The Golden
Age
By late 1987,
the NES was an official phenomenon in the US. Those of you familiar with
economics know that when demand outstrips supply, prices inflate -- and
that's exactly what happened during the Christmas of '87. Economic realities
aside, the most dramatic effects of Nintendo's rise to power were probably
felt by a generation of kids. At a time when graphics were still pretty
basic, Gamers from the Atari-age dreamt of getting that elusive high score
in whatever was the "it" game of the moment. With the advent of side-scrollers
and action/RPGs like Super
Mario Bros. and The
Legend of Zelda, two major shifts occurred in the gaming paradigm.
One, the NES' graphics were good enough that characters could display a
semblance of personality. Two, the increased capacity of cartridge ROMs
allowed innovations such as endings, game saving, and new game genres.
The Legend
of Zelda |
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Super Mario
Bros. 2 |
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These factors
alone were enough to make the world of Nintendo come alive in a way that
Atari's earlier efforts never could; games became simultaneously more linear
and more immersive. Players could truly identify with Mario and Link as
they ventured into new worlds. An entire generation of kids shared sprite-filled
daydreams when they were away from their Nintendo consoles. Reaching the
final battle in many of these games became a labor of love. Toys 'R' Us,
the biggest benefactor of the wave, wasn't kidding when it advertised on
TV: "You EAT Nintendo! You SLEEP Nintendo! You DRINK Nintendo! And now
you can BE Nintendo!"
Still, not everything
about the Nintendo revolution was good for the family unit or personal
growth. Kids began to realize (and are still discovering today) that video
games were the perfect form of escape. In many cases, social interaction
became the first victim of this new form of voluntary confinement. You
can debate all day on the Pandora's Box that Nintendo opened with the NES,
but one thing was for sure: the Power Players of the world, and the kids
that looked up to them, made Nintendo a video game monopoly by 1990.
The very first
issue of Nintendo Power |
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Mega Man II |
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Much of the
answer to Nintendo's popularity lies in its image. Any amount of research
would have yielded the fact that the NES' rival, the Sega Master System,
was actually superior to the NES in terms of graphics. Admittedly, neither
system was particularly state-of-the-art by the boom years of 1987-88,
but Nintendo had a proven library of releases, and they used Nintendo Power
as well as other mass media so effectively that kids didn't even realize
there even was a competition. With the nationwide legion of Power Players
backing up the blitzkrieg of late-80s media on the system, Nintendo had
little problem cementing the NES in the psyche of gamers everywhere.
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