Nintendo, a company that has been putting smiles on the faces of everyone since the 1980s, has consistently remained as the main contributor to the game industry by creating gaming’s most beloved intellectual properties. Regardless of your age you must have heard or even played incarnations of many Nintendo’s franchises, such as Super Mario Brothers,…

Rise of the West Microsoft was founded in 1975 by Bill Gates. Throughout the 80’s and 90’s Microsoft became the industry leader in home computer operating systems and one of the world’s largest brands, making their founder the richest man in the world. After watching nearly 2 decades of home game consoles slowly suck away…

Rise of the Playstation After Sony’s humiliation at the hands of Nintendo at the 1991 CES (Consumer Electronics Show), Sony’s president Norio Ohga was furious and craved revenge. He asked a young up-and-comer Ken Kutaragi to develop a console that could finally topple Nintendo from their perch.   en.m.wikipedia.org/ Kutaragi attacked the project with relish.…

Super Mario And Friends It’s me, Mario! No, it’s me, Luigi! No, Princess Peach it is! Harhar, Bowser will defeat you all! If these names mean nothing to you, you are probably new to the franchise of Super Mario. In that case, I recommend you to continue reading because it’s time to meet a few…

Forging the Knives that Stab You At the 1991 consumer electronics show, Sony representatives awaited Nintendo’s long rumored partnership to make a CD based add-on to the Super Nintendo. Sony and Nintendo had been working together since 1988 to make it a reality, now it was going to be announced. But, when Nintendo finally announced…

In the last article, we introduced Nintendo and talked about their stranglehold on the gaming market, and how Nintendo’s iron-fisted policies rubbed many developers and distributors the wrong way. We will see how these policies, originally meant to protect Nintendo and the home gaming industry, would go on to nearly topple it. Please note: The…

Passing of a Legend I am still in the middle of writing my series on the history of Japanese games, but today (7/13) the gaming world was sad to hear the passing of a legend. Satoru Iwata (岩田聡) passed away on the 11th of July due to a tumor. Satoru Iwata was the president of…

Last time we left off talking about how Atari ended up destroying the market for games in America, due to a lack of oversight in game quality and publishing too many games. I’m sorry! but our princess is in another castle… After the video game crash of 1983, the home console market in America seemed…

In a series of articles, I would like to dive into one of Japan’s greatest exports; video games. Games have a surprisingly deep history filled with creativity, lies, bravery, back-stabbing, and murder (virtually, at least). Like I said, I want to focus on Japanese game companies leading up to the actual game situation. As such,…

No matter if you are a serious game nerd or have just played Nintendo once or twice: Mario is almost as well known as Disney’s Mickey Mouse. He is the most popular video game character of all times. He is an Italian plumber and therefore he loves pizza. But there are a lot of secret…