168-396: Muppet RaceMania is a PlayStation racing game based on The Muppets franchise that was developed by Traveller's Tales and released in 2000. The game includes 25 playable muppet characters and 25 vehicles. Players can race on 34 tracks based on locations throughout The Muppets franchise. In a race, there are stars and fruits on the track which the racers can collect. A star gives
336-541: A ROM cartridge format for video games as well as both a central processing unit and a picture processing unit . The Family Computer , or Famicom, was released in Japan in July 1983 along with three games adapted from their original arcade versions: Donkey Kong , Donkey Kong Jr. and Popeye . Its success was such that in 1984, it surpassed the market share held by Sega 's SG-1000 . That success also led to Nintendo leaving
504-962: A debugger . SN Systems produced development kits for future PlayStation systems, including the PlayStation 2 and was bought out by Sony in 2005. Sony strived to make game production as streamlined and inclusive as possible, in contrast to the relatively isolated approach of Sega and Nintendo. Phil Harrison , representative director of SCEE, believed that Sony's emphasis on developer assistance reduced most time-consuming aspects of development. As well as providing programming libraries , SCE headquarters in London, California, and Tokyo housed technical support teams that could work closely with third-party developers if needed. Sony did not favor its own over non-Sony products, unlike Nintendo; Peter Molyneux of Bullfrog Productions admired Sony's open-handed approach to software developers and lauded their decision to use PCs as
672-645: A fifth-generation console , the PlayStation primarily competed with the Nintendo 64 and the Sega Saturn . Sony began developing the PlayStation after a failed venture with Nintendo to create a CD-ROM peripheral for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in the early 1990s. The console was primarily designed by Ken Kutaragi and Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan, while additional development
840-592: A line of successors , beginning with the PlayStation 2 in 2000. In the same year, Sony released a smaller and cheaper model, the PS one. The PlayStation was conceived by Ken Kutaragi , a Sony executive who managed a hardware engineering division and was later dubbed "the Father of the PlayStation". Kutaragi's interest in working with video games stemmed from seeing his daughter play games on Nintendo 's Famicom . Kutaragi convinced Nintendo to use his SPC-700 sound processor in
1008-430: A niche market , the slow and expensive manufacturing process, high product price, alongside long durability of the cards, which impacted sales due to the low replacement rate. As a solution, Nintendo produced a cheaper and lower-quality line of playing cards, Tengu , while also conducting product offerings in other cities such as Osaka , where card game profits were high. In addition, local merchants were interested in
1176-545: A 28% stake in PUX Corporation, a subsidiary of Panasonic , to develop facial , voice , and text recognition for its video games. Due to a 30% decrease in company income between April and December 2013, Iwata announced a temporary 50% cut to his salary, with other executives seeing reductions by 20%–30%. In January 2015, Nintendo ceased operations in the Brazilian market due in part to high import duties . This did not affect
1344-480: A 75% increase in income compared to the previous fiscal year, mainly contributed by the Nintendo Switch Online service. The year saw some changes to the company's management: outside director Naoki Mizutani retired from the board, and was replaced by Asa Shinkawa; and Yoshiaki Koizumi was promoted to senior executive officer, maintaining its role as deputy general manager of Nintendo EPD. By August, Nintendo
1512-586: A CD-ROM-based machine called the Sega Multimedia Entertainment System, but their board of directors in Tokyo vetoed the idea when American CEO Tom Kalinske presented them the proposal. Kalinske recalled them saying: "That's a stupid idea, Sony doesn't know how to make hardware. They don't know how to make software either. Why would we want to do this?" Sony halted their research, but decided to develop what it had developed with Nintendo and Sega into
1680-686: A Sega console. Bleem! were subsequently forced to shut down in November 2001. Sony was aware that using CDs for game distribution could have left games vulnerable to piracy , due to the growing popularity of CD-R and optical disc drives with burning capability. To preclude illegal copying, a proprietary process for PlayStation disc manufacturing was developed that, in conjunction with an augmented optical drive in Tiger H/E assembly, prevented burned copies of games from booting on an unmodified console. Specifically, all genuine PlayStation discs were printed with
1848-703: A Tokyo branch in Chiyoda, Tokyo , and sold more than 1.5 million card packs, holding a high market share , for which it relied on televised advertising campaigns. In 1962, Nintendo became a public company by listing stock on the second section of the Osaka Securities Exchange and the Kyoto Stock Exchange. In the following year, the company adopted its current name, Nintendo & Co., Ltd. and started manufacturing games in addition to playing cards. In 1964, Nintendo earned ¥150 million . Although
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#17328696547362016-657: A console based on the SNES. Despite the tumultuous events at the 1991 CES, negotiations between Nintendo and Sony were still ongoing. A deal was proposed: the Play Station would still have a port for SNES games, on the condition that it would still use Kutaragi's audio chip and that Nintendo would own the rights and receive the bulk of the profits. Roughly two hundred prototype machines were created, and some software entered development. Many within Sony were still opposed to their involvement in
2184-421: A conventional D-pad ), a pair of shoulder buttons on both sides, Start and Select buttons in the centre, and four face buttons consisting of simple geometric shapes: a green triangle, red circle, blue cross, and a pink square ( [REDACTED] , [REDACTED] , [REDACTED] , [REDACTED] ). Rather than depicting traditionally used letters or numbers onto its buttons, the PlayStation controller established
2352-452: A conventional disc drive; however, the disc drive could not detect the wobble frequency (therefore duplicating the discs omitting it), since the laser pickup system of any optical disc drive would interpret this wobble as an oscillation of the disc surface and compensate for it in the reading process. As the disc authenticity was only verified during booting , this copy protection system could be circumvented by swapping any genuine disc with
2520-413: A data-replay system. Nintendo cartridges were expensive to manufacture, and the company controlled all production, prioritizing its own games, while inexpensive compact disc manufacturing occurred at dozens of locations around the world. The PlayStation's architecture and interconnectability with PCs was beneficial to many software developers. The use of the programming language C proved useful during
2688-533: A development platform, remarking that "[it was] like being released from jail in terms of the freedom you have". Another strategy that helped attract software developers was the PlayStation's use of the CD-ROM format instead of traditional cartridges . In contrast to other disc-reading consoles such as the 3DO, the PlayStation could quickly generate and synthesise data from the CD since it was an image-generation system, rather than
2856-519: A financial crisis for the company. To try to find a more successful game, they put Miyamoto in charge of their next arcade game design, leading to the release of Donkey Kong in 1981, one of the first platform video games that allowed the player character to jump. The character Jumpman would later become Mario and Nintendo's official mascot . Mario was named after Mario Segale , the landlord of Nintendo's offices in Tukwila, Washington . Donkey Kong
3024-609: A homage to Nintendo's previous name - Marufuku. In April 2020, Reuters reported that ValueAct Capital had acquired over 2.6 million shares in Nintendo stock worth US$ 1.1 billion over the course of a year, giving them an overall stake of 2% in Nintendo. Although the COVID-19 pandemic caused delays in the production and distribution of some of Nintendo's products, the situation "had limited impact on business results"; in May 2020, Nintendo reported
3192-499: A hybrid design as a home and handheld console, Joy-Con controllers that each contain an accelerometer and gyroscope, and the simultaneous wireless networking of up to eight consoles. To expand its library, Nintendo entered alliances with several third-party and independent developers; by February 2019, more than 1,800 Switch games had been released. Worldwide sales of the Switch exceeded 55 million units by March 2020. In April 2018,
3360-567: A lack of usage. The PlayStation uses a proprietary video compression unit, MDEC, which is integrated into the CPU and allows for the presentation of full motion video at a higher quality than other consoles of its generation. Unusual for the time, the PlayStation lacks a dedicated 2D graphics processor; 2D elements are instead calculated as polygons by the Geometry Transfer Engine (GTE) so that they can be processed and displayed on screen by
3528-562: A long-time employee of the company. Yokoi was moved to the newly created department and was responsible for coordinating various projects. Yokoi's experience in manufacturing electronic devices led Yamauchi to put him in charge of the company's games department, and his products would be mass-produced. During this period, Nintendo built a new production plant in Uji , just outside of Kyoto, and distributed classic tabletop games such as chess , shogi , go , and mahjong , and other foreign games under
