Nintendo Entertainment System: Difference between revisions

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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. An Official Nintendo Player's Guide book was released in the late 80s, covering various walkthroughs of NES titles, while ''Nintendo Power'' Strategy Guides for NES titles were also periodically released between the bimonthly standard issues, which were essentially entire "issues" devoted entirely to the walkthrough, guide, and tips and tricks to NES titles such as ''Super Mario Bros. 3'' and ''[[wikipedia: Final Fantasy (game)|Final Fantasy]]''. After ''Nintendo Power'' became monthly, entire books were published with ''Nintendo Power'' that covered multiple walkthroughs of games from various platforms or specific, such as the NES GAME Atlas, {{wp|Game Boy}}, {{mw|Mario Mania}}, and [[Super Nintendo Entertainment System]] books, with ''Nintendo Power'' branded Player's Guide issues that covered one specific game's walkthrough, with this later formula being emulated by BradyGames and Prima's game guides. 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 its over-600,000 subscribers <ref>https://vglegacy.com/pop-culture/nintendo-fun-club/</ref> to transfer over to ''Nintendo Power''. Howard Phillips later stated, "When we first launched the NES in 1985, we figured out very quickly that kids were just dying to get extra information about the games—not just new games that were coming out, but also how to play them." <ref>https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/nintendo-power-remembering-america-s-longest-lasting-game-magazine</ref> Thusly, after the NOA hotlines were formed, Howard Phillips and Gail Tilden started up the ''Nintendo Fun Club'' newsletter to provide a more inexpensive solution. As the ''Nintendo Fun Club'' was becoming too costly to produce, the newsletter was discontinued in 1988, with ''Nintendo Power'' succeeding it. Instead, Arakawa hired Howard Phillips and Gail Tilden to create the paid-subscription ''Nintendo Power'' magazine to satisfy readers' insatiable appetite with a biannual 100-page coverage of all things Nintendo, having seen several examples in Japan and deciding that that should be the focus of the magazine. (''{{wp|Famitsu}}'', ''Famicom Tsushin'', ''Jump'', etc.) Howard Phillips was responsible for fact-checking the NES coverage in the issues, as well as inventing the modern walkthrough format; he and the ''Nintendo Power'' studio would take pictures of the game screens, which the team would then cut out with X-Acto knives and paste them together into one big collage of the game world map.<ref>https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/nintendo-power-remembering-america-s-longest-lasting-game-magazine</ref> Howard Phillips was also featured as a character in a ''Nintendo Power'' comic strip, "Howard and Nester", in which Howard, dressed in a polka-dotted bowtie and having short, impeccable ginger hair (both of which were present on Phillips in real life: by this time, he had gained a {{wp|Howdy-Doody}} quality to him), and the fictionalized teenage skate-punk Nester (NES-ter), engaged in comedic adventures based on the game on the previous issue's cover. <ref>https://www.google.com/books/edition/Super_Mario/9_JvDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0</ref> The strip was eventually dropped, but the strip further helped the magazine gain a unique identity to itself. Gail Tilden also found a perfect voice for the magazine, one that didn't talk down to children and belittle them whilst managing to keep the magazine upbeat and relatable without giving the air of an adult failing to relate to their kid's generation; According to David Sheff in his book ''Game Over'', that voice was a "cross between the dialogue in ''{{wp|Wayne's World}}'' and a {{wp|Pee-wee Herman}} routine." The magazine became the largest-circulating U.S. children's magazine by the end of its first year, while 6,000,000 subscribers were gained by the year 1990. <ref>https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/gxyXUi336egC?hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiwnND9-ruAAxVfI0QIHbheCmEQre8FegQIAxAY</ref> The magazine became so influential among the gaming industry that third-party NES licensees often depended on the magazine's extensive coverage to advertise their NES titles to the American Nintendo audience; accusations were made about possible illegal monopolistic actions made by Nintendo with the magazine, such as giving minimal mention or coverage of a licensee's NES titles when the company was not on good grounds with Nintendo (i.e. making games for Sega's systems, complaining about Nintendo's limiting contract) and showing more coverage of a game(s) (some of them even bad) that was made by a company in Nintendo's good graces. Gail Tilden denied this, stating that "every game had an equal chance of making it into the magazine, no matter which company it was."
