《Alexander Creed: Re-Life》Chapter 314: The Nintendo Entertainment System
Advertisement
If video game layman were quite shocked at what Alexander's Chaos units could do, then that feeling was pretty much magnified for industry professionals who knows what's what.
Especially Nintendo. The existence of something like the Creed Chaos System would not bode well for them.
-----
Whether it be Nintendo of Japan or Nintendo of America, they collectively faced quite an uphill battle to get where they are with their Nintendo Entertainment System.
From producing Japanese playing cards called karuta...
To owning love hotels...
To starting a taxi company...
To the joke-y Ultra Hand...
To creating the light gun and inspiring themselves to build laser shooting range...
It took quite a while until Nintendo finally settled into the making of video games and video game-related technology.
However, their pivot to the NES would still be quite a while from there.
Their first entry into the console market is actually with something called the Color TV-Game.
Nintendo's first video game system was released as a series of five dedicated home video game consoles between 1977 and 1980 in Japan only.
With the Color TV-Game 6, Color TV-Game 15, Color TV-Game Racing 112, Color TV-Game Block Breaker, and the final console of the series which was the computer-themed Computer TV-Game.
Nintendo sold three million units of this series and Color TV-Game is a mildly successful venture in the company's career. Also, established themselves as a considerable player in the first generation of game consoles.
Their next venture, however, was not successful.
Radar Scope is an arcade game wherein the player assumes the role of the Sonic Spaceport starship and must wipe out formations of an enemy race known as the Gamma Raiders before they destroy the player's space station.
Although the gameplay and design were lauded for being a unique iteration of the Space Invaders template, it was still a commercial failure and created a financial crisis for the subsidiary Nintendo of America.
NoA president, Minoru Arakawa, pleaded for his father-in-law, Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi, to send him a new game that could convert and salvage thousands of unsold Radar Scope machines.
This turn of events prompted the creation of Nintendo's greatest mascot characters. Even though Radar Scope failed, it was still pivotal since it inadvertently led to the formation of Donkey Kong and Jumpman. Jumpman is Mario himself.
With these two at the helm, Nintendo turned around their failed arcade venture with Donkey Kong selling over 60,000 units and earning over 100 million dollars in sales.
However, all was not smooth sailing when an entertainment giant called MCA Universal became adamant that Donkey Kong was infringing on their rights to the great King Kong.
As it turns out, King Kong was in the public domain and it was Universal themselves that proved it. All was a ploy for them to take the Donkey Kong franchise for their entry into video games.
Advertisement
Surprise surprise. Nintendo won out in the end and the whole case became an embarrassment on Universal's part.
Anyways, around these stressful court dealings, Nintendo's handheld console called Game & Watch debuted to much acclaim and it was all around success for these video game upstarts.
With the success on arcade, game title, handheld, and against an entertainment giant... Nintendo pushed on and a new generation of a home console was in the works.
The code name for the project was "GameCom" but it settled on being called "Famicom" instead.
It was neither a home nor a personal computer. It was to be a family computer.
Ideas were thrown around, deals were made, and the creation process ensued...
And with that... the Nintendo Famicom was released in Japan!
Thanks in part to excessive advertising, the Famicom was an immediate success and sold up to 500,000 units.
The celebration had to be put to a pause because Nintendo Famicoms were freezing up.
A major design flaw was found and Nintendo President Yamauchi decisively chose to recall every single one.
They lost millions of dollars but the decision paid off.
The new and perfected Famicoms were re-sold and the unit sales more than doubled that of the original faulty sales.
The Famicom was so successful that competitors were leaving the market and Nintendo had propelled itself to become one of the biggest names in video games.
Almost every home that had one of their Famicom wanted more games and all was better than ever...
At least, in Japan, that is.
-----
North America, however, would come to be a whole other story...
Yamauchi and Arakawa had long set their sights on this market.
It's just that a series of unfortunate events would stall Famicom for a long while.
For starters, Nintendo had no foothold of distribution outside of Japan and for their game console to reach American homes... they had to make a deal with Atari, the American gaming giant.
Deals were made between both companies but factors such as the Coleco misunderstanding and Atari's ulterior motive to reverse engineer Famicom's hardware... ultimately made these deals fizzle out.
Of course, the ticking time bomb that is the Atari 2600 just happened to finally explode and wiped the video game industry to almost total decimation in 1983.
Video game sales were at an all-time low, so much so, that major retailers refuse to display or even try to market any game anymore
Nintendo's Famicom push into a market other than Japan just got complicated.
Fortunately, the arcade market was more or less spared so the Famicom hardware could still be introduced to Americans via an arcade version called the 'Nintendo Vs. System'.