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#17328696547363696-577: A maximum colour depth of 16.7 million true colours with 32 levels of transparency and unlimited colour look-up tables . The PlayStation can output composite , S-Video or RGB video signals through its AV Multi connector (with older models also having RCA connectors for composite), displaying resolutions from 256×224 to 640×480 pixels . Different games can use different resolutions. Earlier models also had proprietary parallel and serial ports that could be used to connect accessories or multiple consoles together; these were later removed due to
3864-827: A million units were sold. Nintendo partnered with Magnavox to provide a light gun controller based on the Beam Gun design for the company's new home video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey , in 1971. Other popular toys released at the time included the Ultra Hand , the Ultra Machine , the Ultra Scope, and the Love Tester , all designed by Yokoi. More than 1.2 million units of Ultra Hand were sold in Japan. The growing demand for Nintendo's products led Yamauchi to further expand
4032-560: A music visualisation function called SoundScope. This function, as well as a memory card manager, is accessed by starting the console without either inserting a game or closing the CD tray, thereby accessing a graphical user interface (GUI) for the PlayStation BIOS. The GUI for the PS One and PlayStation differ depending on the firmware version: the original PlayStation GUI had a dark blue background with rainbow graffiti used as buttons, while
4200-402: A new CD format named the "Super Disc", which Sony would design. Under the agreement, Sony would retain sole international rights to every Super Disc game, giving them a large degree of control despite Nintendo's leading position in the video game market. Furthermore, Sony would also be the sole benefactor of licensing related to music and film software that it had been aggressively pursuing as
4368-456: A new department focused on arcade game development was created. In 1980, one of the first handheld video game systems , the Game & Watch , was created by Yokoi from the technology used in portable calculators. It became one of Nintendo's most successful products, with over 43.4 million units sold worldwide during its production period, and for which 59 games were made in total. Nintendo entered
4536-416: A partnership with The Walt Disney Company to incorporate its characters into playing cards, which opened it up to the children's market and resulted in a boost to Nintendo's playing card business. Nintendo automated the production of Japanese playing cards using backing paper, and also developed a distribution system that allowed it to offer its products in toy stores. By 1961, the company had established
4704-499: A press conference on May 10, 1994, although the price and release dates had not been disclosed yet. Sony released the PlayStation in Japan on 3 December 1994, a week after the release of the Sega Saturn , at a price of ¥ 39,800 . Sales in Japan began with a "stunning" success with long queues in shops. Ohga later recalled that he realized how important PlayStation had become for Sony when friends and relatives begged for consoles for their children. PlayStation sold 100,000 units on
4872-488: A proprietary CD-ROM-based system he had been secretly working on which played games with immersive 3D graphics. Kutaragi was confident that his LSI chip could accommodate one million logic gates , which exceeded the capabilities of Sony's semiconductor division at the time. Despite gaining Ohga's enthusiasm, there remained opposition from a majority present at the meeting. Older Sony executives also opposed it, who saw Nintendo and Sega as "toy" manufacturers. The opposers felt
5040-588: A public company, Nintendo distributed its first console, the Color TV-Game , in 1977. It gained international recognition with the release of Donkey Kong in 1981 and the Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Mario Bros. in 1985. Since then, Nintendo has produced some of the most successful consoles in the video game industry , such as the Game Boy , the Super Nintendo Entertainment System ,
5208-517: A secondary application. The Play Station was to be announced at the 1991 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas . However, Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi was wary of Sony's increasing leverage at this point and deemed the original 1988 contract unacceptable upon realising it essentially handed Sony control over all games written on the SNES CD-ROM format. Although Nintendo was dominant in
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5376-422: A series of negotiations, Sony acquired initial support from Namco , Konami , and Williams Entertainment , as well as 250 other development teams in Japan alone. Namco in particular was interested in developing for PlayStation since Namco rivalled Sega in the arcade market. Attaining these companies secured influential games such as Ridge Racer (1993) and Mortal Kombat 3 (1995), Ridge Racer being one of
5544-481: A small section of deliberate irregular data, which the PlayStation's optical pick-up was capable of detecting and decoding . Consoles would not boot game discs without a specific wobble frequency contained in the data of the disc pregap sector (the same system was also used to encode discs' regional lock-outs ). This signal was within Red Book CD tolerances, so PlayStation discs' actual content could still be read by
5712-404: A smaller, redesigned version of the original PlayStation. It was the highest-selling console through the end of the year, outselling all other consoles—including the PlayStation 2. In 2002, Sony released a 5-inch (130 mm) LCD screen add-on for the PS One, referred to as the "Combo pack". It also included a car cigarette lighter adaptor adding an extra layer of portability. Production of
5880-417: A strategic alliance to develop the Nintendo 64 . NEC , Toshiba , and Sharp also contributed technology to the console. The Nintendo 64 was marketed as one of the first consoles to be designed with 64-bit architecture. As part of an agreement with Midway Games , the arcade games Killer Instinct and Cruis'n USA were ported to the console. Although the Nintendo 64 was planned for release in 1995,
6048-557: A subsidiary of the main Sony group, so as to retain the project and maintain relationships with Philips for the MMCD development project. The involvement of SMEJ proved crucial to the PlayStation's early development as the process of manufacturing games on CD-ROM format was similar to that used for audio CDs, with which Sony's music division had considerable experience. While at SMEJ, Kutaragi worked with Epic/Sony Records founder Shigeo Maruyama and Akira Sato; both later became vice presidents of
6216-553: A three-dimensional environment with the aid of a sensor bar; the Nunchuk peripheral that includes an analog controller and an accelerometer; and the Wii MotionPlus expansion that increases the sensitivity of the main controller with the aid of gyroscopes . By 2016, more than 101 million Wii consoles had been sold worldwide, making it the most successful console of its generation, a distinction that Nintendo had not achieved since
6384-472: A trademark which would be incorporated heavily into the PlayStation brand. Teiyu Goto, the designer of the original PlayStation controller, said that the circle and cross represent "yes" and "no", respectively (though this layout is reversed in Western versions); the triangle symbolises a point of view and the square is equated to a sheet of paper to be used to access menus. The European and North American models of
6552-449: Is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto . It develops, publishes and releases both video games and video game consoles . Nintendo was founded in 1889 as Nintendo Koppai by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade hanafuda playing cards. After venturing into various lines of business during the 1960s and acquiring legal status as
6720-411: Is commonly assumed to mean "leave luck to heaven", but the assumption lacks historical validation; it has also been suggested to mean "the temple of free hanafuda ", but even descendants of Yamauchi do not know the true intended meaning of the name. Hanafuda cards had become popular after Japan banned most forms of gambling in 1882, though tolerated hanafuda. Sales of hanafuda cards were popular with
6888-544: Is one of the wealthiest and most valuable companies in the Japanese market. Nintendo was founded as Nintendo Koppai on 23 September 1889 by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi in Shimogyō-ku, Kyoto , Japan, as an unincorporated establishment, to produce and distribute Japanese playing cards , or karuta ( かるた , from Portuguese carta , 'card') , most notably hanafuda ( 花札 , 'flower cards') . The name "Nintendo"
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7056-523: Is the Nintendo Entertainment System , or NES, which was released in North America in 1985. The landmark games Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda were produced by Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka . Composer Koji Kondo reinforced the idea that musical themes could act as a complement to game mechanics rather than simply a miscellaneous element. Production of the NES lasted until 1995, and production of
7224-661: The 128-bit Gekko processor and the DVD drive to be used in Nintendo's next home console. Meanwhile, a series of administrative changes occurred in 2000 when Nintendo's corporate offices were moved to the Minami-ku neighborhood in Kyoto, and Nintendo Benelux was established to manage the Dutch and Belgian territories. In 2001, two new Nintendo consoles were introduced: the Game Boy Advance , which
7392-704: The 1973 oil crisis caused both a spike in the cost of plastics and a change in consumer priorities that put essential products over pastimes, and Nintendo lost several billion yen. In 1974, Nintendo released Wild Gunman , a skeet shooting arcade simulation consisting of a 16 mm image projector with a sensor that detects a beam from the player's light gun . Both the Laser Clay Shooting System and Wild Gunman were successfully exported to Europe and North America. However, Nintendo's production speeds were still slow compared to rival companies such as Bandai and Tomy , and their prices were high, which led to
