The BEST Nintendo Console Facts on YouTube!

did you know a microscopic image of a dolphin appears on a computer chip hidden deep within the gamecube system this is in reference to the nintendo gamecube's codename the dolphin which is also referenced in many of the console's games in one of the system's launch titles pikmin the main character captain olimar pilots a spaceship called the dolphin and in super mario sunshine most of the game takes place on an island in the shape of a giant dolphin called isle delfino some speculate that the water centric themes of mario sunshine as well as legend of zelda wind waker tied back into the dolphin's name as well the machine's gpu was even given the dolphin-inspired name flipper by the hardware design company rx who helped with the gamecube's creation prior to this code name the successor to the nintendo 64 was internally referred to by nintendo as n2000 unusually the gamecube has an abbreviation gcn in the west despite the fact japan uses the more sensible ngc abbreviation to stand for nintendo gamecube what's also interesting about the gamecube's development is that nintendo developed and patented an early prototype motion controller for the console the motion controls went so far into development that the game developer factor 5 experimented with them for potential use in their launch titles a similar situation occurred with nintendo and factor 5 during the development of the nintendo 64. factor 5 wanted to use the nintendo 64 expansion pack to improve star wars rogue squadron's graphics but nintendo only wanted the pack to be used with hardware peripherals after seeing the graphical benefits that the expansion pack gave to turok 2 seeds of evil however nintendo decided to allow factor five to use the expansion pack the gamecube itself released after about four years of development and was helmed by dr wei yen a graphical engineer who had been the head of nintendo operations sgi the department responsible for the nintendo 64's fundamental architectural design the gamecube's final design strangely has code referencing nintendo 64 peripherals such as the rumble pack and memory card and even obscure peripherals such as the keyboard and mouse chunks of text containing these strings can be found as leftovers in various games like wario world a version of the gamecube service disc can also detect nintendo 64 controllers nintendo created a variety of tech demos during development of the gamecube in order to show off its upgraded graphical capabilities to game developers an interactive demo released in 2002 takes place in a new version of princess peach's castle specifically showing off things like large textures lighting and shadows anti-aliasing and a large number of polygons on screen all at once earlier in the year 2000 during the gaming event space world another tech demo shown was meowth's party it was an animated music video with 3d pokemon character models and a more detailed model of meowth holding an electric guitar fans initially theorized that this was a teaser for a new pokemon game but that seems not to be the case it was likely based on an ending sequence for the japanese dub of the pokemon anime series which aired almost a year earlier than the tech demo a similar sequence was seen again many years later in the gamecube game pokemon channel as the final part of an exclusive animate episode titled pichu bros in party panic where meowth's movements are different upon each viewing meowth's party was also referenced in super smash brothers melee as a trophy the gamecube was the first major console in nintendo's history to not launch with a game where mario is the protagonist instead luigi's mansion was developed as the system's mario universe game after the gamecube's worldwide release in 2002 players began to unlock some interesting secrets found right in the system's startup screen the most well known of these secrets can be triggered by holding down the z button on the controller while the startup intro animation plays [Music] however another set of sound effects will play when holding down the z button on four controllers plugged in at once with an old-fashioned japanese style flair to it the soft reflections on the logos graphics also share a fun secret the texture mapped onto them is the same texture used for all shiny objects and the nintendo 64 logo in the legend of zelda ocarina of time and majora's mask when on the menu screen itself a slow ambient tune is heard in the background speeding it up by about 19 times normal speed reveals the slow series of tones is actually the famicom disk system startup jingle [Music] nintendo has a history of unique and interesting marketing campaigns for promoting their new consoles the catchphrase used during the gamecube's official reveal at e3 was the nintendo difference the purpose of the phrase was to distinguish themselves from the competition as an entertainment company first and foremost later advertisements pushed the slogan born to play and commercials for upcoming games featured a rotating cube animation that morphed into the system's logo and ended with the voice that whispered and what was possibly the most bizarre piece of advertising was a contest title what would you do for a nintendo gamecube where fans were picked to perform stunts that they'd chosen in order to prove themselves as the most dedicated nintendo fan the five finalists who made it to the competition on november 1st 2001 in san francisco had a collection of incredible acts they included a man from illinois who proposed to his girlfriend while they were dressed up as mario and princess peach a man from new york who juggled several nintendo systems while dressed up as mario while whistling the mario theme a little boy from wyoming who painted a nintendo gamecube logo out of condiments only using his tongue a girl from arizona who ate a nintendo gamecube sized replica of uncooked spam chocolate syrup and cat food and finally the grand prize