Cold Open

It’s December 1983 at the Nintendo Testing Laboratory in Kyoto, Japan.

40-year-old Masayuki Uemura walks briskly past rows of long gray tables. Dozens of technicians are busy dismantling small, red-and-white machines. There’s a strained atmosphere in the lab. The product that they’re taking apart was supposed to launch Nintendo to new heights. But instead, it’s proving a disaster.

Six months ago, Nintendo launched its most ambitious video game console yet: the Family Computer, better known as the Famicom. But over the past few weeks, hundreds of consoles have been returned to Nintendo with the same mysterious malfunction. And as the Famicom’s lead designer, Masayuki is under intense pressure to find the problem—and fast.

In a corner of the lab, Masayuki is met by a technician in a blue lab coat and white hairnet. The technician bows, then directs Masayuki to a Famicom hooked up to a television. The console has just come off the production line, and it’s been checked for errors. So, it should work perfectly.

Masayuki smiles as he recognizes Nintendo’s most famous game: Donkey Kong. A tower of pixelated platforms and ladders fills the screen. And at the top, a gorilla hurls barrels at a small red-and-blue character named Mario, waiting below.

Masayuki picks up the controller and moves Mario across the first platform. He jumps and scrambles up a purple ladder…but when he reaches the platform above, the screen freezes. A barrel hangs in midair.

A few seconds later, the screen goes black. The Famicom has crashed—and Masayuki has no idea what’s caused it.

Further investigation will finally reveal the problem: the Famicom’s circuitry can not keep up with what the games require of it. And unless Nintendo technicians can find a way to fix the malfunctioning hardware, Nintendo’s first foray into the home console market will end with the launch of the Famicom on July 15th, 1983.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham, and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is July 15th, 1983: Nintendo’s First Multi-Game Console.

Act One: Living Room Dreams

It’s late evening in November 1981 in Kyoto, Japan, 18 months before the launch of the Famicom.

Nintendo designer Masayuki Uemura wearily lifts himself from a chair in his living room as the phone begins to ring. He stretches his back and then hurries to pick up the receiver because he can already guess who it is.

It’s not unusual for Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi to call after working hours. Hiroshi has a reputation for disturbing his senior staff after he’s had a few drinks. But he also has a knack for clever ideas—ideas that might just grow the business.

Nintendo has a long history. It was founded in 1889 by Hiroshi’s great-grandfather as a playing card manufacturer, and it only ventured into video games after Hiroshi took the reins. Under his leadership, Nintendo began building large cabinets for video game arcades, and it hit the big time with the release of Donkey Kong in 1981. But recently, Hiroshi has set his sights on a new frontier. He wants to transport the arcade experience into people’s homes.

And tonight on the phone, Hiroshi is brimming with excitement. He asks Masayuki to lead the design of a new home console. But this device will be unlike anything Nintendo has made before. Instead of a few preloaded games, it will use interchangeable cartridges. And this means customers will be able to buy new games from an ever-expanding library of titles, and they’ll keep coming back to Nintendo for more.

Over the next few months, Masayuki throws himself into the project, working 18-hour days to meet Hiroshi’s vision. It’s a daunting task. Nintendo’s previous arcade cabinets and home consoles were designed to just run one game. But this new machine must support many, and each type of game places its own unique demands on the circuitry.

So, after several disappointing prototypes, Masayuki comes to a conclusion: a single microchip is not going to be enough. The console will need two. But that raises a new problem—the chips are expensive, and the only way to bring down the price is to commit to buying three million of them.

This raises the stakes. Just to break even, Nintendo will have to sell millions of consoles.

And determined to keep the retail price low, Masayuki trims the console’s features. It has no keyboard, no disc drive, no screen, and minimal memory. Not only does this save money on manufacturing, Masayuki also hopes it’ll entice technophobe parents who might otherwise be scared away by all the extra hardware. The result is a simple, box-shaped device that plugs into an existing television.