7560-569: The Atari Jaguar and 3DO suffered low sales due to a lack of developer support, prompting Sony to redouble their efforts in gaining the endorsement of arcade-savvy developers. A team from Epic Sony visited more than a hundred companies throughout Japan in May ;1993 in hopes of attracting game creators with the PlayStation's technological appeal. Sony found that many disliked Nintendo's practices, such as favoring its own games over others. Through
7728-525: The CD-i , and Sony's independent efforts resulted in the creation of the PlayStation console . The first issue of Nintendo Power magazine, which had an annual circulation of 1.5 million copies in the United States, was published in 1988. In July 1989, Nintendo held the first Nintendo Space World trade show with the name Shoshinkai to announce and demonstrate upcoming Nintendo products. That year,
7896-608: The Dual Analog Controller , was revealed to the public in a small glass booth at the 1996 PlayStation Expo in Japan, and released in April 1997 to coincide with the Japanese releases of analogue-capable games Tobal 2 and Bushido Blade . In addition to the two analogue sticks (which also introduced two new buttons mapped to clicking in the analogue sticks), the Dual Analog controller features an "Analog" button and LED beneath
8064-637: The Game Boy Advance SP , an improved version of the Game Boy Advance with a foldable case, an illuminated display, and a rechargeable battery. By the end of its production cycle in 2010, over 43.5 million units had been sold worldwide. Nintendo also released the Game Boy Player , a peripheral that allows Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games to be played on the GameCube. In 2004, Nintendo released
8232-515: The Game Boy Color was released. In addition to backward compatibility with Game Boy games, the console's similar capacity to the NES resulted in select adaptations of games from that library, such as Super Mario Bros. Deluxe . Since then, over 118.6 million Game Boy and Game Boy Color consoles have been sold worldwide. In May 1999, with the advent of the PlayStation 2 , Nintendo entered an agreement with IBM and Panasonic to develop
8400-491: The Nintendo 2DS , a version of the 3DS that lacks the clamshell design of Nintendo's previous handheld consoles and the stereoscopic effects of the 3DS. With 13.5 million units sold worldwide, the Wii U is the least successful video game console in Nintendo's history. In 2014, a new product line was released consisting of figures of Nintendo characters called amiibos . On 25 September 2013, Nintendo announced its acquisition of
8568-1147: The Nintendo DS , the Wii , and the Nintendo Switch . It has created or published numerous major franchises, including Mario , Donkey Kong , The Legend of Zelda , Metroid , Fire Emblem , Kirby , Star Fox , Pokémon , Super Smash Bros. , Animal Crossing , Pikmin , Xenoblade Chronicles , and Splatoon , and Nintendo's mascot, Mario , is internationally recognized, as well as other characters like Donkey Kong , Link , Samus Aran , Kirby , and Pikachu . The company has sold more than 5.592 billion video games and over 836 million hardware units globally, as of March 2023. Nintendo has multiple subsidiaries in Japan and abroad, in addition to business partners such as HAL Laboratory , Intelligent Systems , Game Freak , and The Pokémon Company . Nintendo and its staff have received awards including Emmy Awards for Technology & Engineering , Game Awards , Game Developers Choice Awards , and British Academy Games Awards . It
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#17328696547368736-570: The Nintendo DS , which featured such innovations as dual screens – one of which is a touchscreen – and wireless connectivity for multiplayer play. Throughout its lifetime, more than 154 million units were sold, making it the most successful handheld console and the second bestselling console in history. In 2005, Nintendo released the Game Boy Micro , the last system in the Game Boy line . Sales did not meet Nintendo's expectations, with 2.5 million units being sold by 2007. In mid-2005,
8904-645: The Nintendo Labo line was released, consisting of cardboard accessories that interact with the Switch and the Joy-Con controllers. More than one million units of the Nintendo Labo Variety Kit were sold in its first year on the market. In 2018, Shuntaro Furukawa replaced Kimishima as company president, and in 2019, Doug Bowser succeeded Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé . In April 2019, Nintendo formed an alliance with Tencent to distribute
9072-643: The Nintendo World Store was inaugurated in New York City. Nintendo's next home console was conceived in 2001, although development commenced in 2003, taking inspiration from the Nintendo DS. Nintendo also considered the relative failure of the GameCube and instead opted to take a " Blue Ocean Strategy " by developing a reduced performance console in contrast to the high-performance consoles of Sony and Microsoft to avoid directly competing with them. The Wii
9240-501: The PlayStation 2 , which Kutaragi announced would feature a graphics processor designed to push more raw polygons than any console in history, effectively rivalling most supercomputers. The PlayStation continued to sell strongly at the turn of the new millennium: in June 2000, Sony released the PSOne, a smaller, redesigned variant which went on to outsell all other consoles in that year, including
9408-471: The PlayStation 3 . More than 4,000 PlayStation games were released, with cumulative sales of 962 million units. The PlayStation signalled Sony's rise to power in the video game industry . It received acclaim and sold strongly; in less than a decade, it became the first computer entertainment platform to ship over 100 million units. Its use of compact discs heralded the game industry's transition from cartridges . The PlayStation's success led to
9576-708: The PocketStation is a memory card peripheral which acts as a miniature personal digital assistant . The device features a monochrome liquid crystal display (LCD), infrared communication capability, a real-time clock, built-in flash memory, and sound capability. Sharing similarities with the Dreamcast's VMU peripheral, the PocketStation was typically distributed with certain PlayStation games, enhancing them with added features. The PocketStation proved popular in Japan, selling over five million units. Sony planned to release
9744-609: The Sharp Corporation . In 1988, Gunpei Yokoi and his team at Nintendo R&D1 conceived the Game Boy , the first handheld video game console made by Nintendo. Nintendo released the Game Boy in 1989. In North America, the Game Boy was bundled with the popular third-party game Tetris after a difficult negotiation process with Elektronorgtechnica . The Game Boy was a significant success. In its first two weeks of sale in Japan, its initial inventory of 300,000 units sold out, and in
9912-459: The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) through a demonstration of the processor's capabilities. His willingness to work with Nintendo derived from both his admiration of the Famicom and conviction in video game consoles becoming the main home-use entertainment systems. Although Kutaragi was nearly fired because he worked with Nintendo without Sony's knowledge, president Norio Ohga recognised
10080-587: The Taishō era dated to 1915 indicates that the business was named Yamauchi Nintendo but still used the Marufuku Nintendo Co. brand for its playing cards. Japanese culture stipulated that for Nintendo to continue as a family business after Yamauchi's retirement, Yamauchi had to adopt his son-in-law so that he could take over the business. As a result, Sekiryo Kaneda adopted the Yamauchi surname in 1907 and headed
10248-690: The Vectrex ; instead of relying on binary eight-way switches, the controller detects minute angular changes through the entire range of motion. The stick also features a thumb-operated digital hat switch on the right joystick, corresponding to the traditional D-pad, and used for instances when simple digital movements were necessary. The Analog Joystick sold poorly in Japan due to its high cost and cumbersome size. The increasing popularity of 3D games prompted Sony to add analogue sticks to its controller design to give users more freedom over their movements in virtual 3D environments. The first official analogue controller,
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#173286965473610416-414: The arcade video game market with Sheriff and Radar Scope , released in Japan in 1979 and 1980 respectively. Sheriff , also known as Bandido in some regions, marked the first original video game made by Nintendo, was published by Sega and developed by Genyo Takeda and Shigeru Miyamoto . Radar Scope rivaled Galaxian in Japanese arcades but failed to find an audience overseas and created
10584-450: The iOS and Android systems, Miitomo , was released. Since then, Nintendo has produced other similar apps, such as Super Mario Run , Fire Emblem Heroes , Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp , Mario Kart Tour , and Pokémon Go , the last being developed by Niantic and having generated $ 115 million in revenue for Nintendo. In March 2016, the loyalty program My Nintendo replaced Club Nintendo . The NES Classic Edition
10752-423: The natural environment and regional culture of Sonobe , popular culture influences like Westerns and detective fiction , along with folk Shinto practices and family media . These would each be seen in most of Nintendo's major franchises which developed following Miyamoto's creative leadership. Two key events in Nintendo's history occurred in 1979: its American subsidiary was opened in New York City, and
10920-450: The yakuza -run gaming parlors in Kyoto. Other card manufacturers had opted to leave the market not wanting to be associated with criminal ties, but Yamauchi persisted without such fears to become the primary producer of hanafuda within a few years. With the increase of the cards' popularity, Yamauchi hired assistants to mass-produce to satisfy the demand. Even with a favorable start, the business faced financial struggle due to operating in