winner corey olksbury from texas who shaved his head painted himself blue with a leaf on his head to look like a pikmin and ate a bowl of worms and crickets oxberry won a prize pack including a gamecube a gameboy advance a collection of games and five thousand dollars for his act did you know nintendo may have originally planned to name the gamecube the star cube nintendo of america submitted three separate trademarks for star cube in 1999 and the name was even posted on the official nintendo website for sweden however nintendo's american and japanese officers denied any knowledge of the name according to the swedish site the system's online network would have also been named star road referencing an area of the same name in super mario world nintendo veteran shigeru miyamoto pushed for the console to keep its project name and simply just be called dolphin despite his efforts miyamoto failed to gather support for this idea choosing the name gamecube and designing the system's logo was a collaborative effort between nintendo's japanese headquarters and nintendo of america this was to make sure the console's name and appearance would work internationally strangely the gamecube is abbreviated as gcn in the west even though it's abbreviated as ngc in japan for nintendo gamecube this is likely because the abbreviation ngc is a trademark of the national geographic channel in the united states and is generally associated with national geographic the channel even files trademarks under the company ngc network us when registering new shows another possibility for the difference between regions is that ngc was close to the abbreviation for the neo geo pocket color ngpc and nintendo wanted to avoid any confusion or association when making the gamecube nintendo wanted to create a system that looked like the ultimate gaming console and not just another entertainment device that sat on a shelf several early designs were flatter than the gamecube and one design even looked like a ufo these designs kept leading to dead ends however so nintendo looked at how gamers actually interacted with their consoles research at the time showed that japanese families preferred smaller electronics in their household and this data influenced nintendo's designs most families had multiple tvs at home and nintendo wanted the system to be easy to take from room to room or even to a friend's house they decided to make the system compact and easy to hold to fulfill these needs this is also why the system has a handle on its back although the gamecube's design had a mixed reception its controller is often praised the gamecube controller went through the most revisions of any nintendo controller before it the controller took three years to develop and was updated on a monthly basis at one point the b button was kidney shaped like the x and y buttons and there was even a prototype controller that lacked a d-pad while designing the controller miyamoto wanted to focus on the recognition of the joypad's main button and making sure the player immediately knew which button was most important for playing games the controller was also designed to have different distinct shapes for each button this was so the players could know which button they were touching without having to look at the controller in 2008 nintendo almost faced a ban that would stop them from selling gamecube wave bird and wii classic controllers nintendo lost a case that appealed against a 21 million dollar patent infringing lawsuit from a texas-based company called an escape the patent seemed to be a generic patent relating to video game controllers and the application of analog controls which nintendo questioned the validity of because nintendo lost the case they were told that they would no longer be able to sell their controllers however they were allowed to continue selling their products while they took the case to the us court of appeals the appeals court ultimately sided with nintendo and the company were free to continue producing and selling controllers nintendo had to deal with legal affairs of another kind early in the gamecube's life shortly before the console's release microsoft offered to buy nintendo for 25 billion dollars nintendo of america's then president minoru arakawa originally thought the offer was a joke but once microsoft's intentions were clear nintendo took the offer seriously and discussed the deal in japan over six or seven meetings microsoft wanted nintendo to drop its console business and make games for the xbox but nintendo's ceo at the time hiroshi yamauchi didn't like the idea and believed microsoft lacked an understanding of the industry any chances of microsoft's offer being taken died before the release of the gamecube although nintendo turned down microsoft's offer they did forge business relationships with other gaming companies after the gamecube's release nintendo and sega teamed up to bring fantasy star online episodes 1 and 2 to the gamecube complete with online play however their partnership led to some unintended damages in october 2003 it was discovered that when used with fantasy star online the gamecube's broadband adapter could channel unauthorized programs and code to the gamecube this included retail gamecube games copied onto a computer which opened the doors for piracy hackers found that when playing fancy star online they could change some of the connection settings and access locations on their own computer instead of the game's official servers this allowed them to stream their own code directly onto the gamecube in response to this sega released an updated version of the game that fixed the exploit and made much of the game's online content available offline beyond online connectivity nintendo put an emphasis on game boy advanced connectivity while developing the gamecube one game that would demonstrate the possibilities of gamecube and game boy advance interaction was stage debut stage debut was planned to work in sync with the