But there’s one component that Masayuki won’t compromise on: the controller. He uses a straightforward, rectangular case with a four-pronged directional pad and four buttons. The design’s simplicity means that the new console can handle two controllers at once, allowing multiplayer games.

But although it’s Masayuki’s job to design the hardware, President Hiroshi often weighs in with his own opinions. And during one shared car ride back from a meeting in Osaka, Hiroshi spots a billboard advertising a red-and-white television antenna. The colors instantly jump out at Hiroshi, and he turns to Masayuki with another request. Their new console must also be red and white.

Masayuki takes his order back to the engineers working on the hardware, while Nintendo’s game designers get to work on the software. But if anything, their task is even harder. They have to program games without knowing exactly what the new console can do. And as a result, they focus on only a handful of games they’re already familiar with. They convert Nintendo’s arcade games into a format they hope will work on the home console. But the programmers make slow progress until they decide to focus their efforts on just three titles: Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., and Popeye. These are the games that will launch with the console.

With the hardware and software all but finished, the only thing that remains is to give the new machine a name—but Nintendo’s branding team is stumped. Nothing feels right for this revolutionary multi-game device. The breakthrough only comes when Masayuki’s wife asks what he’s working on. Masayuki explains that the new machine is not a personal computer, but a games computer that the whole family can play. His wife then suggests a name that has been staring at them the whole time: Family Computer, or Famicom for short.

Less than two years after Nintendo President Hiroshi’s late-night phone call, Masayuki will declare the Famicom ready for launch. But he won’t realize until it’s too late that hidden deep in the motherboard is a flaw—one that will plunge Nintendo into crisis.

Act Two: Circuit Breaker

It’s July 15th, 1983, in Nintendo’s head office in Kyoto, less than two years after work began on Nintendo’s Family Computer.

55-year-old company president Hiroshi Yamauchi nurses a whiskey as he stares down at a small red-and-white console on his desk.

It’s been a long day. The Family Computer, Nintendo’s most ambitious product yet, went on sale for the first time this morning. Hiroshi has spent hours shuttling between launch events and meeting excited gamers eager to try the new device. Now, he’s waiting to hear how many they sold on the first day.

There’s a knock at the door, and Hiroshi’s secretary enters. She quietly puts a sheet of paper on his desk and then slips out without a word. Hiroshi quickly realizes why she didn’t linger. The paper contains today’s sales figures—and they’re not good.

Hiroshi isn’t surprised, though. Nintendo hasn't spent much money on advertising. Instead, Hiroshi is banking on word of mouth to sell the new console. He’s arranged for department stores to set up demonstration units—Famicoms plugged into TV sets that customers can play for free. It might take time, but Hiroshi is confident that interest will build.

And slowly, it does. Over the next few weeks, the Famicom begins to gain traction in Japan. Then, in September, Hiroshi plays his ace card. Nintendo releases a new game for the Famicom —and it's the first that’s been specifically made for the device rather than a converted arcade game. Mario Bros. Stars Donkey Kong’s heroic plumber, Mario, and his brother Luigi, and it’s a smash hit.

Sales of the Famicom skyrocket. But success brings a new problem.

As sales rise, so too do reports of faulty consoles. Soon, Nintendo’s testing lab is flooded with devices returned by unhappy customers. Console’s lead designer Masayuki Uemura is tasked with finding the problem and coming up with a solution. But it seems that the defective consoles have been manufactured properly, so the issue must be in the design itself.

Eventually, just before the New Year holiday, Masayuki finally discovers the flaw in the Famicom’s design. Under certain data conditions, the circuitry becomes overloaded, and machine crashes. The only way to fix the problem is to replace the problematic component in every single device.

Nintendo’s boss, Hiroshi Yamauchi, makes the bold decision to order a complete product recall. Store shelves are cleared so consoles can be retrofitted with new circuitry, while every customer who’s already bought a Famicom is offered a replacement for free.