11088-697: The "Play It Loud!" advertising campaign for Game Boys with different-colored casings. The Advanced Computer Modeling graphics used in Donkey Kong Country for the Super NES and Donkey Kong Land for the Game Boy were technologically innovative, as was the Satellaview satellite modem peripheral for the Super Famicom, which allowed the digital transmission of data via a communications satellite in space. In mid-1993, Nintendo and Silicon Graphics announced
11256-405: The "Start" and "Select" buttons which toggles analogue functionality on or off. The controller also features rumble support , though Sony decided that haptic feedback would be removed from all overseas iterations before the United States release. A Sony spokesman stated that the feature was removed for "manufacturing reasons", although rumours circulated that Nintendo had attempted to legally block
11424-551: The "cop2" 3D and matrix math coprocessor on the same die to provide the necessary speed to render complex 3D graphics. The role of the separate GPU chip is to draw 2D polygons and apply shading and textures to them: the rasterisation stage of the graphics pipeline. Sony's custom 16- bit sound chip supports ADPCM sources with up to 24 sound channels and offers a sampling rate of up to 44.1 kHz and MIDI sequencing. It features 2 MB of main RAM , with an additional 1 MB being allocated to video memory . The PlayStation has
11592-408: The 1990s with the Super NES. Several accessories were released for the Wii from 2007 to 2010, such as the Wii Balance Board , the Wii Wheel and the WiiWare download service. In 2009, Nintendo Iberica S.A. expanded its commercial operations to Portugal through a new office in Lisbon . By that year, Nintendo held a 68.3% share of the worldwide handheld gaming market. In 2010, Nintendo celebrated
11760-465: The 25th anniversary of Mario's debut appearance, for which certain allusive products were put on sale. The event included the release of Super Mario All-Stars 25th Anniversary Edition and special editions of the Nintendo DSi XL and Wii. Following an announcement in March 2010, Nintendo released the Nintendo 3DS in 2011. The console produces stereoscopic effects without 3D glasses. By 2018, more than 69 million units had been sold worldwide;
11928-569: The 3.5 megabyte restriction. Kutaragi said that while it would have been easy to double the amount of RAM for the PlayStation, the development team refrained from doing so to keep the retail cost down. Kutaragi saw the biggest challenge in developing the system to be balancing the conflicting goals of high performance, low cost, and being easy to program for, and felt he and his team were successful in this regard. Its technical specifications were finalised in 1993 and its design during 1994. The PlayStation name and its final design were confirmed during
12096-515: The European release of the GameCube in May 2002, Hiroshi Yamauchi announced his resignation as the president of Nintendo, and Satoru Iwata was selected by the company as his successor. Yamauchi would remain as advisor and director of the company until 2005, and he died in 2013. Iwata's appointment as president ended the Yamauchi succession at the helm of the company, a practice that had been in place since its foundation. In 2003, Nintendo released
12264-505: The Famicom in America was also impacted. To differentiate the Famicom from its competitors in America, Nintendo rebranded it as an entertainment system and its cartridges as Game Paks, with a design reminiscent of a VCR . Nintendo implemented a lockout chip in the Game Paks for control on its third party library to avoid the market saturation that had occurred in the United States. The result
12432-560: The Famicom lasted until 2003. In total, around 62 million Famicom and NES consoles were sold worldwide. During this period, Nintendo created a copyright infringement protection in the form of the Official Nintendo Seal of Quality, added to their products so that customers may recognize their authenticity in the market. By this time, Nintendo's network of electronic suppliers had extended to around thirty companies, including Ricoh (Nintendo's main source for semiconductors ) and
12600-481: The Famicom. In the early 1980s, several video game consoles proliferated in the United States, as well as low-quality games produced by third-party developers , which oversaturated the market and led to the video game crash of 1983 . Consequently, a recession hit the American video game industry , whose revenues went from over $ 3 billion to $ 100 million between 1983 and 1985. Nintendo's initiative to launch
12768-469: The GPU. Whilst running, the GPU can also generate a total of 4,000 sprites and 180,000 polygons per second, in addition to 360,000 per second flat-shaded . The PlayStation went through a number of variants during its production run. Externally, the most notable change was the gradual reduction in the number of external connectors from the rear of the unit. This started with the original Japanese launch units;
12936-429: The GameCube, even with such distinguishing features as the miniDVD format of its games and Internet connectivity for a few games, its sales were lower than those of its predecessors, and during the six years of its production, 21.7 million units were sold worldwide. The GameCube struggled against its rivals in the market, and its initial poor sales led to Nintendo posting a first half fiscal year loss in 2003 for
13104-573: The January ;1994 CES in Las Vegas , Beveridge and Day presented their prototype of the condensed development kit, which could run on an ordinary personal computer with two extension boards. Impressed, Sony decided to abandon their plans for a workstation-based development system in favour of SN Systems's, thus securing a cheaper and more efficient method for designing software. An order of over 600 systems followed, and SN Systems supplied Sony with additional software such as an assembler , linker , and
13272-404: The Japanese arcade market in late 1985. At this time, Nintendo adopted a series of guidelines that involved the validation of each game produced for the Famicom before its distribution on the market, agreements with developers to ensure that no Famicom game would be adapted to other consoles within two years of its release, and restricting developers from producing more than five games per year for
13440-635: The LCD "Combo Pack" ceased in 2004, when the popularity of the PlayStation began to wane in markets outside Japan. A total of 28.15 million PS One units had been sold by the time it was discontinued in March 2006. Three iterations of the PlayStation's controller were released over the console's lifespan. The first controller, the PlayStation controller , was released alongside the PlayStation in December 1994. It features four individual directional buttons (as opposed to
13608-549: The Muppets' huge charisma to overcome its technical shortcomings." PlayStation (console) The PlayStation (abbreviated as PS , commonly known as the PS1/PS one or its codename PSX ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment . It was released in Japan on 3 December 1994 followed by North America on 9 September 1995, Europe on 29 September 1995, and other regions following thereafter. As
13776-743: The NES. In response to the competition, Uemura designed the Super Famicom , which launched in 1990. The first batch of 300,000 consoles sold out in hours. The following year, as with the NES, Nintendo distributed a modified version of the Super Famicom to the United States market, titled the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Launch games for the Super Famicom and Super NES include Super Mario World , F-Zero , Pilotwings , SimCity , and Gradius III . By mid-1992, over 46 million Super Famicom and Super NES consoles had been sold. The console's life cycle lasted until 1999 in
13944-671: The Nintendo Switch in China starting in December. The theme park area Super Nintendo World opened at Universal Studios Japan in 2021. In early 2020, Plan See Do, a hotel and restaurant development company, announced that it would refurbish the former Nintendo headquarters from the 1930s as a hotel, with plans to add 20 guest rooms, a restaurant, a bar, and a gym. The building is owned by Yamauchi Co., Ltd., an asset management company of Nintendo's founding family. The hotel later opened in April 2022, with 18 guest rooms, and named Marufukuro in
14112-628: The Nippon Game brand. The company's restructuring preserved a couple of areas dedicated to playing card manufacturing. In 1970, the company's stock listing was promoted to the first section of the Osaka Stock Exchange, and the reconstruction and enlargement of its corporate headquarters was completed. The year represented a watershed moment in Nintendo's history as it released Japan's first electronic toy—the Beam Gun , an optoelectronic pistol designed by Masayuki Uemura . In total, more than
14280-459: The PlayStation 2. The combined successes of both PlayStation consoles led to Sega retiring the Dreamcast in 2001, and abandoning the console business entirely. The PlayStation was eventually discontinued on 23 March 2006—over eleven years after its release, and less than a year before the debut of the PlayStation 3 . The main microprocessor is a 32-bit LSI R3000 CPU with a clock rate of 33.86 MHz and 30 MIPS . Its CPU relies heavily on
14448-454: The PlayStation and Saturn had been on the market for nearly two years, the competition between them was still "very close", and neither console had led in sales for any meaningful length of time. By 1998, Sega, encouraged by their declining market share and significant financial losses, launched the Dreamcast as a last-ditch attempt to stay in the industry. Although its launch was successful,
14616-485: The PlayStation does not produce a proper signal on several older models of televisions, causing the display to flicker or bounce around the screen. Sony decided not to change the console design, since only a small percentage of PlayStation owners used such televisions, and instead gave consumers the option of sending their PlayStation unit to a Sony service centre to have an official modchip installed, allowing play on older televisions. Nintendo Nintendo Co., Ltd.