game boy advances game eye add-on the game eye was a camera which would allow people to take pictures and overlay these images on 3d models in stage debut although both stage debut and the game i add-on were cancelled the game inspired the creation of nintendo's me characters another unusual set of gamecube add-ons released exclusively in japan the game ohenro san hoshino dojo came with an optional mat and pedometer ohenro sand was a literal walking simulator and was made specifically for the elderly the player could stand on a matte add-on and walk on the spot causing the in-game images to progress in a google street view style fashion using the pedometer players could also walk outside then download its step count to the game to progress gamers would walk the grounds of 23 japanese temples in the game this was a sample of the 88 temples associated with the real-life shikoku pilgrimage as well as unusual add-ons there was an entire gamecube console that wasn't produced by nintendo while developing the gamecube nintendo licensed the system's gaming tech to matsushita the company which owns panasonic this was part of a deal struck while matsushita produced the optical disc technology for the gamecube because of this collaboration nintendo sanctioned matsushita's development of the panasonic q the q was a panasonic branded gamecube capable of playing dvd movies and although there was interest behind the idea of a dvd compatible gamecube the q sold poorly and was discontinued in 2003. due to the queue having a different shape to the gamecube as well as legs on its base the original game boy player couldn't be attached to it enough panasonic queue owners complained about the incompatibility that nintendo actually partnered with matsushita to create a gameboy player specifically for the q there was yet another device capable of playing game boy advanced games made for the gamecube the tell made a third party game boy player rival called the advanced game port the device is largely seen as inferior to the game boy player as many games have audio and video issues however the game port did have a built-in action replay feature for cheats as well as a save slot feature for saving anywhere [Music] did you know at one point the nintendo 64 could have been the sega 64. plans for the n64 originated when silicon graphics inc or sgi approached nintendo with their new energy efficient and cost-effective cpu however nintendo were not their first choice the processor was initially shown to tom kalinski then ceo of sega america after some debate among sega's hardware designers the company declined sgi's offer this was due to uncertainties about the chip's performance and associated manufacturing risks kolinsky advised sgi founder jim clark to contact other manufacturers which led to a successful pitch with nintendo the contract between nintendo and sgi was signed in august 1993 and work began the following month the time between the project's inception and its eventual release in june 1996 was fraught with delays the setbacks came from nintendo who wanted to ensure enough games and a solid marketing plan were ready at launch inevitably these delays brought trouble with them to prevent impatient fans from buying other consoles during the 1995 holiday season nintendo ran advertisements well in advance of the n64's release these ads boasted that the nintendo 64 was well worth the wait only if you want the best nintendo's confidence in the n64 partly came from a previous venture with silicon graphics technology donkey kong country country's visuals played a key role in its massive success and allowed nintendo to compete visually with emerging 32-bit systems and since sega were recklessly diving into the next generation with the saturn nintendo felt comfortable delaying the n64 by six months to ensure its quality these delays inadvertently led to major developments in the world wide web jim clark resigned from sgi in february 1994 and began brainstorming new ideas alongside a software engineer named mark andreessen encouraged by clark's previous experience with nintendo their first idea was an online service for the n64 when they discovered the system wasn't intended to ship until late 1995 at the time they went back to the drawing board the next project they eventually settled on was the world's first commercial web browser netscape navigator which played a huge role in popularizing the internet as we know it today andreessen has himself speculated that the duo probably wouldn't have made netscape had the nintendo 64 released earlier than it did the console was intended to launch under the name ultra 64 in the west and ultra famicom in japan the ultra title was possibly intended as a reference to the several toys nintendo manufactured in the 1960s the ultra line of toys included the ultra hand the ultra scope and the ultra machine these were an early success for designer gunpei yokoi who would later work on the d-pad gameboy and metroid while the industry speculated that the ultra 64's name change was due to legal trouble with konami nintendo offered another explanation nintendo 64 was a simple name that united the console under a single worldwide brand the name was created by shigesato itoi best known internationally for his work on earthbound he chose the name after hearing that people used nintendo as a catch-all phrase for a game console similar to how the name hoover is used when referring to a vacuum cleaner itoi fell in love with the confident simplicity of the name nintendo 64. in an interview with the japanese magazine 64 dream he explained instead of rashly trying to envision the near future or the next generation i was hoping to name it something that would just force its opponent out of the ring head-on when naming cars and coming up with sedans or whatever you can't even keep track anymore super excellent sedan it's disgraceful so i made it the most orthodox name there is nintendo received criticism for using cartridges