The VS. System became somewhat of a major success in North American arcades, growing their reputation and people's interest in Nintendo games.
Advertisement
This gave them a boost in confidence to try and release their prided home console once again.
They even rebranded the whole thing into the AVS or Advance Video System... with all the cool lock-out chips and upgrades to not fall into the same pitfall that the Atari 2600 had.
They upgraded it with a lot of peripherals that it may just be a jerry-rigged computer.
With great confidence, in January 1985...
The Nintendo team unveiled the AVS at the Consumer Electronics Show...
And...
No one would buy it!
As hard as they tried to be the better Atari 2600... they were still associated with it.
The AVS was just another video game console and video game consoles for retailers were taboo.
Sure, it was probably the best 8-bit third-generation home console ever... but it was still about video games.
Coupled with absurd peripherals like the mouse, keyboard, and whatnot. Why won't retailers just go with real computers instead?
Without a doubt, they failed again!
-----
Nintendo was really fighting an uphill battle.
The more they take a step forward... the steeper their path gets.
Was entering the North American market even worth it in the first place?
Nevertheless, they didn't want to give up just yet.
And they reformed the Famicom once again.
The AVS didn't work so they tried for the nth time with the Nintendo Entertainment System.
It took quite a journey but the NES was finally here.
They made it simpler, they made it fun, but not to a point of being video game-y.
The NES was still about video games but didn't want to admit it so that traumatized retailers would give them a chance.
They were now an entertainment system. That was not a video game system at all. Wink, wink.
They even built the R.O.B. or the Robotic Operating System. It was a toy because this whole Nintendo Entertainment System was a toy. Not a video game system. Wink, wink.
Nintendo really tried hard on this one.
And at another Consumer Electronic Show held in June 1985... the NES was unveiled...
And... it still wasn't working...
The reaction was better but no retailer was still willing to order it. Nintendo's try-hard wink-winks weren't fooling anybody.
In desperation, they had a focus group of kids try it... and what they got was the resounding comment that "This is shit!".
NoA President Arakawa really wanted to give up now!
All that effort and hard work and what they got were comments like 'shit!'.
-----
"Try to sell the system in one American city?" Fortunately, NoJ President Hiroshi Yamauchi was one persistent cookie. "Then, if it fails, it fails."
With his seniority and ownership of the company, who could refuse?
As such, Nintendo was at their last straw.
If they tried hard on their previous attempts, they tried extra harder now.
With an extremely last-ditch publicity and selling plan in hand, the NoA team finally chose New York City and went full swing from October of 1985 till the next 3 months.
They lowered their retail prices...
They set up shopping mall demonstrations...
They hired athletes for these demonstrations...
They lobbied every toy store, electronic store, and department store in the city...
They even had a risk-free display preposition that got these risk-averse retailers interested...
Nintendo employees worked day and night, setting up displays, making constant sales calls, and standing next to sports stars as they pitch the NES to passersby.
Anything to get the customers to at least try the system.
They even had a commercial with the catchphrase: "Now You're Playing With Power!"
Finally... by Christmas of 1985... 500-600 stores were convinced to carry the NES...
It wasn't an immediate success but it did well...
Only a measly 50,000 units were sold... but that was not the only cause for celebration.
With a favorable test in one of North America's prime cities, the NES' feasibility was proven!
Stores and interested parties were finally opening up to sell the system.
Nintendo finally did it! Their long and arduous fight for their console to infiltrate America was finally paying off.
Oh... how much sweat and tears they had to shed...
Oh... how many embarrassing wink-winks they had to do...
Oh... how many shitty kid comments they had to endure to get to this point.
Trying to revive a dead video game industry was not easy at all!
With New York City as their favorable start, Nintendo's next plan was to repeat what they did in New York's rival city...
The city of Los Angeles.
They were allotted some rest in January and February was the month for their NES to journey in the city of angels, Hollywood, and glamour.
If they did well here, they could move on to the next city, then the next city, then the next, and the next.
Hopefully, with that momentum, they'll be able open up to the whole United States.
Fingers crossed, the Nintendo Entertainment System should totally be unstoppable by then.
----
Little did they know... Los Angeles was so close to Creed's home turf and something called the Creed Chaos System was there to plunder their hard-won momentum!
This whole time, a devious anomaly was patiently waiting for them.
The Nintendo Entertainment System was their last-ditch plan... but it was actually just a part of Alexander's.