14784-416: The PlayStation when it is not in use, as the system draws in a small amount of power (and therefore heat) even when turned off. The first batch of PlayStations use a KSM-440AAM laser unit, whose case and movable parts are all built out of plastic. Over time, the plastic lens sled rail wears out—usually unevenly—due to friction. The placement of the laser unit close to the power supply accelerates wear, due to
14952-473: The PlayStation's release in Europe and North America. Ian Hetherington , Psygnosis' co-founder, was disappointed after receiving early builds of the PlayStation and recalled that the console "was not fit for purpose" until his team got involved with it. Hetherington frequently clashed with Sony executives over broader ideas; at one point it was suggested that a television with a built-in PlayStation be produced. In
15120-583: The PlayStation's release, with the arcade release of Tekken in September 1994. Despite securing the support of various Japanese studios, Sony had no developers of their own by the time the PlayStation was in development. This changed in 1993 when Sony acquired the Liverpudlian company Psygnosis (later renamed SCE Liverpool) for US$ 48 million, securing their first in-house development team. The acquisition meant that Sony could have more launch games ready for
15288-425: The PlayStation, Molyneux observed that its MIPS processor was not "quite as bullish" compared to that of a fast PC and said that it took his team two weeks to port their PC code to the PlayStation development kits and another fortnight to achieve a four-fold speed increase. An engineer from Ocean Software , one of Europe's largest game developers at the time, thought that allocating RAM was a challenging aspect given
15456-554: The SCPH-1000, released on 3 December 1994, was the only model that had an S-Video port, as it was removed from the next model. Subsequent models saw a reduction in number of parallel ports, with the final version only retaining one serial port. Sony marketed a development kit for amateur developers known as the Net Yaroze (meaning "Let's do it together" in Japanese ). It was launched in June 1996 in Japan, and following public interest,
15624-487: The SNES and Mega Drive from the fourth generation still outsold it. Sony reported that the attach rate of sold games and consoles was four to one. To meet increasing demand, Sony chartered jumbo jets and ramped up production in Europe and North America. By early 1996, the PlayStation had grossed $ 2 billion (equivalent to $ 3.885 billion 2023) from worldwide hardware and software sales. By late 1996, sales in Europe totalled 2.2 million units, including 700,000 in
15792-486: The SPC-700 sound processor for the SNES, Nintendo contracted Sony to develop a CD-ROM add-on, tentatively titled the "Play Station" or " SNES-CD ". The PlayStation name had already been trademarked by Yamaha, but Nobuyuki Idei liked it so much that he agreed to acquire it for an undisclosed sum rather than search for an alternative. Sony was keen to obtain a foothold in the rapidly expanding video game market. Having been
15960-465: The Saturn had released early in the United States to gain an advantage over the PlayStation, the surprise launch upset many retailers who were not informed in time, harming sales. Some retailers such as KB Toys responded by dropping the Saturn entirely. The PlayStation went on sale in North America on 9 September 1995. It sold more units within two days than the Saturn had in five months, with almost all of
16128-435: The Sony brand would be tarnished if associated with the console, which they considered a "toy". Since Sony had no experience in game development, it had to rely on the support of third-party game developers . This was in contrast to Sega and Nintendo, which had versatile and well-equipped in-house software divisions for their arcade games and could easily port successful games to their home consoles. Recent consoles like
16296-478: The UK. Approximately 400 PlayStation games were in development, compared to around 200 games being developed for the Saturn and 60 for the Nintendo 64 . In India, the PlayStation was launched in test market during 1999–2000 across Sony showrooms, selling 100 units. Sony finally launched the console (PS One model) countrywide on 24 January 2002 with the price of Rs 7,990 and 26 games available from start. The PlayStation
16464-479: The United Kingdom by securing listings with independent shop owners as well as prominent High Street chains such as Comet and Argos . Within its first year, the PlayStation secured over 20% of the entire American video game market. From September to the end of 1995, sales in the United States amounted to 800,000 units, giving the PlayStation a commanding lead over the other fifth-generation consoles, though
16632-639: The United Kingdom, Spain, Belgium, and Australia. In 1992, Nintendo acquired a majority stake in the Seattle Mariners baseball team, and sold most of its shares in 2016. On July 31, 1992, Nintendo of America announced it would cease manufacturing arcade games and systems. In 1993, Star Fox was released, which marked an industry milestone by being the first video game to make use of the Super FX chip. The proliferation of graphically violent video games, such as Mortal Kombat , caused controversy and led to
16800-456: The United States due to the high demand for PlayStation games, increasing their monthly output from 4 million discs to 6.5 million discs. This was necessary because PlayStation sales were running at twice the rate of Saturn sales, and its lead dramatically increased when both consoles dropped in price to $ 199 that year. The PlayStation also outsold the Saturn at a similar ratio in Europe during 1996, with 2.2 million consoles sold in
16968-555: The United States, and until 2003 in Japan. In March 1990, the first Nintendo World Championship was held, with participants from 29 American cities competing for the title of "best Nintendo player in the world". In June 1990, the subsidiary Nintendo of Europe was opened in Großostheim , Germany; in 1993, subsequent subsidiaries were established in the Netherlands (where Bandai had previously distributed Nintendo's products), France,
17136-482: The United States, an additional 40,000 units were sold on its first day of distribution. Around this time, Nintendo entered an agreement with Sony to develop the Super Famicom CD-ROM Adapter , a peripheral for the upcoming Super Famicom capable of playing CD-ROMs . However, the collaboration did not last as Yamauchi preferred to continue developing the technology with Philips , which would result in
17304-451: The additional heat, which makes the plastic more vulnerable to friction. Eventually, one side of the lens sled will become so worn that the laser can tilt, no longer pointing directly at the CD; after this, games will no longer load due to data read errors. Sony fixed the problem by making the sled out of die-cast metal and placing the laser unit further away from the power supply on later PlayStation models. Due to an engineering oversight,
17472-542: The business in 1929. By that time, Nintendo was the largest playing card business in Japan. In 1933, Sekiryo Kaneda established the company as a general partnership named Yamauchi Nintendo & Co., Ltd. investing in the construction of a new corporate headquarters located next to the original building, near the Toba-kaidō train station . Because Sekiryo's marriage to Yamauchi's daughter produced no male heirs, he planned to adopt his son-in-law Shikanojo Inaba, an artist in
17640-549: The business styled itself as Marufuku Nintendo Card Co. The war created considerable difficulties for companies in the leisure sector, which were subject to new levies such as the Karuta Zei ("playing cards tax"). Nintendo subsisted and, in 1907, entered into an agreement with Nihon Senbai—later known as the Japan Tobacco —to market its cards to various cigarette stores throughout the country. A Nintendo promotional calendar from
17808-496: The company was experiencing a period of economic prosperity, the Disney cards and derived products made it dependent on the children's market. The situation was exacerbated by the falling sales of its adult-oriented playing cards caused by Japanese society gravitating toward other hobbies such as pachinko , bowling , and nightly outings. When Disney card sales began to decline, Nintendo realized that it had no real alternative to alleviate
17976-426: The company's employ and the father of his grandson Hiroshi , born in 1927. However, Inaba abandoned his family and the company, so Hiroshi was made Sekiryo's eventual successor. World War II negatively impacted the company as Japanese authorities prohibited the diffusion of foreign card games, and as the priorities of Japanese society shifted, its interest in recreational activities waned. During this time, Nintendo
18144-402: The conference stage, who said "$ 299" and left the audience with a round of applause. The attention to the Sony conference was further bolstered by the surprise appearance of Michael Jackson and the showcase of highly anticipated games, including Wipeout (1995), Ridge Racer and Tekken (1994). In addition, Sony announced that no games would be bundled with the console. Although