with the n64 as the rest of the industry had moved on to cd-rom technology the lack of memory in cartridges made high quality audio and full motion video challenging to produce this inevitably led to third-party developers such as capcom square and namco to favoring competing consoles over the n64 nintendo justified their decision arguing that the popularity of plug and play consoles was proof that a lack of load times was important to consumers they also stated that using unique hardware made piracy more difficult on the n64 but other companies and critics were skeptical accusing nintendo of trying to maintain leverage over developers former chairman of nintendo of america howard lincoln strongly denied the accusations lincoln said i've seen speculation about how this was some plot to control third party publishers that's completely nonsense there's just not a grain of truth in that thing no discussion like that ever occurred that was never an issue it was strictly technology and counterfeiting however lincoln believed that cd technology was still improving and nintendo could change formats as soon as discs became the better choice eventually talented developers were able to compress full motion video and high quality audio onto n64 cartridges angel studios in particular managed to compress resident evil 2 from two cds onto a single cartridge the team had some difficulty doing this and severely underestimated what it would take to compress over 200 unique pieces of music onto a single cartridge under budgeted as a result they turned to factor 5 a company notable for their ability to compress complicated audio onto n64 cartridges factor 5 previously helped with speech compression in pokemon stadium and even managed to include full audio commentary for every level in star wars episode 1 battle for naboo this commentary was regarded as one of the first of its kind in video games despite the efforts of nintendo and their partners the cartridge format had undeniable drawbacks cartridges were approximately ten times more expensive to produce than cds and took two to three weeks to manufacture whereas cds took two to three days to counter this nintendo considered letting players bring their cartridges to participating lawson stores across japan and replaced the software on the cartridge with another game dubbed the game kiosk the plan was intended to offset both production costs for nintendo and inventory risks for their stores nintendo had implemented a similar concept with the famicom disk writer and the nintendo power kiosks in japan which allowed for data on famicom disks and super famicom carts to be rewritten many nintendo 64 games began as projects for the nintendo 64 short-lived disk peripheral the nintendo 64 dd miyamoto himself has mentioned this fact claiming that almost every new project he started for the console was originally for the 64 dd reasons for the peripherals repeated delays have been kept vague with nintendo citing difficulties in developing both the drive and the discs themselves although the 64 dd was released exclusively in japan a collector and youtube user known as metal jesus rocks acquired an american 64 dd from an anonymous seller the model is noteworthy not only because it's american but also because of the stickers on its case the labeling suggested that it was retail ready or at the very least a retail prototype this means nintendo was far closer to selling the 64 dd state side than anyone had realized before a version of super mario 64 has also been discovered for the 64 dd this version was made for nintendo space world 1996 to promote the 64 dd and was discovered in a japanese pre-owned game store the game has few differences to the cartridge version and seems to omit more than it adds such as mario's head being absent from the title screen [Music] did you know the nintendo entertainment system or family computer in japan was almost the world's first online multiplayer gaming system according to shigeru miyamoto plans for an online multiplayer network was scrapped due to the telecommunication infrastructure at the time not being able to support it nintendo eventually released a modern peripheral for the famicom in japan but it wasn't used for gaming instead it was positioned as a device for adults it allowed users to view and trade stocks gamble on horse races and view banking data amongst other things due to persistent connection problems and the inability to attract financial savvy users to the child friendly gaming console support for the modem was dropped but according to nintendo hardware designer masayuki umura the experience with the famicom modem helped lead the super famicom satella view addon the development of the famicom began in the spring of 1982 under the code name project gamecom initially nintendo's research and development division we're interested in creating a system that would allow near one-to-one ports of arcade hits in the home market in fact when negotiating with chip manufacturers for their upcoming console nintendo brought the arcade version of donkey kong as an example of what they wanted instead of using other home game consoles as a reference ultimately the final cpu chosen for the famicom's hardware was different from what nintendo used in their arcade machines this meant that the porting process of arcade games wouldn't be as simple as converting the pre-existing program the games had to be recreated from scratch in the case of donkey kong designers meticulously examined every pixel of the arcade screen and measured the timing of animations with a stopwatch the outer design of the famicom was given the color red by requesting nintendo president hiroshi yamauchi because it was the color of his favorite scarf the console's eject button which would cause cartridges to pop out was suggested by designer gunpayokay it served no practical purpose and was simply added because he thought children would like it the famicom came with two controllers hardwired