Over the next few weeks, Nintendo repairs more than half a million consoles. This logistical feat costs the equivalent of millions of dollars. But Nintendo is praised for its commitment to quality. And customers return in droves. In June 1984, Nintendo sells its one-millionth Famicom.

The company now dominates Japan’s home console industry with a 90 percent market share. So, to expand, Hiroshi looks beyond Nintendo’s home country to an even bigger prize: North America.

But in the United States, the video game industry is in flux. American gamers have been inundated with poor-quality hardware and games, and it’s culminated in a collapse of the industry known as the Great Video Game Crash. Even market leader Atari has been forced to send hundreds of thousands of now-worthless games to landfills.

But Hiroshi sees an opportunity. If Nintendo positions itself as a manufacturer focused on quality over quantity, it might just win over the American customer.

And to help make the Famicom more appealing to the American market, designer Masayuki gives his console an overhaul. The cartridge slot is moved to the front, mimicking the new VCR players that are growing popular in the United States. The toy-like red-and-white color scheme is replaced with sleek gray and black plastic. And stenciled on the front in red writing is a new name: the Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES.

But just like the Famicom did in Japan, the NES launches in America to a lukewarm reception. American retailers are still wary of video game consoles after the crash, and they’re unwilling to take a chance stocking Nintendo’s new hardware. But once again, word of mouth proves Nintendo’s savior. And just like before, it’s Mario who rides to the rescue.

Bundled with every NES is a new game, Super Mario Bros. Its ingenious side-scrolling levels, colorful graphics, and catchy musical score make it an instant classic. Mario becomes a household name, and everyone wants to play the game. In just six months, American customers snap up more than three million NES consoles. The following year, they buy six million. And nine out of every ten video game consoles sold in the United States will be an NES, and soon one-third of all American households will own one. This spectacular success will kickstart Nintendo into a period of rapid growth, and what was once a Japanese playing card manufacturer will become one of the world’s best-known brands.

Act Three: Controller of the Sun

It’s September 25th, 2003, inside the Nintendo factory in Kyoto, Japan, more than 20 years after the launch of the Famicom.

60-year-old Masayuki Uemura smiles as a small red-and-white box moves slowly down a conveyor belt. He hasn’t seen a Famicom in years. Since its debut, Masayuki has turned his design genius to the development of Nintendo’s next-generation consoles and games. But today, he’s returned to the factory for a very special milestone in the company’s history: the final day of Famicom production.

Over the last two decades, the Famicom has been succeeded by more powerful consoles: the Super Famicom and Super NES, the N64, and most recently, the GameCube. But even as new technology marched forward and made the Famicom obsolete, it continued to have a cult following in Japan. So, every year, Nintendo continued to manufacture a small number for its loyal fans. Now, though, they’re finally pulling the plug.

Under the bright factory lights, a technician removes the very last Famicom from the conveyor belt. To a ripple of applause, he records the serial number and gently places the console inside a box. But this Famicom is not destined for a store shelf. It’s bound for the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography. There, it’ll be part of a special exhibition celebrating Nintendo’s influence on video games and Japanese culture.

The Famicom has earned its place in history. It ignited Nintendo’s rapid rise, transforming the company from a minor game maker into one of the largest entertainment companies in the world. Over the years, Nintendo has created some of the most popular franchises in video game history, including Zelda, Pokémon, and Animal Crossing. But the most iconic of them all is still Mario—the mustachioed plumber that got his big break when Nintendo launched the Famicom in Japan on July 15th, 1983.

Outro

Next on History Daily. July 16th, 1945. A New Mexico bombing range is the site of the first detonation of an atomic bomb.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Mollie Baack.

Supervising Sound Designer Matthew Filler.

Music by Thrumm.

This episode is written and researched by Angus Gavan McHarg.

Edited by Scott Reeves.

Managing producer Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are William Simpson for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.