18312-550: The console's appeal enlarged, Sony's marketing efforts broadened from their earlier focus on mature players to specifically target younger children as well. Shortly after the PlayStation's release in Europe, Sony tasked marketing manager Geoff Glendenning with assessing the desires of a new target audience. Sceptical over Nintendo and Sega's reliance on television campaigns, Glendenning theorised that young adults transitioning from fourth-generation consoles would feel neglected by marketing directed at children and teenagers. Recognising
18480-639: The copied disc, while modchips could remove the protection system altogether by tricking the console into thinking the wobble is there on the pirated disc. Sony untruthfully suggested in advertisements that discs' unique black undersides played a role in copy protection. In reality, the black plastic used was transparent to any infrared laser and did not itself pose an obstacle to duplicators or computer CD drives, although it may have helped customers distinguish between unofficial and genuine copies. Early PlayStations, particularly early 1000 models, experience skipping full-motion video or physical "ticking" noises from
18648-702: The creation of the Interactive Digital Software Association and the Entertainment Software Rating Board , in whose development Nintendo collaborated during 1994. These measures also encouraged Nintendo to abandon the content guidelines it had enforced since the release of the NES. Commercial strategies implemented by Nintendo during this time include the Nintendo Gateway System , an in-flight entertainment service available for airlines, cruise ships and hotels, and
18816-796: The default controller. Sony released a series of peripherals to add extra layers of functionality to the PlayStation. Such peripherals include memory cards, the PlayStation Mouse , the PlayStation Link Cable , the Multiplayer Adapter (a four-player multitap ), the Memory Drive (a disk drive for 3.5-inch floppy disks ), the GunCon (a light gun ), and the Glasstron (a monoscopic head-mounted display ). Released exclusively in Japan,
18984-558: The discontinuation of some of their light gun products. The subsidiary Nintendo Leisure System Co., Ltd., which developed these products, was closed as a result of the economic impact dealt by the oil crisis. Yamauchi, motivated by the successes of Atari and Magnavox with their video game consoles , acquired the Japanese distribution rights for the Magnavox Odyssey in 1974, and reached an agreement with Mitsubishi Electric to develop similar products between 1975 and 1978, including
19152-476: The division that ran the PlayStation business. Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) was jointly established by Sony and SMEJ to handle the company's ventures into the video game industry. On 27 October 1993, Sony publicly announced that it was entering the game console market with the PlayStation. According to Maruyama, there was uncertainty over whether the console should primarily focus on 2D , sprite -based graphics or 3D polygon graphics . After Sony witnessed
19320-449: The early PAL PlayStation and PS One GUI had a grey blocked background with two icons in the middle. PlayStation emulation is versatile and can be run on numerous modern devices. Bleem! was a commercial emulator which was released for IBM-compatible PCs and the Dreamcast in 1999. It was notable for being aggressively marketed during the PlayStation's lifetime, and was the centre of multiple controversial lawsuits filed by Sony. Bleem!
19488-445: The early stages of development as it safeguarded future compatibility of the machine should developers decide to make further hardware revisions. Sony used the free software GNU C compiler, also known as GCC, to guarantee short debugging times as it was already familiar to many programmers. Despite the inherent flexibility, some developers found themselves restricted due to the console's lack of RAM . While working on beta builds of
19656-520: The figure increased to 75 million by the start of 2019. In 2011, Nintendo celebrated the 25th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda with the orchestra concert tour The Legend of Zelda : Symphony of the Goddesses and the video game The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword . In 2012 and 2013, two new Nintendo game consoles were introduced: the Wii U , with high-definition graphics and a GamePad controller with near-field communication technology, and
19824-658: The first microprocessor for video games systems, the Color TV-Game series, and an arcade game inspired by Othello . During this period, Takeda developed the video game EVR Race , and Shigeru Miyamoto joined Yokoi's team with the responsibility of designing the casing for the Color TV-Game consoles. In 1978, Nintendo's research and development department was split into two facilities, Nintendo Research & Development 1 and Nintendo Research & Development 2 , respectively managed by Yokoi and Uemura. Shigeru Miyamoto brought distinctive sources of inspiration, including
19992-418: The first World of Nintendo stores-within-a-store , which carried official Nintendo merchandise, were opened in the United States. According to company information, more than 25% of homes in the United States had an NES in 1989. In the late 1980s, Nintendo's dominance slipped with the appearance of NEC 's PC Engine and Sega 's Mega Drive , 16-bit game consoles with improved graphics and audio compared to
20160-498: The first company to succeed in mass-producing plastic playing cards in Japan. Some of the company's employees, accustomed to a more cautious and conservative leadership, viewed the new measures with concern, and the rising tension led to a call for a strike . However, the measure had no major impact, as Hiroshi resorted to the dismissal of several dissatisfied workers. In 1959, Nintendo moved its headquarters to Kamitakamatsu-cho, Fukuine, Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto. The company entered into
20328-471: The first day and two million units within six months, although the Saturn outsold the PlayStation in the first few weeks due to the success of Virtua Fighter . By the end of 1994, 300,000 PlayStation units were sold in Japan compared to 500,000 Saturn units. A grey market emerged for PlayStations shipped from Japan to North America and Europe, with buyers of such consoles paying up to £700. "When September 1995 arrived and Sony's Playstation roared out of
20496-453: The first time since the company went public in 1962. In 2002, the Pokémon Mini was released. Its dimensions were smaller than that of the Game Boy Advance and it weighed 70 grams, making it the smallest video game console in history. Nintendo collaborated with Sega and Namco to develop Triforce , an arcade board to facilitate the conversion of arcade titles to the GameCube. Following
20664-505: The game industry was too culturally offbeat and asserted that Sony should remain a central player in the audiovisual industry, where companies were familiar with one another and could conduct "civili[s]ed" business negotiations. After Kutaragi reminded him of the humiliation he suffered from Nintendo, Ohga retained the project and became one of Kutaragi's most staunch supporters. Ohga shifted Kutaragi and nine of his team from Sony's main headquarters to Sony Music Entertainment Japan (SMEJ),
20832-516: The gate, things immediately felt different than [ sic ] they did with the Saturn launch earlier that year. Sega dropped the Saturn $ 100 to match the Playstation's $ 299 debut price, but sales weren't even close—Playstations flew out the door as fast as we could get them in stock. —Lee Hutchinson of Ars Technica , a Babbage's employee in 1995, recalling how PlayStation preorders greatly outnumbered Saturn sales at his shop. Before
21000-585: The greatest of all time . In 1995, Nintendo released the Virtual Boy , a console designed by Gunpei Yokoi with stereoscopic graphics . Critics were generally disappointed with the quality of the games and red-colored graphics, and complained of gameplay-induced headaches. The system sold poorly and was quietly discontinued. Amid the system's failure, Yokoi formally retired from Nintendo. In February 1996, Pocket Monsters Red and Green , known internationally as Pokémon Red and Blue , developed by Game Freak
21168-493: The influence early 1990s underground clubbing and rave culture had on young people, especially in the United Kingdom, Glendenning felt that the culture had become mainstream enough to help cultivate PlayStation's emerging identity. Sony partnered with prominent nightclub owners such as Ministry of Sound and festival promoters to organise dedicated PlayStation areas where demonstrations of select games could be tested. Sheffield -based graphic design studio The Designers Republic
21336-418: The initial shipment of 100,000 units sold in advance and shops across the country running out of consoles and accessories. The well-received Ridge Racer contributed to the PlayStation's early success, — with some critics considering it superior to Sega's arcade counterpart Daytona USA (1994) — as did Battle Arena Toshinden (1995). There were over 100,000 pre-orders placed and 17 games available on
21504-552: The market by the time of the PlayStation's American launch, in comparison to the Saturn's six launch games. The PlayStation released in Europe on 29 September 1995 and in Australia on 15 November 1995. By November it had already outsold the Saturn by three to one in the United Kingdom, where Sony had allocated a £20 million marketing budget during the Christmas season compared to Sega's £4 million. Sony found early success in