into the back of the unit this was done in an effort to reduce costs but the decision was made after initial plans to add controller connection ports to the front remnants of this can be found inside the system as the controller wires actually connect in the front of the circuit board but are extended out to the back internally more early plans for the famicom's controllers included arcade-like joysticks but nintendo eventually settle on using their patented d-pad from the game and watch portables in fact at one point a game and watch unit was gutted and wired to the board of the famicom prototype as a controller for testing like the game and watch early releases of the famicom controller came with soft rubbery buttons but these soft buttons wore down easily causing nintendo to update the controllers with hard round buttons concerns over degradation also inform the design of the game cartridges nintendo worried about the physical quality of the cartridge pins because of the bad experiences with faulty connections and abrasion in their arcade units so rather than using pre-existing connection technology nintendo developed their own custom hardware however this meant that they had to test the connections themselves this resulted in a period where employees were tasked to insert and remove games over 5000 times in a row to ensure the cartridges wouldn't degrade for average users because of different cultures and expectations nintendo made drastic changes to the famicom when releasing it overseas unlike japan north america experienced a monumental video game market crash in 1983 and retailers were unsure about the viability of home consoles in the region nintendo's first console unveiling for north america came at the las vegas consumer electronics show in 1983 and was met with criticism at this time the console was renamed the nintendo advanced video systems the new name and design was chosen to distinguish the system from other gaming consoles partially due to the poor reputation video games garnered from the market crash one change in the design ended up causing internal damage to many nes consoles over time the famicom's cartridge slot was changed to a front loading cartridge socket on the nes this was an effort to more closely associate the system with a common household item the vcr however the force of repeatedly pressing cartridges down caused extra wear and tear leading to glitches and system failures many gamers reacted to these problems by blowing into the cartridges to clean them this did nothing at best because it failed to address the real problem and at worst the moisture from the player's breath actually sped up corrosion and the tarnishing of the copper connectors on the marketing side of things rob the robotic operating buddy and the nes zapper were included in various bundles to help sell the system as a toy this was another effort to disassociate the nes with other video game systems the japanese version of the nes zapper the famicom gun is slightly different it was originally released with the game wild gunman and is based on a revolver style handgun the way the famicom gun on nes zapper actually functions is similar to a camera when the trigger is pressed the screen goes black for a single frame if the zapper's light sensor didn't detect any light it goes on to the next step on the next frame the screen displays a white square where the target is if the gun sensor detects the square then it registers it as a hit if it fails one of the tests it registers as a miss rob worked very similarly and communicated via optical sensors and flashes from the television because of differing refresh rates both the nes zapper and rob only work with crt televisions not with lcd or plasma screen tvs the nes and famicom had more interesting peripherals nintendo experimented using 3d visuals with a stereoscopic headset called the famicom 3d system the headset caused nausea and headaches it wasn't commercially successful and it was never released outside of japan another unreleased peripheral was aimed at a different audience nintendo once planned a knitting add-on for the nes called the nintendo knitting machine outside of north america and japan the nes made its debut in a variety of other regions both officially and unofficially in south korea the system was distributed by hyundai electronics under the name convoy this was due to a trade embargo south korea enacted on japan after world war ii an unofficial clone of the famicom was sold in china under the guise of an educational system at the time the chinese government had a ban on recreational video games the clone was known as the little tyrant and the system was endorsed by film star jackie chan in commercials and promotional material in 1992 russia and other former members of the soviet union saw the release of the taiwan manufactured dendi system it was an unofficial hardware clone of the nes and nearly its entire library of games were bootlegs of nes and famicom games by 1994 over 1 million dendi's were sold at a price of roughly 35 per unit one last bit of trivia about the famicom comes from its home country nintendo of japan continued to support the 1983 console for nearly a quarter of a century it wasn't until 2007 that nintendo of japan announced that they would no longer repair famicom systems and it was only due to the increasing shortage of necessary parts [Music] did you know the super nintendo was developed in response to the sega genesis growing in market share nintendo was satisfied with the sales of nes games and had no immediate plans to develop a new console even after the release of sega's hit sonic the hedgehog nintendo was unimpressed and convinced their games were better but as the genesis grew and developers drifted to sega it dawned on nintendo that their grip on the industry was slipping the genesis also had an impact on the super nintendo's design the system was called the super famicom in japan and had a bright colorful