wars between Sega's Genesis and Nintendo's Super Nintendo, were there any legal problems between them? A12: Yes, but nothing got really out of hand. Sega started by criticizing Nintendo on their commercials and in their advertisements. Nintendo fired back by doing the same thing. Whenever one of the two companies had something that the other didn't, they would criticize each other in their ads. The heated battle got worse and worse as time went on, but neither of the two companies took each other to court. *************************************************************************** Q13: Why did Nintendo decide to run the Nintendo 64 games on cartridges when the quality of sound and other game aspects would be better on CDs like the PSX and Sega Saturn? A13: This decision by Nintendo surprised many; the story goes like this... The Sony Playstation and Sega Saturn were both released and the games ran on CDs. The Playstation dominated sales over the Saturn, and Nintendo promised that the N64 would be much better than the PSX. When games are on CDs, they give better sound (obviously) and more space for larger games such as Final Fantasy or Zelda games. But the down side of CDs are that they require loading time, which was one of the PSX's flaws. For example, when you pick your players to start a fighting game on PSX, you might get a screen that says, "Loading, please wait." Nintendo didn't want this and said that CDs were just too slow to run their new advanced machine. This is why the N64 games are on cartridges. The advantage is that there's no loading time, but the disadvantage is that the sound quality isn't as good and there is not a lot of space to store large games. NEW INFO This is from Mikael (I had no idea about this): I just wanted to you to change something. What I'm about to say is going to make you change a whole text.In section 2,3 (the questions), check out question nr 13. You're argument is that the Nintendo 64 has worse qualityin its sound then PSX. Well, that is not true, the N64 not only does it have CD quality sound (44khz 16 bit), itssound processor even supports 48 khz 16 bit sound, so the N64 has even better quality than the PSX. Go here if you don't believe me http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/3275/specs.html and if you still don't believe, mail Nintendo! *************************************************************************** Q14: Why did Nintendo skip making a 32-bit console to compete with the Saturn and PSX and instead make a 64-bit console that would take more time? A14: Nintendo was going to work on the Playstation with Sony but backed out of the deal to work on a CD Add-on for the SNES. By the time the CD Add-on for the SNES was put to death, there were already two 32-bit consoles running CDs (Sega Saturn and Playstation). So Nintendo decided to jump ahead and make a 64-bit console because a third 32-bit system wouldn't be anything new. *************************************************************************** Q15: Why did Square stop developing for Nintendo after they've developed games for the NES, SNES and GB? A15: This is actaully a complicated story too..... Square was friends with Nintendo and made a number of their great Final Fantasy games for the NES, SNES and Gameboy. But as time went on, they started developing Final Fantasy games that were bigger and better, meaning that they required more size. But then Nintendo announced that the Nintendo 64 would be run on cartridges rather than CDs which would decrease the amount of space the games would have. So Square inked a deal with Sony to make the new Final Fantasy games for the Playstation who was ruline the gaming world at the time and using CDs. This turned out to be a big loss for Nintendo as the first title that Square made for the PSX was Final Fantasy 7 and sold over 3 million copies. They have also made Final Fantasy 8 and other huge games for the Playstation. *************************************************************************** Q16: Won't this FAQ become outdated soon? A16: No, because I plan on updating it again and again each time new information comes in. *************************************************************************** Q17: Will the Final Fantasy Series be put on the Dolphin or any of Nintendo's consoles ever again? A17: There was talk awhile ago about a game coming out for the N64 that was all of the Final Fantasy games that were made for Nintendo on a cartridge much like Super Mario All Stars for SNES. But obviously, that won't happen because of the cartridges and because Square is now working with Sony for the PSX. But rumor has it that Square seems interested in the Dolphin which is good news if you are a fan of both Nintendo and Final Fantasy (and who isn't?). *************************************************************************** Q18: Will Nintendo ever take another stab at a Virtual Reality system after the failure of The Virtual Boy? A18: Maybe, but not for a really, really, really long time. Completing a virtual reality system would cost bundles of money and Nintendo might not be willing to do it due to fear of failure. Wasting that kind of money will zap up lots of Nintendo's time as well. *************************************************************************** Q19: Can I still buy a Game & Watch? A19: No, unfortunately, they are no longer for sale. *************************************************************************** Q20: What games were made for the Game & Watch? A20: The Game & Watch had a library of about 15 games, a shorter version of Mario was one of them (Mario's face was on the system) and 6 or 7 shoot 'em up games. Also, it had 2 puzzle games. I don't know what the others were because the Game & Watch era lasted from 1980 - 1983 and I was born a year later, so all my Game & Watch knowledge comes off of research. *************************************************************************** Q21: How many games are in the library for each of the top five systems? A21: Please note that these are totally unofficial as new games keep coming in. NES - About 1,200 GB - About 1,200 SNES - About 1,200 N64 - About 400 GBC - About 300 *************************************************************************** Q22: What are your favorite games that Nintendo ever made? A22: Here they are: NES - The Legend of Zelda (original), Mike Tyson's Punchout, Dragon Warrior, Super Mario Brothers 3, Final Fantasy (original), Paperboy 1, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link Gameboy - Tetris, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening Super NES - The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past, All Final Fantasy Games (2, 3, 4, 5), Ken Griffey Jr. Baseball, Donkey Kong Country, F-Zero, Super Mario All Stars Nintendo 64 - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Goldeneye, Ken Griffey Jr. Baseball, WCW/NWO Revenge Gameboy Color - Tetris DX, Zelda DX, Super Mario Brothers DX *Believe it or not, I'm not such a Pokemaniac* *************************************************************************** Q23: Can I still buy an NES and games for it? A23: Yes, check a game store first like Funcoland or any place in your area. They might have a system and/or games. If you can't find anyone that carries the system/games, go to Ebay (http://www.ebay.com) and type in 'Nintendo Entertainment System' in the search field, then you should get a bunch to choose from. *************************************************************************** Q24: Is it true that the directional pad (+) was made by Nintendo and they have copyrighted it? A24: Yes, Gumpei Yokoi created the directional pad when he made the Game & Watch because a general analog stick didn't fit on it like it would for an arcade game. After Sega released the Genesis' controller and the war started betweem Nintendo/Sega, Nintendo copyrighted it because they were the originators of it. *************************************************************************** Q25: Was an uncensored version of Mortal Kombat ever made for the Super NES? A25: Yes, Nintendo knew that they needed to do something to get some more money and overtake Sega, so they dropped their no blood violence policy and allowed Acclaim to make the game for the Super NES uncensored. *************************************************************************** Q26: Was a CD add-on ever released for the Super Nintendo? A26: No, but the CD-I that Phillips made was, and that was going to be the SNES CD Add-on but Nintendo backed out of the deal. *************************************************************************** Q27: How is the Phillips CD-I releated to the Super Nintendo and Nintendo in general? A27: Well it's obviously related to Nintendo in general because it is a gaming device and it was going to belong to Nintendo and