21672-426: The months leading up to the PlayStation's launch, Psygnosis had around 500 full-time staff working on games and assisting with software development. The purchase of Psygnosis marked another turning point for the PlayStation as it played a vital role in creating the console's development kits . While Sony had provided MIPS R4000 -based Sony NEWS workstations for PlayStation development, Psygnosis employees disliked
21840-609: The most popular arcade games at the time, and it was already confirmed behind closed doors that it would be the PlayStation's first game by December 1993, despite Namco being a longstanding Nintendo developer. Namco's research managing director Shegeichi Nakamura met with Kutaragi in 1993 to discuss the preliminary PlayStation specifications, with Namco subsequently basing the Namco System 11 arcade board on PlayStation hardware and developing Tekken to compete with Virtua Fighter . The System 11 launched in arcades several months before
22008-411: The new console under the alternative branding "PSX" following the negative feedback regarding "PlayStation" in focus group studies. Early advertising prior to the console's launch in North America referenced PSX, but the term was scrapped before launch. The console was not marketed with Sony's name in contrast to Nintendo's consoles. According to Phil Harrison , much of Sony's upper management feared that
22176-555: The new console's ability to utilize redbook audio from the CD-ROM format in its games alongside high quality visuals and gameplay. Wishing to distance the project from the failed enterprise with Nintendo, Sony initially branded the PlayStation the "PlayStation X" (PSX). Sony formed their European division and North American division, known as Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) and Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA), in January and May 1995. The divisions planned to market
22344-407: The offices, for which he acquired the surrounding land and assigned the production of cards to the original Nintendo building. Meanwhile, Yokoi, Uemura, and new employees such as Genyo Takeda , continued to develop innovative products for the company. The Laser Clay Shooting System was released in 1973 and managed to surpass bowling in popularity. Though Nintendo's toys continued to gain popularity,
22512-597: The original PlayStation controllers are roughly 10% larger than its Japanese variant, to account for the fact the average person in those regions has larger hands than the average Japanese person. Sony's first analogue gamepad, the PlayStation Analog Joystick (often erroneously referred to as the "Sony Flightstick"), was first released in Japan in April ;1996. Featuring two parallel joysticks, it uses potentiometer technology previously used on consoles such as
22680-491: The peripheral outside Japan but the release was cancelled, despite receiving promotion in Europe and North America. In addition to playing games, most PlayStation models are equipped to play audio CDs; the Asian model SCPH-5903 can also play Video CDs . Like most CD players, the PlayStation can play songs in a programmed order, shuffle the playback order of the disc and repeat one song or the entire disc. Later PlayStation models use
22848-531: The potential in Kutaragi's chip and decided to keep him as a protégé. The inception of the PlayStation dates back to a 1988 joint venture between Nintendo and Sony. Nintendo had produced floppy disk technology to complement cartridges in the form of the Family Computer Disk System , and wanted to continue this complementary storage strategy for the SNES. Since Sony was already contracted to produce
23016-408: The preferable console for adolescents and adults. Premier PlayStation franchises included Gran Turismo , Crash Bandicoot , Spyro , Tomb Raider , Resident Evil , Metal Gear , Tekken , and Final Fantasy , all of which spawned numerous sequels. Sony ceased production of the PlayStation on 23 March 2006—over eleven years after it had been released, and less than a year before the debut of
23184-490: The presidency and headed manufacturing operations. His first actions involved several important changes in the operation of the company: in 1951, he changed the company name to Nintendo Playing Card Co., Ltd. and in the following year, he centralized the manufacturing facilities dispersed in Kyoto, which led to the expansion of the offices in Kamitakamatsu-cho, Fukuine, Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto. In 1953, Nintendo became
23352-454: The primary manufacturer of the ill-fated MSX home computer format, Sony had wanted to use their experience in consumer electronics to produce their own video game hardware. Although the initial agreement between Nintendo and Sony was about producing a CD-ROM drive add-on, Sony had also planned to develop a SNES-compatible Sony-branded console. This iteration was intended to be more of a home entertainment system, playing both SNES cartridges and
23520-576: The production schedules of third-party developers influenced a delay, and the console was released in June 1996 in Japan, September 1996 in the United States and March 1997 in Europe. By the end of its production in 2002, around 33 million Nintendo 64 consoles were sold worldwide, and it is considered one of the most recognized video game systems in history. 388 games were produced for the Nintendo 64 in total, some of which – particularly Super Mario 64 , The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time , and GoldenEye 007 – have been distinguished as some of
23688-502: The prospect of continuous renewal of decks, thus avoiding the suspicions that reusing cards would generate. According to Nintendo, the business' first western-style card deck was put on the market in 1902, although other documents postpone the date to 1907, shortly after the Russo-Japanese War . Although the cards were initially meant for export, they quickly gained popularity not only abroad but also in Japan. During this time,
23856-528: The racer one of three weapons which can be used to attack other racers. Collecting fruit increases a colored gauge. Once the gauge is full, the racer can do one of two super moves: one the cripples the other racers, and one that makes the racer fly and move faster. The effect of the super move ends once the gauge empties. The game received average reviews according to the review aggregation website GameRankings . However, Eric Bratcher of NextGen called it "A substandard kart racer that unsuccessfully relies upon
24024-429: The region by the end of the year. Sales figures for PlayStation hardware and software only increased following the launch of the Nintendo 64. Tokunaka speculated that the Nintendo 64 launch had actually helped PlayStation sales by raising public awareness of the gaming market through Nintendo's added marketing efforts. Despite this, the PlayStation took longer to achieve dominance in Japan. Tokunaka said that, even after
24192-479: The release in North America, Sega and Sony presented their consoles at the first Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles on 11 May 1995. At their keynote presentation, Sega of America CEO Tom Kalinske revealed that its Saturn console would be released immediately to select retailers at a price of $ 399. Next came Sony's turn: Olaf Olafsson , the head of SCEA, summoned Steve Race, the head of development, to
24360-739: The release of the controller outside Japan due to similarities with the Nintendo 64 controller 's Rumble Pak . However, a Nintendo spokesman denied that Nintendo took legal action. Next Generation 's Chris Charla theorized that Sony dropped vibration feedback to keep the price of the controller down. In November 1997, Sony introduced the DualShock controller. Its name derives from its use of two (dual) vibration motors (shock). Unlike its predecessor, its analogue sticks feature textured rubber grips, longer handles, slightly different shoulder buttons and has rumble feedback included as standard on all versions. The DualShock later replaced its predecessors as
24528-479: The rest of Nintendo's Latin American market due to an alliance with Juegos de Video Latinoamérica. Nintendo reached an agreement with NC Games for Nintendo's products to resume distribution in Brazil by 2017, and by September 2020, the Switch was released in Brazil. On 11 July 2015, Iwata died of bile duct cancer , and after a couple of months in which Miyamoto and Takeda jointly operated the company, Tatsumi Kimishima
24696-418: The situation. After the 1964 Tokyo Olympics , Nintendo's stock price plummeted to its lowest recorded level of ¥60 . In 1965, Nintendo hired Gunpei Yokoi to maintain the assembly-line machines used to manufacture its playing cards. Yamauchi's experience with the previous initiatives led him to increase Nintendo's investment in a research and development department in 1969, directed by Hiroshi Imanishi,
24864-491: The stage and revealed that Nintendo was now allied with Philips and would abandon their work with Sony. Incensed by Nintendo's renouncement, Ohga and Kutaragi decided that Sony would develop their own console. Nintendo's contract-breaking was met with consternation in the Japanese business community, as they had broken an "unwritten law" of native companies not turning against each other in favour of foreign ones. Sony's American branch considered allying with Sega to produce