presentation with a multicolored logo and buttons but the north american branch of nintendo did not want the system to be perceived as a toy this is why the super nintendo has a more muted color scheme and a dark grey logo the system was given a curved loading bay to help prevent a common service issue from the previous console generation some gamers would place drinks and bowls of cereal on top of the flat nes leading to spills through the ventilation duct and inevitable damage this is also why the super nintendo's air vent is on the back during the production of early super nintendo units a mixture of flame retardant chemicals were added to the plastic formula for safety reasons but several batches had an improper mixture of the chemicals leaving some units of the super nintendo susceptible to a yellow discoloration over time many years later fans discovered ways to remove the yellow color with a combination of cleaning chemicals during early stages of development one of the prototype designs for the north american super nintendo featured a crank lever mechanism to load and unload games many early prototypes were different in shape and size from the super famicom nintendo rejected these designs because in addition to wanting something simple to use they didn't want to change the internal components between the north american and japanese versions of the console in fact the identical internal hardware means that super nintendo systems can play super famicom games with only a simple modification the system's only region locking was the fact that the cartridges were shaped differently for each region some early concepts for the super famicom included backward compatibility with an additional slot for famicom games but this idea was scrapped to save cost there was even a prototype unit that would connect the super famicom and famicom games the super famicom was designed with the intention of adding expansion units on the bottom including the ill-fated nintendo playstation and the japanese-only standalone view add-on the satellite view was a method of digital distribution through satellite similar in concept to sega's mega modem and the sega channel services the add-on featured exclusive downloadable games like f-zero two and a remake of the first zelda game with a link to the past graphics it also featured a very early system of downloadable content that was stored on expansion cartridges in addition to playing games saddle of you players could listen to real-time radio shows and read digital magazines all of which were accessed in an earthbound like hub world nintendo continued to support the saddle of you for five years until march 2000. north america had their own network-enabled hardware called the x-band which also had a version for the genesis it was the world's first console gaming network and it worked by emulating local multiplayer over a telephone line the service cost 10 a month plus long distance fees the super nintendo also had a working prototype for a cartridge that enabled adults to use online banking it was intended for households that didn't have a personal computer and the cartridge would have come with a unique keyboard controller unlike the nes the super nintendo faced a serious market rival for the duration of its life cycle sega came out with aggressive advertisements that were unlike anything nintendo had dealt with before vice president of design at nintendo of america stated in an interview for the book the ultimate history of video games sega came out slamming us in their commercials they were naming us by name and that was a really big deal we took it good natured and competed the best we could nintendo also lost favor with some publishing companies because of their strict quality control standards and high licensing fees many japanese publishers that had success on the nes were happy to oblige and supplied the super nintendo with a large library of quality games but some publishers in north america felt the standards were unfair and that the license fees were too high this was especially true when compared to the pc games market for this reason electronic arts had a special partnership with sega which gave the genesis popular sports games this contributed to the image that the genesis was a more mature console than the super nintendo one of the biggest blows to the super nintendo's reputation came when mortal kombat was ported to both the genesis and the super nintendo the genesis version included red blood like the arcade version but nintendo effectively censored their version by changing the color of the blood and altering some fatalities the resulting comparison caused an enormous backlash and harmed nintendo's image with core gamers this marketing blunder didn't happen without warning former nintendo executive vice president howard lincoln recalled acclaim kept coming back and saying look we're going to make the sega version and it's going to be right in line with the coin op game having a toned down version for nintendo do you guys really want us to do that does that really make sense nintendo's strict code of standards excluded excessive blood and they rarely made exceptions so they forced the change as a result the genesis version of mortal kombat outsold nintendo's censored version four to one the results were so painful for the super nintendo that some industry members suggested that senatorial hearings in north america about violence in video games was crafted by lobbyists working for nintendo one of the unintended consequences of the hearings is that they served as free advertisement for sega and bumped up sales for both mortal kombat and the sega cd exclusive night trap when mortal kombat 2 was released on the super nintendo acclaim was allowed to have red blood in the game and the super nintendo version of mortal kombat 2 sold better than the genesis version after the hearings in north america nintendo sega and many other video game companies met and agreed on the industry