particularly the Super NES. However, it's a system that obviously requires CDs rather than cartridges. *************************************************************************** Q28: How did problems start up between Sony and Nintendo? A28: This is also another rather complicated story.... It goes back to the 16-bit wars between Sega and Nintendo with the Genesis and the Super NES. Sega made a CD Add-on for the Genesis that made a lot of money, so Nintendo decided to make one for the Super NES. They started to work with Phillips for a CD Add-on to the SNES but were forced to leave the deal because they inked a deal with Sony in 1988 that if they were to work on a CD system, it would be with Sony. So Nintendo was still happy because Sony was a good CD manufacturer and helped Nintendo with some of the sounds on their games. But when Nintendo started to work with Sony, they realized that the contract said that Sony was to have all of the rights over this CD system, so Nintendo backed out of the deal and went back with Phillips. This made Sony upset because if they would have made a CD system with Nintendo they knew that it would make a lot of money. So Sony took Nintendo to court for leaving the deal, and Nintendo knew that they had to be careful or Sony would stop helping them with some of the sounds. So Nintendo argued that Sony's system was good enough that it would sell fine even without Nintendo's help, and Sony agreed and Nintendo was off the hook. Then Sony released this machine and named it the Sony Playstation (PSX) and it did great sales-wise; it nearly murdered its competition which was the Sega Saturn. Nintendo dropped their deal with Phillips and let Phillips have their CD system on their own rather than making it an add-on to the Super NES. Then Nintendo released the Nintendo 64 to compete with the Sony Playstation which was part theirs before they gave up on it, so you can see how Sony and Nintendo are rivals. *************************************************************************** Q29: What kind of hardware was made for the Nintendo systems and were/are they licensed by Nintendo? A29: Lots and lots of hardware was made for all types of Nintendo products; so licensed, some not licensed. The ones that stand out were the Game Genie, which allowed you to cheat on NES games and was unlicensed and not a Nintendo product, the Light Boy, which was licensed by Nintendo and gave the Gameboy a better look, and of course the Game Shark which is equivalent to the Game Genie only it works for Nintendo 64 and is unlicensed by Nintendo. Nintendo says that they are getting aggrivated by these unlicensed products; here is an e-mail I recieved after mailing them about the Game Shark: ----- I Wrote: Hello, I was hoping that you could supply with some information about the Game Shark. It is making quite a lot of money and I was wondering if it is a licensed product of Nintendo. Thank you. Steve ----- ----- They Wrote: Hi Steve, Thank you for your e-mail. There is some very important information regarding the Game Shark that I would like to share with you. The Game Shark is an unlicensed product of Nintendo, and we are not responsible if it causes problems with your Nintendo 64 machine or your games. Always look for the official seal that Nintendo puts on their products so you know if it is licensed or not. Thank you for your time. Nintendo.com ----- I'm not really sure if the Game Shark can actually cause problems with your N64 or games, but one thing is for sure: Nintendo doesn't want you to buy it. *************************************************************************** Q30: How can you tell if a product is officially licensed by Nintendo? A30: All officially licensed Nintendo products will come with a seal that's a circle with spikes on it that reads "Officially Nintendo Licensed." *************************************************************************** Q31: Is it true that the NES had some kind of chip that kept other companies from copying their NES games? If so, how did Tengen copy Tetris? A31: Yes, the NES had a safety chip, but as time went by and new technology was discovered, Tengen found a way to override the lock on the chip and copy the game. *************************************************************************** Q32: What did/do you get when you buy/bought a Nintendo system or game? A32: You recieve either the game or system, an instruction booklet about the game/system, an instruction paper about Nintendo, and sometimes a poster to promote Nintendo and its upcoming/released games. *************************************************************************** And to top off this section, here's a nice e-mail I received from Jason, a reader of this FAQ: >> I love Nintendo/Sega, and I'm glad to learn more about Nintendo anyday. Actually, I own the Genesis, Saturn (just bought a used one to play the best Saturn games. Only $30+), and Dreamcast. I've never owned a Nintendo console, cause I always chose the Sega one over the Nintendo. During the Playstation years, I played PC games because I didn't believe in supporting Sony. I can never buy a product from a huge corporation, especially a video game console, because I know that they are using economics as a primary force to produce games, while we can believe to at least some extent that the people behind Sega and Nintendo have an actual love for video games. Honestly, I think the love got the game really shows w/ these two consoles. Like you said about the creator of Zelda and his Dreams, the game programmers that work for Nin/Sega are truly lovers of games, for games like Pokemon to Shining Force can only be made precisely for the console you choose. Streets of Rage, Sonic, Ecco the Dolphin, Shining Series, Phantasy Star, Nights, Virtua Games, Sports, and Mario, Pokemon, Zelda, "Super____" games, etc. cannot really be beaten by Sony, because they aren't both a software company and a console designer, they just make the console, and at some level, Sony will never be able to release truly wonderful games because they lack the "backbone" support of being a high quality game-maker. In other words, I doubt Sony will ever have a game like those listed above. . . Sega and Nintendo are the best game makers IMHO. . . which is often forgotten, because they are console makers. . . because I usually hear "Capcom and Squaresoft." Well, nice talking to you Happy Holidays! Jason << ============================================================================= 3.) THE NINTENDO ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM ============================================================================= ### ## ####### ####### ## # ## ## ## ## # ## ## ## ## # ## ####### ####### ## # ## ## ## ## # ## ## ## ## ### ####### ####### The Nintendo Entertainment System is kind of where it all started... Not for Nintendo but for all consoles of the future; this is the one that started 8-bit gaming and in a way, the one kept 8-bit gaming alive. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.1) Nintendo's First Big Hit ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Actually, this wasn't really Nintendo's first big hit because Yokoi and Miyamoto had created the Donkey Kong arcade game; but the NES did for gaming what Michael Jordan did for basketball. In 1985, Nintendo invented the Famicom in Japan to compete with another three systems such as Atari. Their goal was to make the Famicom so that it was better than the other three consoles, yet use the cheapest pieces to put it together in order for it to cost less money than all the others. This idea later came back to haunt them. They were shooting for a price of about $80 but it turned out that the Famicom would cost $100 for the people in Japan. Things were going good the first few months it was out, but during the holiday season, a lot of people bought one. Due to lots of people having them, technical problems were discovered with everyone that had one; one of the cheap pieces that Nintendo used was malfunctioning. There were many upset and angry people, so Hishiro Yamauchi, Nintendo's President, recalled all of the Famicom's and costed Nintendo millions of wasted dollars. But this didn't stick a fork in Yamauchi, as he decided to improve the Famicom into a full 8-bit console. He got his best worker and his best designing team to work on it, and the result was a rectangular boxed shape figure that came equipped with 8-bits and the works to get it to work. It was released in Japan in 1986 to immediate success, then brought over to the States and Canada for even more success. The North American version of the Famicom was renamed to the Nintendo Entertainment System which would better be known as the NES. Shigeru Miyamoto was the mastermind behind the hit games such as Super Mario Brothers and The Legend of Zelda. Nintendo also had great developers on their side such as Square doing the Final Fantasy Series and various other developers working on popular games such as Dragon Warrior, Metroid and Megaman. The NES seemed unstoppable, and that's when Sega released their 8-bit console as Nintendo's competition... But this didn't stop the NES one bit, as Nintendo literally crushed Sega and humiliated the competition. More and more games such as Mike Tyson's Punchout were released in 1987, and through 1987, Nintendo had sold over thirty million games. Super Mario Brothers 3 added the final blow, as Miyamoto released it in 1990, it became the best-selling game at the time. The Nintendo Entertainment System was the number one item all around the world, as it opened the gate for gaming in the future. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.2) How It Was Created ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, the early version of the NES was the Famicom, which was an open shaped weird looking object with cheap chips and other parts to give the games barely any support. So Nintendo wanted to improve it to the fullest, and that they did. They decided to make it a box shape; they ordered pieces of good quality but would still keep the machine fairly affordable. The chips in the NES were at least twice as good as the ones used in the original Famicom, and the normal stuff started to kick in. A slot was added where the game cartridges would be inserted and then pushed down in order for the chips to kick in with the cartridge. Obviously, a power button and reset button were both added as they were lined up with the chips that would get it to reset or turn on/off. Now Nintendo needed a unique but good controller, so they added the sockets, made the wires and rectangular platforms, then added the normal stuff. They added a start and select button, the start button would be used to pause most games, while the select button would only be used for certain things in certain games. The A and B buttons were added which would be the main controls for most games as the right hand would rest right next to them on the controller. Now they needed to do something to add a button that would allow characters to move in games. An analog stick was one of the only ideas, but wouldn't be possible to put on an NES controller. So they went to Gumpei Yokoi about it, and he showed them the directional pad (+) that he has created for his Game & Watch portable system that he had created 5 years previously. It worked perfectly so that the directional pad was on the left where the left hand would work it, and the main A and B buttons were on the right for the right hand. The Start and Select buttons wouldn't be used as frequently, so they were stuck right in the middle, and there you have it; The Nintendo Entertainment System. ============================================= A look at the NES controller in ASCII format: | | | ------------------ | | | + -- -- () ()| | | ------------------ The main rectangle is the controller itself. The + is the directional pad, and the first -- is the start button while the second -- button was select (although the select button was slightly under the start button). The first () is the circular A button while the second () is the circular B button. The NES had two sockets for controllers. ============================================= ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.3) Frequently Asked Questions ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lots and lots of questions come in regarding the NES frequently so feel free to send me NES questions that I will add to this FAQ and give you an answer. The Crippler cripplerx@hotmail.com ***************************************************************************** Q1: What companies were the ones that found out how to override the NES' lockout chip and copy their games unlicensed? Was Tengen the only one? Where did they do this? What games did they copy? A1: The companies that did this were Color Dreams, Camerica, American Video Entertainment and the most obvious of all, Tengen (because thay completely copied the chip while the other companies copied it and modified it their way). Most of them did this in Taiwan. These phoney games would only cost about $25 which is why people bought them. Camerica was the company that made the Game Genie and got Nintendo upset with that. As most of you know, Tengen reproduced Tetris, Pac-Man and RBI Baseball games. ***************************************************************************** Q2: What kind of sound card did Nintendo use for the NES? A2: The same one that they used for the original Famicom that played music in MIDI format. NEW INFO (12/21/99) >From David Dayton: >> The NES did not use MIDI for music; MIDI is a specific music format, and one that was NOT used by Nintendo. They simply used a special sound chip for all their sound effects. The SNES didn't use MIDI either, but another proprietary sound chip that used sound samples and scripted music ... similar to .MOD music files. As for the N64... as far as I know, Nintendo still does not use the MIDI format; the main chip generates sounds which can be regulated by various custom programming techniques. << ***************************************************************************** Q3: How many games did Mario star in on the NES? A3: Three; Super Mario Brothers, Super Mario Brothers 2 and Super Mario Brothers 3. The Lost Levels, which was the sequel to the original Super Mario Brothers, was supposed to be released in 1993 but the 16-bit war began and it was only released in Japan. You can now play the Lost Levels if you own Super Mario Brothers Deluxe for Gameboy Color. NEW INFO: Tux sent me an e-mail telling me that Mario was in a whole lot more games than the three I listed; as he made cameos in many sports games and other NES games... Please excuse my wording, the three games that I listed were the ones that Mario starred in only (the mistake is now fixed). NEWER INFO >From Michael Gonzalez: * In Q3 and Q6 of the NES FAQ, you said that The Lost Levels was only released in Japan (for the NES) and released in the US as part of Super Mario Bros DX (for the GBC). You should also mention that it was also part of Super Mario All-Stars. ***************************************************************************** Q4: Where can I get an NES/games these days? A4: Welcome to my official buyer's guide! Here are the top places to look: - Used Game Stores (Particularly Funcoland) are the most common place and they sell game/systems for mad cheap prices! - Ask people you know if they still hold their NES and/or games. A lot of people owned NES' and games and now that many prefer these new systems, they might be willing to give away their old stuff. - Some department stores carry them; I've seen NES games in local Bradlees stores and systems in Wal Mart (a while ago, however). ***************************************************************************** Q5: What was the best-selling NES game ever? A5: Super Mario Brothers 3 which literally sold millions when it came out in 1993. ***************************************************************************** Q6: Is the North American version of Mario 2 the actual sequel to the first one? A6: No! The actual sequel to Super Mario Brothers was released in Japan in 1987 called "The Lost Levels." Nintendo decided to wait until 1993 to sell it in North America, and they released the standard Super Mario Brothers 2 in 1988. The SNES/Genesis battle then began in 1993 and Nintendo never released the Lost Levels in North America. However, there is a secret hidden on Super Mario Brothers Deluxe for Gameboy Color: If you defeat the game, you can play the Lost Levels on your GBC the same way it was in Japan when it was released. NEW INFO This is from Michael Gonzlez: * In Q6 of the NES FAQ, you said that Super Mario Bros. 3 was released in 1993. It was actually released in February 1990, and rereleased in 1993 as part of Super Mario All-Stars. NEWER INFO >From Michael Gonzalez: * In Q3 and Q6 of the NES FAQ, you said that The Lost Levels was only released in Japan (for the NES) and released in the US as part of Super Mario Bros DX (for the GBC). You should also mention that it was also part of Super Mario All-Stars. ***************************************************************************** Q7: Which NES game was the first to reach the one million mark? A7: The Legend of Zelda in 1987 was the first stand-alone game to sell over a million. ***************************************************************************** Q8: How many Zelda games were made for the NES? A8: Two; The Legend of Zelda (aka Zelda I) and The Legend of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (aka Zelda II). This is often confused because many Zelda games have been