25032-429: The success of Sega's Virtua Fighter (1993) in Japanese arcades , the direction of the PlayStation became "instantly clear" and 3D polygon graphics became the console's primary focus. SCE president Teruhisa Tokunaka expressed gratitude for Sega's timely release of Virtua Fighter as it proved "just at the right time" that making games with 3D imagery was possible. Maruyama claimed that Sony further wanted to emphasize
25200-469: The technically superior 128-bit console was unable to subdue Sony's dominance in the industry. Sony still held 60% of the overall video game market share in North America at the end of 1999. Sega's initial confidence in their new console was undermined when Japanese sales were lower than expected, with disgruntled Japanese consumers reportedly returning their Dreamcasts in exchange for PlayStation software. On 2 March 1999, Sony officially revealed details of
25368-505: The thought of developing on these expensive workstations and asked Bristol -based SN Systems to create an alternative PC-based development system. Andy Beveridge and Martin Day, owners of SN Systems, had previously supplied development hardware for other consoles such as the Mega Drive , Atari ST , and the SNES. When Psygnosis arranged an audience for SN Systems with Sony's Japanese executives at
25536-445: The time, learned of Nintendo's actions two days before the CES was due to begin. Kutaragi telephoned numerous contacts, including Philips, to no avail. On the first day of the CES, Sony announced their partnership with Nintendo and their new console, the Play Station. At 9 am on the next day, in what has been called "the greatest ever betrayal" in the industry, Howard Lincoln stepped onto
25704-426: The unit. The problems stem from poorly placed vents leading to overheating in some environments, causing the plastic mouldings inside the console to warp slightly and create knock-on effects with the laser assembly. The solution is to sit the console on a surface which dissipates heat efficiently in a well vented area or raise the unit up slightly from its resting surface. Sony representatives also recommended unplugging
25872-474: The video game industry, with some resenting Kutaragi for jeopardising the company. Kutaragi remained adamant that Sony not retreat from the growing industry and that a deal with Nintendo would never work. Knowing that it had to take decisive action, Sony severed all ties with Nintendo on 4 May 1992. To determine the fate of the PlayStation project, Ohga chaired a meeting in June 1992, consisting of Kutaragi and several senior Sony board members. Kutaragi unveiled
26040-625: The video game market, Sony possessed a superior research and development department. Wanting to protect Nintendo's existing licensing structure, Yamauchi cancelled all plans for the joint Nintendo–Sony SNES CD attachment without telling Sony. He sent Nintendo of America president Minoru Arakawa (his son-in-law) and chairman Howard Lincoln to Amsterdam to form a more favourable contract with Dutch conglomerate Philips , Sony's rival. This contract would give Nintendo total control over their licences on all Philips-produced machines. Kutaragi and Nobuyuki Idei , Sony's director of public relations at
26208-575: Was a financial success for Nintendo both in Japan and overseas, and led Coleco to fight Atari for licensing rights for porting to home consoles and personal computers. In 1983, Nintendo opened a new production facility in Uji and was listed in the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange . Uemura, taking inspiration from the ColecoVision , began creating a new video game console that would incorporate
26376-789: Was backed by a successful marketing campaign, allowing Sony to gain an early foothold in Europe and North America. Initially, PlayStation demographics were skewed towards adults, but the audience broadened after the first price drop. While the Saturn was positioned towards 18- to 34-year-olds, the PlayStation was initially marketed exclusively towards teenagers. Executives from both Sony and Sega reasoned that because younger players typically looked up to older, more experienced players, advertising targeted at teens and adults would draw them in too. Additionally, Sony found that adults reacted best to advertising aimed at teenagers; Lee Clow surmised that people who started to grow into adulthood regressed and became "17 again" when they played video games. The console
26544-496: Was contracted by Sony to produce promotional materials aimed at a fashionable, club-going audience. Psygnosis' Wipeout in particular became associated with nightclub culture as it was widely featured in venues. By 1997, there were 52 nightclubs in the United Kingdom with dedicated PlayStation rooms. Glendenning recalled that he had discreetly used at least £100,000 a year in slush fund money to invest in impromptu marketing. In 1996, Sony expanded their CD production facilities in
26712-462: Was designed by Gwénaël Nicolas with stylistic departure from its predecessors, and the GameCube . During the first week of the Game Boy Advance's North American release in June 2001, over 500,000 units were sold, making it the fastest-selling video game console in the United States at the time. By the end of its production cycle in 2010, more than 81.5 million units had been sold worldwide. As for
26880-565: Was marketed with advertising slogans stylised as "LIVE IN Y [REDACTED] UR W [REDACTED] RLD. PL [REDACTED] Y IN [REDACTED] URS" ( Live in Your World. Play in Ours. ) and "U R NOT E " (red E). The four geometric shapes were derived from the symbols for the four buttons on the controller. Clow thought that by invoking such provocative statements, gamers would respond to the contrary and say " 'Bullshit. Let me show you how ready I am. ' " As
27048-643: Was named as Iwata's successor on 16 September 2015. As part of the management's restructuring, Miyamoto and Takeda were respectively named creative and technological advisors. The financial losses caused by the Wii U, along with Sony's intention to release its video games to other platforms such as smart TVs , motivated Nintendo to rethink its strategy concerning the production and distribution of its properties. In 2015, Nintendo formalized agreements with DeNA and Universal Parks & Resorts to extend its presence to smart devices and amusement parks respectively. In March 2016, Nintendo's first mobile app for
27216-411: Was outsourced in the United Kingdom. An emphasis on 3D polygon graphics was placed at the forefront of the console's design. PlayStation game production was designed to be streamlined and inclusive, enticing the support of many third-party developers . The console proved popular for its extensive game library, popular franchises, low retail price, and aggressive youth marketing which advertised it as
27384-514: Was partly supported by a financial injection from Hiroshi's wife Michiko Inaba, who came from a wealthy family. In 1947, Sekiryo founded the distribution company Marufuku Co., Ltd. responsible for Nintendo's sales and marketing operations, which would eventually go on to become the present-day Nintendo Co., Ltd., in Higashikawara-cho, Imagumano, Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto . In 1950, due to Sekiryo's deteriorating health, Hiroshi Yamauchi assumed
27552-408: Was programmed in assembly language , which allowed it to emulate PlayStation games with improved visual fidelity, enhanced resolutions, and filtered textures that was not possible on original hardware. Sony sued Bleem! two days after its release, citing copyright infringement and accusing the company of engaging in unfair competition and patent infringement by allowing use of PlayStation BIOSs on
27720-466: Was released in Japan for the Game Boy, and established the popular Pokémon franchise. The game went on to sell 31.37 million units, with the video game series exceeding a total of 300 million units in sales as of 2017. In 1997, Nintendo released the Rumble Pak , a plug-in device that connects to the Nintendo 64 controller and produces a vibration during certain moments of a game. In 1998,
27888-527: Was released in November 2006, with a total of 33 launch games. With the Wii, Nintendo sought to reach a broader demographic than its seventh-generation competitors, with the intention of also encompassing the "non-consumer" sector. To this end, Nintendo invested in a $ 200 million advertising campaign. The Wii's innovations include the Wii Remote controller, equipped with an accelerometer system and infrared sensors that allow it to detect its position in
28056-503: Was released in November 2016. The console is a version of the NES based on emulation, HDMI , and the Wii remote. Its successor, the Super NES Classic Edition , was released in September 2017. By October 2018, around ten million units of both consoles combined had been sold worldwide. The Wii U's successor in the eighth generation of video game consoles , the Nintendo Switch , was released in March 2017. The Switch features
28224-422: Was released the next year in other countries. The Net Yaroze allowed hobbyists to create their own games and upload them via an online forum run by Sony. The console was only available to buy through an ordering service and with the necessary documentation and software to program PlayStation games and applications through C programming compilers. On 7 July 2000, Sony released the PS One (stylised as PS one),
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