36 years ago, Nintendo launched the original family game in Japan and changed the game

It's hard to find an Argentinian who grew up in the 90s without having a joystick. Family game. At that time, few of us knew (and at least we did not care) that consoles of Chinese origin and Taiwanese they were really pirated copies of The family Computer (known under the name of Famicom), the console that released the video game industry from the crisis and established a business model still in effect.

The Famicom was not the first Nintendo console. The company, founded in 1889 as a letter maker, launched the series in 1977 Color TV game, devices with games included similar to PONG of Atari. Two years later, laptops would arrive Game & Watch created by Gunpei Yokoiwhich, in addition to including original games, would offer portable versions of titles such as Donkey Kong, the first big success of the company and Shigeru Miyamoto, the designer who would become a legend.

The The family Thu traditional, this white and red camera with a ejector cartridges, it was a direct copy of Famicom and it has little to do with Nintendo Entertainment System (or NES) who arrived in the West three years later. While for his landing in the United States, Nintendo chose a more modern gray design, far from the toy concept and a cartridge loading system mimicking the VCR (the object of desire at that time) , in Japan the family computer has kept his name with a fun look for the whole family.

In the early years, the console was powered by games that kept the basic elements of arcadesas the endless cycle of levels that repeat themselves over and over again, gradually increasing the difficulty. Many of these games have fueled the legendary cartouches of ten, fifty, one hundred and even one thousand in one, inevitable in the game of any family owner. Donkey Kong, Mario Bros., Nintendo sports games like Golf, tennis and Baseball, Galaxian, Lode Runner, Ice Climber, and a long etcetera has taken the experience of the salons of arcades on the screens of millions of televisions in Japan and turned the console into a resounding success.

The American public, however, was more difficult to solve. Nintendo had initially reached an agreement with the Atari giant of the time take the console to the north country with the name Nintendo Advanced Video Game System, but after a small scandal between the two companies for exclusivity problems at the 1983 CES, the Japanese found themselves without a partner.

Two years later, the company would return to the technology show with a prototype of Nintendo Advanced Video System (AVS), a futuristic product using wireless devices connected to the console via infrared signals. The Nintendo AVS It was ambitious: it included a keyboard, a cbadette player, controls, an optical gun and a lever. But it was excessively expensive and complex for a market whose revenues had dropped from $ 3,200 to $ 100 million in less than two years and the press had received it with more doubts than enthusiasm.

Nintendo has not abandoned. Redesigned the console and modified the story to fit the new territory, which is still suffering the repercussions of an industry too close to the sun. The Nintendo entertainment system was exactly an entertainment system that did not use "cartridges" but "game packs" introduced into the "control bay".

Perhaps one of the most transcendent measures of society was its relation to external studies. After witnessing the inevitable saturation of the market at the time of Atari 2600, Nintendo decided that, unlike what had happened in previous years, everyone could not develop games for the console. Since the company was the only cartridge manufacturer, the studios had to obtain an official license and comply with a series of guidelines before receiving approval: they were allowed to publish only five games per year. they could not include inappropriate content. and they had to order a minimum of ten thousand copies.

This strategy allowed Nintendo not only to make a fortune, given the low risk it badumed with the publication of each game, but also Directly attack one of the biggest problems in the industry: unwanted software.

Of course, this draconian system was not suitable for many studios, but fighting against Nintendo was closing the door on millions of potential players. Eventually, in the late 1980s, partly by choice (the arrival of a heavy competitor like Sega) and partly by an obligation (mandate from the US Federal Trade Commission), the company has eliminated some of the clauses and changes to simplify the lives of its members and maintain the competitiveness of their consoles.

If the Famicom was a success in Japan, it was its impact in the West that marked the course of the industry. The launch of the console two years later in the United States and three years later in Europe enabled the company to offer an excellent catalog of games from the first day. Of the 18 titles available at launch, there were clbadics such as Duck hunting (who used the gun, one of the many devices in the NDA), Excite Bike o Ice Climber, but what they did not compare with Super Mario Bros., the platform game designed by Shigeru Miyamoto that would define a generation.

Mario was already a well-known character in Japan for his connection to the franchise Donkey Kong (where he debuted as Jumpman) and the success of Mario Bros., but the creation of Miyamoto turned the game and character into a global stainless phenomenon that has turned out to be a true resurgence of the industry.

The rest, as they say, belongs to history.

The NES ceased to be manufactured in 1995 but the Famicom continued to be produced in Japan until 2003, the year of its twentieth anniversary. Today, more than three decades later, Nintendo's first interchangeable cartridge console remains in effect: in 2016, the company launched the carton again and launched the NES Clbadic Edition (Nintendo Mini Clbadic: The family computer in Japan), a miniature version of the 8-bit console with thirty games installed, which connects via HDMI to the TV and is powered by USB. What should be an object of worship directed almost exclusively towards collectors has become a rage that has forced society to revive two years later to meet the demand.

As the world prepares to receive a new generation of consoles, it should be remembered that the foundations of the business model of the sector were established in Japan, by a company that recognized the mistakes of what was and what was not. extent of what would come