released for other Nintendo systems. ***************************************************************************** Q9: How do I get my NES to work? A9: Read the general care guide I wrote in section number 3.6; it should answer all your questions. ***************************************************************************** Q10: Since the NES is so old, why bother buying the system and/or games for it? A10: The NES was the originator to many classic and all around great games. They bring back memories for a lot of people, but other people just want to play it for those good old games made so long ago. ***************************************************************************** Q11: What's your definition of "classic," when you refer to games? A11: My definition of classic is an old game for the NES (or SNES by this day and age) that sold extremely well or was very popular among myself or other people. An example of this is The Legend of Zelda (the original) because I loved it along with many others (it sold over 1 million copies). ***************************************************************************** Q12: What are your favorite NES games and why? A12: This question comes up quite a bit. Here are my top 5 starting from #1 to #5. - The Legend of Zelda is my #1 favorite because it started the entire Zelda series. It was one of the coolest RPGs ever with tons of secrets to explore, challenging gameplay, and all-out fun. - Dragon Warrior I was my second favorite because I enjoyed the concept of the game. It was another great RPG that would keep you occupied for hours. - Mike Tyson's Punchout was the greatest sports game ever made. The replay value was incredible, and the game was challenging and addictive to the third degree. - Final Fantasy was #4 in my book; this started the entire great series. What an RPG; another that would keep anyone occupied for hours at a time. - Super Mario Brothers 3 is the final one on my list; it was so much more advanced than the other Mario games which meant longer gameplay and better replay value. ***************************************************************************** Q13: Sometimes when I am viewing info about the NES, I read something about a famicom; What is this? A13: It's the Japanese version of the NES that stands for Family Computer. ***************************************************************************** Q14: What's that little slot on the bottom of my NES for? A14: It was the spot where an add-on would go, but the add-on was only available in Japan. ***************************************************************************** Q15: How many games are in the NES library? A15: It is confirmed that there are over 800, the best estimate is about 100. ***************************************************************************** Q16: When was the death of the NES and why did it occur? A16: In 1993 when 16-bit gaming began. People decided that 16-bit gaming was just so much better than 8-bit gaming so people were more interested with the Genesis and Super Nintendo than they were with the NES. ***************************************************************************** Q17: From: "Kim Vicente" I am looking for a football game for the 8-bit nes. I know it was a north- south scrolling game. I did not have official fl teams but it had player name, if i remember correctly they were real names. I think you could choose your plays.I'm pretty sure it is not Tecmo (Tecmo was an east-west scroll). I know it was not 10-yard fight. I have John Elwayand that's not it. Also I remeber it having player pictures (they were very digital looking and hardly looked like the player but it was the only game I remember like that.Do you know the name so I might hunt for it? A17: Unfortunately, I wouldn't know, but I posted your question here so if someone reading knows, they can mail you and let you know. Hey, your prayer has been answered! This is from James Dziezynski: >> I think the game Kim is looking for on Q17 of your FAQ is NES playaction football-- James << That's from ... Thanks for that helpful info! ***************************************************************************** ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.4) The First Successful Game ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, the Famicom was totally re-done into the Nintendo Entertainment System, the chips were top-quality, and the newly boxed machine with a unique and good controller was all ready, but Nintendo was missing one thing: A good game that would attract people to buy. So they turned to Miyamoto, who had magically made Nintendo's first big game, an arcade game called Donkey Kong with Gumpei Yokoi four years earlier. Miyamoto liked Mario, the character that saved the princess and acted like a hero in the coin-operated game. So he stuck to that character, but needed another good character, someone who would be as likeable as Mario, but different in a way. So he invented Luigi, Mario's italian brother for the game. Luigi looked different and had a green outfit to go against Mario's red (this is the way most would tell the difference although they both had their own unique look). So with Mario and Luigi, the game title leaked out to Super Mario Brothers, but Mario would remain the main character. Miyamoto also went back to his Mario coin-op to make the theme, or object of the game, and that was to save the princess. But making Donkey Kong the enemy for this game wouldn't be right; people would see it as a carbon copy of their arcade game. He needed someone meaner, someone larger, someone that Mario would make a fight look like David vs. Goliath if they fought.... And there was Bowser, a dinosaur-like enemy that was enormous, and truly made a perfect enemy for the game. Miyamoto added 32 levels to the game to make it more challenging, and then added smaller and easier enemies to roam the levels (such as goombas and flying turtles). After this, the idea was simple: Bowser captures the princess that Mario loves and it is up to Mario to go and save her. 8 world were added, with 4 levels in each world. In the last level of each world, Mario would fight Bowser, where he would have to knock Bowser off of a bridge and into a pit of lava. But after defeating Bowser, he would be told that the princess is in another castle. The Bowser that Mario fought would get harder and harder as the game progressed, as did the levels (more enemies swarmed the levels and Bowser would begin to throw objects, etc.). When defeating Bowser in the final battle, Mario would rescue the princess and gamers would defeat the game. The rest from there was just details; mushrooms were added in order for Mario to grow in size. Coins and pipes were added for greater detail, and 1-ups were thrown in to make the game easier. Where did Luigi come in, you ask? Two players could play with one of them as Mario and the other as Luigi.... Miyamoto even added a fire plant in the game to give Mario a weapon.... A genius game that would become a hit in months, and a classic in years. This was the headlining game for the NES, and sold lots. A year later, Miyamoto was at it again with a more complicated idea: The Legend of Zelda. Rather than having levels in this game, Miyamoto wanted the main character named Link, to travel around as much as he wanted while entering dungeons at the same time. He would have to defeat all of the dungeons to win the game. So Miyamoto went to work on the game, and soon he created a game where exploring was huge and jam-packed with secrets that would keep people playing for hours. A great storyline was added: The evil Ganondorf (who was invented by Miyamoto when he had a dream about him) stole the eight pieces of the triforce from Princess Zelda, and it was up to Link to retrieve them. Each dungeon defeated meant a triforce piece, and when the game ended, a secret second quest was available if you made your character be named "Zelda." Being that there was so much to do, everyone wanted the game to play for hours and hours at a time, and Miyamoto had done it again, as The Legend of Zelda became the first stand-alone game to sell over one million copies in North America. I know that the title of this section was "The First Successful Game," but this information about Zelda had to be thrown in there, for it was the first successful game in a way (role playing). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.5) Games ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, I just described Super Mario Brothers 1 and The Legend of Zelda above, but it wasn't just those two great classics that made the NES so successful.... We'll start off with the entire Super Mario Brothers series. Shigeru Miyamoto liked Mario, the character that saved the princess and acted like a hero in the coin-operated game. So he stuck to that character, but needed another good character, someone who would be as likeable as Mario, but different in a way. So he invented Luigi, Mario's italian brother for the game. Luigi looked different and had a green outfit to go against Mario's red (this is the way most would tell the difference although they both had their own unique look). So with Mario and Luigi, the game title leaked out to Super Mario Brothers, but Mario would remain the main character. Miyamoto also went back to his Mario coin-op to make the theme, or object of the game, and that was to save the princess. But making Donkey Kong the enemy for this game wouldn't be right; people would see it as a carbon copy of their arcade game. He needed someone meaner, someone larger, someone that Mario would make a fight look like David vs. Goliath if they fought.... And there was Bowser, a dinosaur-like enemy that was enormous, and truly made a perfect enemy for the game. Miyamoto added 32 levels to the game to make it more challenging, and then added smaller and easier enemies to roam the levels (such as goombas and flying turtles). After this, the idea was simple: Bowser captures the princess that Mario loves and it is up to Mario to go and save her. 8 world were added, with 4 levels in each world. In the last level of each world, Mario would fight Bowser, where he would have to knock Bowser off of a bridge and into a pit of lava. But after defeating Bowser, he would be told that the princess is in another castle. The Bowser that Mario fought would get harder and harder as the game progressed, as did the levels (more enemies swarmed the levels and Bowser would begin to throw objects, etc.). When defeating Bowser in the final battle, Mario would rescue the princess and gamers would defeat the game. The rest from there was just details; mushrooms were added in order for Mario to grow in size. Coins and pipes were added for greater detail, and 1-ups were thrown in to make the game easier. Where did Luigi come in, you ask? Two players could play with one of them as Mario and the other as Luigi.... Miyamoto even added a fire plant in the game to give Mario a weapon.... A genius game that would become a hit in months, and a classic in years. This was the headlining game for the NES, and sold many. So a year later, President Yamauchi turned to Miyamoto for another hit Mario game; a sequel to the first big hit the NES had. So Miyamoto decided to take the 32 levels he had already created, and make them even harder. He did this, and named it the Super Mario Brothers sequel. But he needed an original name, so he made it "The Lost Levels." But in fear that the American people would think that it was too much like the first, The Lost Levels was only released in Japan, and a different game called Super Mario Brothers 2 was made for the people of North America. It was a good game, where you could choose to be either Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach or Toad. The game did well and everyone thought highly of it, but it was obvious that it wasn't an original Mario sequel because of the different characters and concepts. The Lost Levels would make its first appearance in North America on the Gameboy Color version of the original Mario on the smaller screen. The Super Mario Brothers series was continued on the NES in 1993 with the biggest-selling NES game of all time, Super Mario Brothers 3. This seemed more like a sequel to the original than Super Mario Brothers 2 did, although it really wasn't. It was put out by Miyamoto with all new addictive gameplay to get more people to buy the NES when the 16-bit Sega Genesis arrived in the States. This would be the best-selling game for the next four years before Pokemon came out for Nintendo's Gameboy. The next NES series was The Legend of Zelda which was also created by Shigeru Miyamoto Rather than having levels in this game, Miyamoto wanted the main character named Link, to travel around as much as he wanted while entering dungeons at the same time. He would have to defeat all of the dungeons to win the game. So Miyamoto went to work on the game, and soon he created a game where exploring was huge and jam-packed with secrets that would keep people playing for hours. A great storyline was added: The evil Ganondorf (who was invented by Miyamoto when he had a dream about him) stole the eight pieces of the triforce from Princess Zelda, and it was up to Link to retrieve them. Each dungeon defeated meant a triforce piece, and when the game ended, a secret second quest was available if you made your character be named "Zelda." Being that there was so much to do, everyone wanted the game to play for hours and hours at a time, and Miyamoto had done it again, as The Legend of Zelda became the first stand-alone game to sell over one million copies in North America. The same thing that happened to Mario happened to Zelda; because it was so popular, the people wanted another new game in the series, so President Yamauchi once again looked to Miyamoto. This time he came up with a sequel that hit both Japan and North America, which was The Legend of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. It did well sales-wise as it contained the same great characters and gameplay as the original but offered a whole new challenge to the 8-bit gamers. The Legend of Zelda would be continued to great success with all of Nintendo's top five systems. Another big NES hit was the sports boxing game, Mike Tyson's Punchout. The game was made in early 1987 and released in late 1987 in Japan and North America. It was advertised by Mike Tyson, who was extremely popular and was the Heavyweight Boxing Champion of the World at the time. The original idea was to make the main character Mike Tyson and have him battle through enormous competitors and win multiple titles throughout the game. The game would end with a super-hard competitor for Iron Mike to knock out. But complications arose when the game didn't make sense; Mike Tyson losing in the game wouldn't be right. So Nintendo reversed their idea and made Mike Tyson an enemy in the game, as he became the super-hard competitor that you had to defeat to win the game. The main character was added, a small little scrapper named Little Mac. The game was a major hit, and sold well. Another problem arose with the game, when Mike Tyson lost a fight in real life and lost his Heavyweight Title. This forced Nintendo to make another version of the game just called Punchout without Mike Tyson at the end, so two versions of the game are available. The next big series was the Final Fantasy series made by the great developing company named Square. Nintendo was on great terms with Square, as they made a total of 3 games for the NES; and 3 for the SNES that all turned out to be hits. Square decided that the Nintendo 64 cartridges wouldn't have enough size for their new big Final Fantasy games, so the next bunch were continued for the CD-based Playstation. But everyone knows that the Final Fantasy Series began with this great role player that will keep you up all night. Counting out the third party titles just wouldn't be fair, considering that some of the third party titles were the most popular. When I say third party, I refer to games such as Castlevania and Contra; both of which did better than expected. And who could forget the biggest third party series ever made, Megaman? Megaman was such a hit that the series expanded into a total of six NES games! Six! Metal Gear, Ninja Gaiden, Paperboy and Pro-Am Racing are some more popular ones just to name a few. If you missed it, check out the FAQ in this section for my top 5 favorite NES games of all time. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.6) General Care Guide ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- There were a lot of ways for me to choose on how to do this section of the FAQ..... I decided that standard FAQ format would be the easiest and most comprehensible. ***************************************************************************** Q1: What is the proper way to clean my NES or games, or get them to work if they're not working? A1: Well, I can answer this question in many a way; where do I begin? The NES was made when there were no chips to make it less frequent to cause problems, like there are now in the N64 and PSX (although they don't assure stopping problems). Sometimes, you may get your game frozen in the middle of it, you may get lines of distorted graphics to cover your screen, or you might pop a game in and get a black screen. The actual proper way to clean it is to go out and buy an NES Cleaning Kit. Although they are expensive, they assure that they'll work unless your system is completely messed up. If the cleaning kit fails, you can call the number they give you. ***************************************************************************** Q2: Whenever I blow in my games/system it works. Is this bad or harmful in any way? A2: For short term use, this is the way to go; blowing in your games or system clears out the dust and debris and automatically gets your game working quickly. The downside is that there is a long term effect; the moisture from your breath hits the copper that is inside the game and eventually wears out its chips so that the game becomes no good. A good idea when blowing into your game/system is to hold your shirt in front if it then blow so that there is no moisture. ***************************************************************************** Q3: What are the absolute don't of getting my systems/games to work? A3: Hmmmmmm, let's see here: - Never bang with your fist on the top of the console whether there is a game in there or not; this does nothing but hurt the insides of the system and wears it down. - Try not to blow in the games without putting something in front of it (see question above). - Do not turn your system on when no game is in there! - Do not EVER reach your hand in the system and pull things out or scratch away at things.... This could seriously and permanently damage your system. - Take care of all of the wires; whether they be the ones hooked to the TV or the ones on the controller; keep them safe! ***************************************************************************** Note: I will not be held responsible if this causes extra problems for your system (I doubt it will but I had to put this here so I can't get in any trouble). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.7) Import Guide ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The import guide was tough to write especially being that there weren't a lot of people that had info on this. I had to turn to Nintendo (http://www.nintendo.com) for some of this. This Import Guide applies for both the system and the games, but please note that the 8-bit era ended awhile ago and purchasing these items in North America is hard enough, let alone trying to obtain imports from Japan. The name of the Nintendo Entertainment System in Japan is the Famicom, so naturally, if you buy the NESm you will receive it as the Famicom. All games are in the Japanese language and were released before the ones in North America. Japan has a lot of games that weren't ever released in North America due to slow sales in Japan, errors with the game and whatnot. The exclusive games is the best feature of buying imports for an out-of-date system. Writing to Nintendo for buying import information is a good idea because they give the best directions and won't charge you a penny. This is the address for Nintendo of America: 4820 150th Ave NE Redmond, WA 98052 U.S.A If you are in another country that has their own Nintendo, check out www.nintendo.com. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.8) Extra Information ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ======== Hardware ======== 1.) THE ZAPPER NOTE: Be sure to check out Spoon Dog's Zapper FAQ at the general systems page for NES at GameFAQs for more information on the games it is used for. Nintendo began to create hardware to make the NES better and more attractive for the people, and one of the things they came up with was the zapper. The zapper is an arcade-like gun the size of a regular hand gun (a little bigger and longer at the end). To say the very least, the zapper was an addictive and popular item; after a year or so Nintendo packaged the NES with Super Mario Bros. 1, the zapper gun and a game called Duck Hunt. Duck Hunt was the first zapper game and was an arcade-like hit. Ducks would come flying out of the air, and it would be your job to hit them with the zapper which would nail the duck down if you hit one. As the levels progressed, the ducks would fly faster and the game would get challenging, giving Nintendo another hit game. Other Games that use the Zapper ------------------------------- Duck Hunt Bayou Billy Laser Invasion Shooting Range Wild Gunman Many more.... Some things you shouldn't do with the zapper: - Hold it on the TV screen and peg down your enemies that way. Nintendo says that it is bad for the gun and TV.... Besides, what's the fun of it without a challenge? - Abuse it.... Quite simple, treat it like you would treat a controller, don't let it get dented or smashed up, or don't let the wires get torn up. - Shine it at any other light... This will simply break the light that comes out. ========== Some FAQ's ========== Q: I don't get it, I'm hooking my zapper up, how come it won't work? A: You'll have to hook it in the second socket. Leave the first socket controller in there to set up the game, then grab the zapper when you want to start shooting. You can also set the game up with the gun by shooting it somewhere besides the TV to move from game to game. ========== Q: If I look at the zapper and shoot it at my eyes will I go blind or something? A: No, the zapper is harmless. It's just a light gun, flashing it in your eyes is like flashing a flashlight in your eyes only the zapper's light is less powerful. ========== Q: How do I clean the zapper gun? Does Nintendo make a cleaning kit for it? A: No cleaning kit, but wiping it off with a rag and then drying it works fine. ========== Q: This gun still isn't working, why not? A: There could be a few things.... Make sure it's in the second socket, and make sure you're no more than ten feet away from the TV you're shooting at. ========== Q: Are there any glitches for games with it? A: Not that I know of. ========== Here is some extra info sent in to me by Michael Gonzalez: * In your "NES Zapper FAQ", you should mention why some Zappers are gray and others are orange. I heard that when a US law was passed requiring all toy guns to *look* like toy guns, Nintendo had to change the color from gray to orange (to really make it look like a toy). 2.) TRI STAR 64 http://www.tristar64.com A company (not Nintendo) recently made something called the Tri Star 64 which is a device that you hook up to your Nintendo 64. When it is hooked up, you can play NES games, SNES games and Nintendo 64 games too. I'll present this part in normal FAQ form................ ========== Q: What is the Tri Star 64? A: Read the paragraph above. ========== Q: When was this released and where can I get it? A: It has been released over Tri Star's site (http://www.tristar64.com) in September and can be ordered there, and that's it. They say that they soon hope to release it in electronic stores as well. ========== Q: How much does it/will it cost? A: They say approximately $90-$100. ========== Q: How is this possible? A: I know it sounds complicated but it's actually quite simple... There is a slot on this light machine that allows you to put a game cartridge in each one (one slot for NES cartridges, one slot for SNES cartridges and one slot for N64 cartridges). You play with the any Nintendo controller you have and just turn on the system for any Nintendo game you will play. ========== Q: Is this licensed by Nintendo? A: No, it's not. ========== Q: Can it cause damage to my N64, games or other hardware? A: Tri Star says that their product is 100% harmless, but you know that anything's possible.... We won't know until enough people buy it and let us know. ========== Q: Didn't they make one of these for the Gameboy, too? A: Yeah, but you'll have to read the Gameboy section of this FAQ for info on that. ========== Q: Can other hardware be used with the Tri Star 64? A: It depends what it is; reportedly, the Game Genie and Game Shark (the patch code hardware devices) do work. ========== Q: What about the lockout chip on some of the NES games? A: Some of them were successfully overriden, but some just won't work.... There is a list of compatible games at the Tri Star 64 site. It seems as though more NES games will be more compatible than SNES games. ============ Q: Are you going to get one? Do you recommend I get one? A: There's no need for me to get one because I have an NES and N64 already, and I'll be getting a SNES soon. Now, would I recommend it to you? Probably not.... They seem too scandalous, they won't even tell us exactly how they made it because "they don't want to reveal their secrets." But it sounds nice, so you might want to take a chance.... If it's what they say it is then it's the best device ever made, bar none. =========== 3.) GAME GENIE The Game Genie was made to enormous success; it allowed people with NES consoles to put cheats into their games and make them easier or more fun depending what the cheat was. These cheats that were put into the game were named "Patch Codes." Alright, here goes the FAQ: ========== Q: Was this made for the NES only? A: No, it was also for the Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Gameboy and Game Gear (Nintendo and Sega's top two consoles and top two portables at the time with the NES thrown in there). ========== Q: I don't get it, how does this work? A: You attach the Game Genie to your console/game and then turn the system on. Rather than seeing the normal start up for the game, you'll see a screen with a big hand, letters, and empty spaces. You would need a Game Genie book and you would look up the game in that book and find the code you wish to use for the game. The code would consist of letter which you would plug in, then hit start, and the normal game would begin with the cheat code on. ========== Q: Is the game genie compatible with every game for the systems it was made for? A: No, but there is an extremely small list of games that don't work. ========== Q: Are there any special instructions to help take care of my Game Genie? A: Treat it like it's a game. ========== Q: What number do I call if my Game Genie doesn't work? A: Since the Game Genie was made for systems from the past, there is no longer a number to call for help. Following the instruction booklet you are provided with is your only option. ========== ============== Technical Info ============== For some reason, I've been having a hard time finding the specs of the NES. If anyone could help me out, please do so and mail me and you'll get full credit. Thanks. The Crippler cripplerx@hotmail.com ============================================================================= 4.) Gameboy ============================================================================= ####### ##### ### ### ####### ####### ####### ## ## ## ## ## ## # # ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## # # ## ## ## ## ## ## ### ## ### ########### ## ## ## ####### ####### ## ## ### ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ### ## # ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ### ####### ## ## ## ## ####### ####### ####### ### The Gameboy played a major role in the history of Nintendo... Not only was it invented by the late Gumpei Yokoi (R.I.P.) but it was successful when it first came out and is still successful today (thanks to Pokemon which is another one of Yokoi's creations). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.1) Nintendo's First Portable ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nintendo's first portable to be very successful, rather..... In 1988, the NES had been out for two years and had been tearing up its competition. But Gumpei Yokoi knew that Nintendo needed another product, something different, to keep their sales up. So he turned to his 1980 Game & Watch which he had created nearly a decade ago, and decided to upgrade it to a big-hit Nintendo portable. So work began.... In 1989, this portable was released and went by the name of the Gameboy. It had a lot of unique features, such as the size and style of holding it (long ways rather than wide ways) which was easier on the hands. But Yokoi stuck with the directional pad which would become a plus; something invented for the Game & Watch. Everyone knew that this was Nintendo-made and went out for it with high expectations. The big game made for it was an addictive puzzle game called Tetris that would soon burst into sequels. The addictive gameplay of Tetris and the system that could be taken anywhere were a great combo, and made the Gameboy Nintendo's second threat to its competitors along with the NES. Later on, new hardware was added for the Gameboy and better and better games came out as new developers inked deals to make games for this great portable. But the success of the Gameboy would only get better in years to come..... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.2) How It Was Created ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- As you would imagine, assembling a powerful system with small games and tiny chips was not an easy thing to do. Here is the info about the technical parts of the Gameboy: Outside: Screen - Reflective LCD 160x144 dots Buttons - Normal (start, select, A, B). Directional Pad - Normal (+) Inside: (Special thanks to Marat Fayzullin for this). CPU: 8-bit Z80 work-alike at 4.194304MHz RAM: 8kB internal ROM: 256kBit, 512kBit, 1MBit, 2MBit and 4MBit cartridges are known (32kB, 64kB, 128kB, 256kB and 512kB). Probably, there are 16kB cartridges as well. VRAM: 8kB internal Sound: 4 channels each of which can be mapped either to the left or to the right or to both speakers Video: Display: Reflective LCD 160x144 dots Colors: 4 shades of gray Sprites: 40 sprites of either 8x8 or 8x16 [switchable] Communications: Serial port Up to 4 Gameboys can be connected together using these ports Power: 6 Volts, 0.7 Watts 4 AA Batteries - 35 hours OR Rechargable battery (NAKI) - 12 hours Conclusion: Calling Yokoi a smart man would be an understatement. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.3) Frequently Asked Questions ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ***************************************************************************** Q1: How is the Gameboy different from the Game & Watch? A1: Let's see... The screen is smaller and the buttons are different. The specs and the setup are different in too many ways to list. The Gameboy has more power, the Gameboy has more games and more developers to make games for them, the Gameboy has more hardware, and the games are more advanced and detailed on the Gameboy being that technology has improved greatly over the past few years. ***************************************************************************** Q2: Did Miyamoto help Yokoi make this like he helped make the Donkey Kong Arcade Game? A2: No, this was Yokoi's creation 100%, then he gave it to a Nintendo design team to add the specs and actually make it. ***************************************************************************** Q3: Did Miyamoto make any games for it? A3: Yes, he continued some of his classics on this system such as some of the Mario games and a Zelda game. ***************************************************************************** Q4: Does the Gameboy have any hardware? A4: Yes; there's a hardware section for the Gameboy in this FAQ. ***************************************************************************** Q5: Hasn't th Gameboy been upgraded to the Gameboy Color? A5: Yes, but once again, you'll have to see the Gameboy Color section in this FAQ for more information on it. (It actually wasn't upgraded, the Gameboy Color is a seperate system and the Gameboy is still being sold). ***************************************************************************** Q5: Can I still buy a Gameboy today? For how much money? A5: Yes, but it will be hard to find. You can probably find it in a used-game store for no more than $20. However, you can still play old Gameboy games on the Gameboy Color and the Gameboy Color has more features, so buying a regular Gameboy might turn out to be a waste. ***************************************************************************** Q6: What's up with this Pokemon thing? Who created it? Why is it so popular? A6: If you don't know Pokemon by now, you probably live in a cave. Gumpei Yokoi created a game called Pocket Monsters before he passed away in 1997. It was a role-play game where you try to capture Pokemon and catch them all. The game was released and was named Pokemon for short. It is/was the biggest game ever; I guess the addictive gameplay and cool characters just sucked everybody in. Pokemon is so popular now that there is a movie, a CD, shirts, hats, lunch boxes, playing cards, dolls, fake merchandise by people making lots of money and much much more. There are now several different versions of the game, with more in the process of being made. ***************************************************************************** Q7: You said in the NES section that the sequel to Super Mario Bros. wasn't released on the NES, was it released on the Gameboy? A7: No, only on the Gameboy Color (it's the second quest after you beat the first quest on Super Mario Bros. Deluxe). ***************************************************************************** Q8: How do I get my Gameboy to work? A8: Read the general care guide in this section of this FAQ. ***************************************************************************** Q9: Can the Gameboy be hooked into the NES to play some kind of special game? A9: No, but something like that is being worked on now for the Gameboy Color and Nintendo 64. ***************************************************************************** Q10: What's your definition of "classic," when you refer to games? A11: My definition of classic is an old game for the NES (or GB by this day and age) that sold extremely well or was very popular among myself or other people. An example of this is The Legend of Zelda (the original) because I loved it along