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. An Official Nintendo Player's Guide book was released in the late 80s, covering various walkthroughs of NES titles, while ''Nintendo Power'' Strategy Guides for NES titles were also periodically released between the bimonthly standard issues, which were essentially entire "issues" devoted entirely to the walkthrough, guide, and tips and tricks to NES titles such as ''Super Mario Bros. 3'' and ''[[wikipedia: Final Fantasy (game)|Final Fantasy]]''. After ''Nintendo Power'' became monthly, entire books were published with ''Nintendo Power'' that covered multiple walkthroughs of games from various platforms or specific, such as the NES GAME Atlas, {{wp|Game Boy}}, {{mw|Mario Mania}}, and [[Super Nintendo Entertainment System]] books, with ''Nintendo Power'' branded Player's Guide issues that covered one specific game's walkthrough, with this later formula being emulated by BradyGames and Prima's game guides. 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 its over-600,000 subscribers <ref>https://vglegacy.com/pop-culture/nintendo-fun-club/</ref> to transfer over to ''Nintendo Power''. Howard Phillips later stated, "When we first launched the NES in 1985, we figured out very quickly that kids were just dying to get extra information about the games—not just new games that were coming out, but also how to play them." <ref>https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/nintendo-power-remembering-america-s-longest-lasting-game-magazine</ref> Thusly, after the NOA hotlines were formed, Howard Phillips and Gail Tilden started up the ''Nintendo Fun Club'' newsletter to provide a more inexpensive solution. As the ''Nintendo Fun Club'' was becoming too costly to produce, the newsletter was discontinued in 1988, with ''Nintendo Power'' succeeding it. Instead, Arakawa hired Howard Phillips and Gail Tilden to create the paid-subscription ''Nintendo Power'' magazine to satisfy readers' insatiable appetite with a biannual 100-page coverage of all things Nintendo, having seen several examples in Japan and deciding that that should be the focus of the magazine. (''{{wp|Famitsu}}'', ''Famicom Tsushin'', ''Jump'', etc.) Howard Phillips was responsible for fact-checking the NES coverage in the issues, as well as inventing the modern walkthrough format; he and the ''Nintendo Power'' studio would take pictures of the game screens, which the team would then cut out with X-Acto knives and paste them together into one big collage of the game world map.<ref>https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/nintendo-power-remembering-america-s-longest-lasting-game-magazine</ref> Howard Phillips was also featured as a character in a ''Nintendo Power'' comic strip, "Howard and Nester", in which Howard, dressed in a polka-dotted bowtie and having short, impeccable ginger hair (both of which were present on Phillips in real life: by this time, he had gained a {{wp|Howdy-Doody}} quality to him), and the fictionalized teenage skate-punk Nester (NES-ter), engaged in comedic adventures based on the game on the previous issue's cover. <ref>https://www.google.com/books/edition/Super_Mario/9_JvDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0</ref> The strip was eventually dropped, but the strip further helped the magazine gain a unique identity to itself. Gail Tilden also found a perfect voice for the magazine, one that didn't talk down to children and belittle them whilst managing to keep the magazine upbeat and relatable without giving the air of an adult failing to relate to their kid's generation; According to David Sheff in his book ''Game Over'', that voice was a "cross between the dialogue in ''{{wp|Wayne's World}}'' and a {{wp|Pee-wee Herman}} routine." The magazine became the largest-circulating U.S. children's magazine by the end of its first year, while 6,000,000 subscribers were gained by the year 1990. <ref>https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/gxyXUi336egC?hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiwnND9-ruAAxVfI0QIHbheCmEQre8FegQIAxAY</ref> The magazine became so influential among the gaming industry that third-party NES licensees often depended on the magazine's extensive coverage to advertise their NES titles to the American Nintendo audience; accusations were made about possible illegal monopolistic actions made by Nintendo with the magazine, such as giving minimal mention or coverage of a licensee's NES titles when the company was not on good grounds with Nintendo (i.e. making games for Sega's systems, complaining about Nintendo's limiting contract) and showing more coverage of a game(s) (some of them even bad) that was made by a company in Nintendo's good graces. Gail Tilden denied this, stating that "every game had an equal chance of making it into the magazine, no matter which company it was."
Around this time, Howard Phillips had upgraded from being NOA's warehouse manager to being one of Nintendo's official play-testers, becoming so good at hundreds of NES titles that he was the first person to be given the official nickname of "Game Master", with him eventually becoming the face of Nintendo to the American mind, with his celebrity Q scoring higher than {{wp|Pee-wee Herman}}, {{wp|Madonna}}, and the {{wp|Incredible Hulk}}. <ref>https://grantland.com/features/the-rise-of-nintendo-video-games-history/</ref>. Soon, a game counselor sect called "The Big Three" was formed, which consisted of Don James (who headed product analysis to determine that the games that Nintendo put out were of good quality), Howard Philips, and Shigeru Ota, who evaluated Famicom game imports from Japan to choose whether it would be released in the United States on a point-based system. If a game's fate was unknown, the game was tested by a bigger sect called "GC6" (six game counselors), in which six more evaluators gave their opinions on the matter. "First you think every game is the greatest. Then you get more critical," a member of GC6, Phil Sandoff (most likely a misspelling of [[Phil Sandhop]]) would later quote. <ref>https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/gxyXUi336egC?hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiwnND9-ruAAxVfI0QIHbheCmEQre8FegQIAxAY</ref>
Around this time, Howard Phillips had upgraded from being NOA's warehouse manager to being one of Nintendo's official play-testers, becoming so good at hundreds of NES titles that he was the first person to be given the official nickname of "Game Master", with him eventually becoming the face of Nintendo to the American mind, with his celebrity Q scoring higher than {{wp|Pee-wee Herman}}, {{wp|Madonna}}, and {{wp|The Incredible Hulk}}. <ref>https://grantland.com/features/the-rise-of-nintendo-video-games-history/</ref>. Soon, a game counselor sect called "The Big Three" was formed, which consisted of Don James (who headed product analysis to determine that the games that Nintendo put out were of good quality), Howard Philips, and Shigeru Ota, who evaluated Famicom game imports from Japan to choose whether it would be released in the United States on a point-based system. If a game's fate was unknown, the game was tested by a bigger sect called "GC6" (six game counselors), in which six more evaluators gave their opinions on the matter. "First you think every game is the greatest. Then you get more critical," a member of GC6, Phil Sandoff (most likely a misspelling of [[Phil Sandhop]]) would later quote. <ref>https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/gxyXUi336egC?hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiwnND9-ruAAxVfI0QIHbheCmEQre8FegQIAxAY</ref>


[[File:The Wizard.jpg|thumb|right|The movie poster for ''{{wp|The Wizard}}'', the {{wp|Universal}} film that helped promote ''{{mw|Super Mario Bros. 3}}'' and grossed 14,278,900 dollars on a $6,00,000 budget. <ref>https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl3816523265/weekend/</ref>]]
[[File:The Wizard.jpg|thumb|right|The movie poster for ''{{wp|The Wizard}}'', the {{wp|Universal}} film that helped promote ''{{mw|Super Mario Bros. 3}}'' and grossed 14,278,900 dollars on a $6,00,000 budget. <ref>https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl3816523265/weekend/</ref>]]
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