Advertisement
- In Serial482 Chapters
Echoes of Rundan
His salvation comes in the form of a digital invitation... Mild-mannered accountant Dylan McIver needs something more than takeout, spreadsheets, and the occasional PUG. Everyone around him is getting married and popping out kids, and neither of those sound like the adventure Dylan wants out of life. His best friend, Nakala, has the answer. A beta invite to Monsoon Entertainment's latest MMO. But it isn't just an offer; it's a plea. Dylan will need to sacrifice five years of his real life to help her. The grind in the game is real, but Dylan is up for the challenge. There's monsters to kill, towns to build, mysteries to uncover, crafting to master, and fishing to enjoy. He'll sleep eventually. Echoes of Rundan is a Royal Road and Patreon exclusive fantasy LitRPG that starts with Landfall. Chapters are uploaded every other day!
8 464 - In Serial96 Chapters
Indomitable Marvel
-This is a wish-fulfillment story that is in the MCU universe and will follow the MCU in my own way. The goal is to blend my story in and around the MCU. -It will be a while, a very long while before I get to the actual MCU storyline. -The story may seem a bit slow depending on what you're after. -Updates will be slow. -He does not start op. -Be warned I'm a below-average writer, I need to work on my details and wording, and probably everything else. Expect quality fluctuations. -((( Useful feedback is much appreciated. ))) -This will have a harem since my last story didn't have one. --Expect badly written lemon scenes. They will be marked for an easy skip for those who don't want to read it. If you can handle all that, then welcome aboard. -The Asgardian Theoric is about to get a second chance. [[[ https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Theoric_(Earth-616) ]]] -The story starts before the MCU where he will grow his abilities on his way to becoming indomitable. -1st volume: Prologue -2nd volume: Troll War - (ch.12-59)-3rd volume: Hidden Forces - (ch. 60-???)-4th volume: Olympians-5th volume: Mutants-6th volume: MCU-7th volume: Darkness???-8th volume: ??? ___________________________________To help answer some questions people might have. - No beast companions and as of right now no plans for beast companions. (But then again Hela does have Fenris...)- No kingdom-building,- The beginning of the story puts a lot of people off because I didn't go the normal route people would like, and they don't tend to like the troll arc.- He also starts a little rash and seems a little weak because his powers easily drain him, some of this is explained later though and fixed by Gaea, but many miss this and only concentrate on the fact that he isn't being and doing what they think he should.- I should also explain that he has some memories that were locked away and then deleted because of his rashness. This was simply a way to end the whole locked memory thing, the Acanti soul was a plot point to give him future memories of the MCU, beyond that it served no more purpose so I got rid of all the other useless knowledge, He was in no way nerfed as some would like to believe.- I made him a little more emotional then I would like at the beginning, it was my attempt at trying to give him a personality after being criticized for the lack thereof in my last story. - Ruthless? I don't think so, I'm going more the route of a fair Mc. He'll do more of an eye for an eye type stuff, gender does not matter to him when it comes to this.- While the harem isn't the end all be all goal, it's true that he's going around getting women.- I do have a story beyond the harem though and will not focus too heavily on the harem beyond the obvious. Mostly he just goes around sleeping with them and beyond that is anyone's guess whether they stick around or not, I do try and make it feel a little more real, but it is a harem. ___________________________________ -I have also posted this story on Royal Road and Wattpad.
8 95 - In Serial14 Chapters
FLESH: Distorted Soul
unique boy is born into an era of famine and death, he somehow survives through intelligence he should not posses yet and luck(?). Watch as he falls farther than even he thought was possible. As his first life fills him with bestial insanity and his second serves to further break him. This is a story about the mutilation of a soul, hope is only a catalyst of despair. >Will Have Extreme GORE, TORTURE, and CANNIBALISM, NOT TO MENTION A TOUCH OF INSANITY AND ANYTHING ELSE I FIND INTERESTING. Suggestions welcomed!
8 153 - In Serial32 Chapters
M-chan Wars: Rise and Fall of the Cat Tyrant
Welcome to M-chan, the place where individuals called denizens fight over any little thing with incredulous powers or sheer tenacity. This time, the Cat Tyrant has unleashed a deadly virus, taking over M-chan for itself. Read about how the other denizens fight back to reclaim M-chan, along with all the crazy antics and atrocities that occurs in the process! Warning: Disturbing content ahead. Some LN, manga, anime knowledge required.
8 104 - In Serial7 Chapters
Mission Gamer
A gamer enter to the world of games and have to find a way to get out of there, but in the way our traveler make friends and enemies.Inspired from the Comic of the youtuber ElRubiusOMG called Virtual Hero.
8 149 - In Serial20 Chapters
VKOOK PICS ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
(discontinued)just vkook pics for you thirsty sinnersdamn, my army days were wild 👁👅👁
8 92