with many others (it sold over 1 million copies) or Tetris due to its success. ***************************************************************************** Q11: What are your favorite Gameboy games and why? A11: This question comes up quite a bit. Here are my top 5 starting from #1 to #5. - Tetris is my favorite all-time because not only is it fun and challenging, but you can take it anywhere and literally play for hours (great because the time flies if you're driving for five hours to go somehwere). - The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening was another hit and another Miyamoto masterpiece. It took up a lot of time and was a great game for a little system. - The Final Fantasy Series was great (I won't judge them individually because they're all great) because they were adventure RPGs which were fun and challenging. - Pokemon is number 4 in my book; I don't know why it's not my favorite, I just like the others a little bit better. But anyways, this game is great, as you may have guessed. - Wario Land drops on this list just making the cut; not a lot of people liked this game but I thought the storyline, mini games and gameplay made it a great game. ***************************************************************************** Q12: The Gameboy games obviously had to come on cartridges, so weren't there size problems? A12: Absolutely not. The games weren't that big back then anyways, the only time it would become a problem is now a days because of how big these games have to be. An enormous double-cartridge game just isn't expected for a portable. ***************************************************************************** Q13: When was the death of the Gameboy and why did it occur? A13: There was no death; it just got advanced into the Gameboy Color, that's all. ***************************************************************************** ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.4) General Care Guide ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- There were a lot of ways for me to choose on how to do this section of the FAQ..... I decided that standard FAQ format would be the easiest and most comprehensible. ***************************************************************************** Q1: What is the proper way to clean my Gameboy or games, or get them to work if they're not working? A1: Well, I can answer this question in many a way; where do I begin? The Gameboy was made when there were no chips to make it less frequent to cause problems, like there are now in the new portables (although they don't assure stopping problems). Sometimes, you may get your game frozen in the middle of it, you may get lines of distorted graphics to cover your screen, or you might pop a game in and get a black screen. The actual proper way to clean it is to go out and buy a Gameboy Cleaning Kit. Although they are expensive, they assure that they'll work unless your system is completely messed up. If the cleaning kit fails, you can call the number they give you. ***************************************************************************** Q2: Whenever I blow in my games/system it works. Is this bad or harmful in any way? A2: For short term use, this is the way to go; blowing in your games or system clears out the dust and debris and automatically gets your game working quickly. The downside is that there is a long term effect; the moisture from your breath hits the copper that is inside the game and eventually wears out its chips so that the game becomes no good. A good idea when blowing into your game/system is to hold your shirt in front if it then blow so that there is no moisture. ***************************************************************************** Q3: What are the absolute don'ts of getting my systems/games to work? A3: Hmmmmmm, let's see here: - Keep it at room temperature.... I don't really have to be very specific here; don't leave it in a freezer or out in the sun, that's all. - Never slap it hard or bang on it to try to get it to work. - Try not to blow into the system/games without holding something in front of it (see question above). ***************************************************************************** Note: I will not be held responsible if this causes extra problems for your system (I doubt it will but I had to put this here so I can't get in any trouble). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.5) Games ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The advantage of the Gameboy being released in 1989 was that the NES was at its height of popularity and Nintendo had an idea of what type of games people liked and what type of games people didn't like. Here are some of the most popular games made for the Gameboy: 1.) The Donkey Kong Series: This series included four great adventure games that made the Donkey even more famous than he already was (thanks to Yokoi's and Miyamoto's arcade game). 2.) The Final Fantasy Series: This great role playing series was continued to great success and no-showing of a slow down for great games made by Square. This series is the series that hooked RPG fans to the Gameboy. 3.) The King of Fighters Series: The first game was so good that it required a sequel; same story for the second game. This was the game that got fighting fans to pick up a Gameboy system. 4.) The Kirby Series: Now who could forget this? The Kirby Series was great; the games only got better and better. This was a superb adventure series for the Gameboy that addicted many. 5.) The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening was the most influencial game for the Gameboy because of its success on the NES. Anyone that owned an NES and either of the NES Zelda games were sure to pick up the Gameboy after this release. 6.) The Mega Man Series: This was big because it was a popular third party title for the NES and certainly drew people to the Gameboy. It was so popular that there was the original Mega Man game and then 4 sequels. 7.) Pokemon: Good God, where do we start!? Gumpei Yokoi created a game called Pocket Momsters before he died (R.I.P.) in 1997. This game would later be called Pokemon for short and became the biggest-selling game all-time for any system! It's addictive RPG Game Play and challenge gave gamers a hell of a time. A few different versions have been released and a lot more are to come. Pokemon is so popular today that not only are there games, there's cartoons, a movie, a soundtrack, clothes, lunch boxes, stuffed animals and lots of fake merchandise that people make a lot of money off of. This is definetely the most well-known Gameboy game ever. 8.) The Tetris Series: Everyone knows Tetris! The addictive puzzle game and kick ass gameplay made this the game to make everyone buy the Gameboy. This was also the game that made other companies jealous and forced them to make their own versions! It came with four sequels for the Gameboy and many more for other systems now a days. ============================================================================= 5.) THE SUPER NINTENDO ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM ============================================================================= ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5.1) Nintendo's Only 16-Bit System ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Times were tough for Nintendo.... Their 8-but NES slowed down subtsantially in sales when Sega released the Genesis, the first 16-bit system. So Nintendo knew that it was up to them to make a 16-bit system of their own, for it was the only thing that could save Nintendo. So they made the Super Nintendo, which many people bought because they wanted to play the continuations of their favorite NES games and whatnot. Things were going good, and Nintendo pulled ahead of Sega. But then a huge problem struck. Acclaim made Mortal Kombat, an extremely hardcore fighting game that used massive amounts of blood. They made it for both the Genesis and Super NES, and Nintendo had a problem with the graphic scenes. They forced Acclaim to make a special censored version of it for the Super NES, while Sega chose the uncensored one for the Genesis. The game was very popular and everyone wanted it for the Genesis because it was unedited. But Nintendo answered back, thanks to Miyamoto and company, Argonaut developers and other places. Nintendo had friends in high places, to sum up their comeback to make the Super NES a better sold system than the Genesis. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5.2) How It Was Created ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here are the specs, very special thanks to The Super Nintendo Zone for them (http://snes.cjb.net/). --> Central Processing Unit (CPU) - 16-bit custom 65C816 --> Memory Cycle Time - 279ns --> Work RAM for CPU - 128 Kilobytes (CPU temp. s