Nintendo Entertainment System: Difference between revisions

The NES infected the American pop culture zeitgeist, with Nintendo firmly establishing itself in the and first making its name known in the U.S. as the de-facto video game company in both Japan and America until {{wp|Sega}}'s uprising in the early 90s, being featured in countless mainstream magazines, articles, television and media references, advertisements, and fictional media such as the 1989 {{mw|The Wizard}} film, in which a boy is an intuitive master of Nintendo games (the film was used to promote ''{{mw|Super Mario Bros. 3}}'') and ''{{wp|The Simpsons}}'', where the NES and Nintendo characters also make appearances. A toll-free 1-800 Nintendo hotline number was established in early 1987 to help callers out with tips, tricks, and guides to difficult parts of ''[[zeldapedia:The Legend of Zelda (game)|The Legend of Zelda]]'' and other NES titles, with the number even being put into ''The Legend of Zelda'''s instruction manual by Minoru Arakawa who knew that the game was a difficult one; once the phones began ringing, the phones never stopped ringing, with the four hotline staff members eventually being increased by Arakawa to 200 to 400 by 1990 (500 for the holiday rush). The callers never decreased even when the number was turned into a 1-900 number. The hotline, with "Gameplay Counselors" manning the lines on an hourly basis and ready to help any hapless young man with a difficult play session on his NES, further cemented Nintendo's "caring" reputation among its customers. <ref> </ref> <ref> </ref> <ref> </ref> The NES's success also gave rise to NOA's in-house magazine named ''{{wp|Nintendo Power}}'' in late 1988, which gave game walkthroughs, cheats, hints, a list of upcoming titles, NOA's 1-800 hotline number, and advertisements for Nintendo products and peripherals from the past, present, and future. The magazine succeeded NOA's former free-to-join {{wp|Nintendo Fun Club}} newsletter, which functioned similarly to ''Nintendo Power''. The final issue of the newsletter encouraging readers to transfer over to ''Nintendo Power''. The NES gave birth to the "Nintendo Generation", which were the young children who grew up with the NES during the late 80s and early 90s, passing game codes, secrets and rumors at schoolyard playgrounds, faking being sick to stay home and play their NES, and devouring each issue of Nintendo Power with aplomb. At the height of its popularity, the NES was in one out of three American homes. <ref>https://www.cgwmuseum.org/galleries/index.php?year=1990&pub=2&id=77</ref> The NES library contained first-party titles that are still revered as some of the best games of all time today through innumerable lists of NES favorites, and licensed third-party titles ranging from mega-popular fictional franchises to live-action films from ''{{wp|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles}}'' to ''{{wp|The Simpsons}}'' to ''{{wp|Back to the Future}}''. The 1990 title ''Super Mario Bros. 3'' sold 14,000,000 copies worldwide with its total grosses only being succeeded by the [[wikipedia:Steven Spielberg|Spielberg]] mega-hit ''{{wp|E.T.}}'' film, with ''Super Mario Bros. 3'' going on become the highest-selling individual game in history at the time. A {{wp|UK}} company named [[wikipedia:Rare (company)|Rare]] also became a reputable third-party licensee for Nintendo through their NES titles ''{{wp|R.C. Pro-Am}}'', ''{{wp|Snake, Rattle 'n' Roll}}'', and the hit game ''[[wikipedia:Battletoads (1991 video game)|Battletoads]]'', leading Nintendo to purchase a 25% stake of the company in 1994 after being impressed by their recent Silicon Graphics (SGI) advances in video game technology, leading Rare to become an independent second-party developer for Nintendo. The stake increased to 49%, while Rare would go on to develop more titles and franchises for Nintendo's subsequent consoles, such as the ''[[mariowiki:Donkey Kong Country (series)|Donkey Kong Country]]'', ''{{wp|Killer Instinct}}'', ''{{wp|Banjo-Kazooie}}'', and ''[[wikipedia:Conker (series)|Conker]]'' franchises, with stand-off titles such as ''[[wikipedia:GoldenEye 007 (series)|GoldenEye 007]]'', ''{{mw|Diddy Kong Racing}}'', ''{{wp|Perfect Dark}}'', and ''[[lylatwiki:Star Fox Adventures|Star Fox Adventures]]'', before finally being bought out by {{wp|Microsoft}} in 2002 due to Nintendo refusing to purchase the other %51 of Rare. <ref>https://www.ign.com/articles/2008/07/28/ign-presents-the-history-of-rare</ref> In addition, R.O.B. has gone on to star in other Nintendo franchises as a cameo, from being a statue, a minor appearance, or a part of a mini-game in the ''[[mariowiki:WarioWare (series)|WarioWare]]'' series, a giant statue in [[mutecity:Port Town|a race]] in ''[[mutecity:F-Zero GX|F-Zero GX]]'', and its head and gyro blocks being part of the [[pikipedia:Blast from the Past Series|Blast from the Past series]] in ''[[pikipedia:Pikmin 2|Pikmin 2]]''. His most notable appearances in other Nintendo franchises are as a playable racer in ''{{mw|Mario Kart DS}}'' and the ''[[ssbwiki:Super Smash Bros. series|Super Smash Bros.]]'' series as a playable fighter in every series title beginning with ''[[Super Smash Bros. Brawl]]''. The NES itself has also been subject to an innumerable amount of references and appearances in other media since the 80s, like television (''{{wp|The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air}}'', ''{{wp|The Big Bang Theory}}''), fan-made documentaries (like {{wp|Nintendo Quest}}, which features two friends as they try to collect every licensed NES game in a month), and feature films (like {{wp|8-Bit Christmas}}, where a young boy and his friends try to obtain a coveted NES system for Christmas 1989).