standard esrb rating system after the esrb was established nintendo became much more lenient about the content in their games another change to nintendo after the violence in video games hearings was their marketing no longer able to claim it was purely a family-friendly system nintendo of america tried to outdo sega at their own game by targeting an older demographic they even had mild comical gore in a commercial for super mario world 2. many fans believe nintendo's crass advertising went too far in the case of earthbound instead of staying true to the goofy lighthearted tone of the series the marketing department attempted a form of reverse psychology featuring gross out humor some magazine ads claimed this game stinks and included scratch and sniff stickers based on foul odors earthbound sold very poorly in north america and the advertisements are often blamed for the poor sales south korea got this system shortly after it released in japan however it was named the super comboy and was distributed by hyundai this was due to laws that aimed to center any and all japanese culture in south korea after world war ii hyundai also distributed the original nintendo as the convoy the nintendo 64 as the convoy 64 and the game boy as the mini convoy speaking of the game boy the super nintendo wasn't powerful enough to emulate a game boy through software so in order for the super game boy to play actual game boy games it had all the vital components of a game boy inside it these components process the game and the super nintendo simply displays the image [Applause] [Music] [Applause] did you know the first rumor of a new nintendo console came only a year after the wii u's launch on january 21 2014 nintendo news reported nintendo was preparing a follow-up to the wii u due to the console's limited success according to their anonymous source the console was called the nintendo fusion and would combine nintendo's handheld and home console lines the rumor's credibility was boosted by a detailed list of technical specs two versions of the console would be released the handheld fusion ds and the home console fusion terminal the terminal was backwards compatible with wii u software and came in two versions one with a disk drive and one without the console supposedly had an inductive charge surface allowing players to charge both wii remote plus controllers and the fusion ds the implication was that the fusion would hybridize a home console and a handheld by being two separate consoles that connected complicating the story nintendo owned the domain name nintendofusion.com the site was created in 2003 to support the nintendo fusion tour a series of rock and video game themed music festivals held from 2003 to 2006. however the names of the components provided in the specifications raised some suspicions dan van winkle at the mary sue said names such as jumpman kong and barrel did not fit with nintendo's history of thematic but non-game related names for the components for example the gamecube's gpu was named flipper a reference to its code name dolphin kotaku's jason schreier also scrutinized the nintendo news article asking writer kevin mcminn about his source although mcminn knew little about the source's identity they'd provided him reliable insider information in the past mcminn was frustrated that while he carefully stressed none of his claims were verified the online community did little to heed his warning he said in the future he'd probably keep these tips to himself as the article was nothing more than a pain in the neck really further doubt was cast when the same rumor including the list of specs was posted to the website gamin realm on the 1st of january that year the info supposedly came from an anonymous source and the article admitted the info should be taken with a huge grain of salt schreier concluded his investigation by noting one or two anonymous emails could easily snowball into articles on some of the largest gaming websites with the wii u being just a year old some dismissed any rumors believing it was too soon for a new consul but late nintendo president satoru iwata confirmed in a may 2014 investors meeting that nintendo was already exploring new hardware ideas the goal for the switch had been decided the company wanted to redefine video game platforms iwata estimated it would take around two years to accomplish this goal in december 2014 an article was published in the japan times claiming the sharp corporation was entering a deal with nintendo to supply the company free-form display lcds that could fit any shape matt's production of the screens would supposedly start in early 2016 and many assumed nintendo would use sharp screens in a new portable console one of the japan times sources even suggested nintendo intended to use the screens as free-form capabilities to create a hole in the center of the display the switch then named the nx was first officially named on march 17th 2015 at a nintendo investors meeting nintendo was mostly focused on their new partnership with dna and their plans to bring nintendo properties to mobile to assure investors they were still dedicated to gaming systems iwata revealed the existence of a new dedicated game platform codenamed nx he hoped nintendo's foray into mobile gaming would get casual gamers to buy the nx through their new interest in nintendo nintendo would also launch a service where players could log into a nintendo account regardless of which system they played on no further details were announced at the time and with a lack of details came rumors many of which anticipated a connection between the nx and nintendo's new foray in mobile games some outlets read the announcement as the death of the wii u and anticipated further details at e3 that year however iwata soon clarified the new console wasn't imminent and the company would not make announcements about it at e3 it was only announced to dispel concerns about nintendo exiting the console market iwata also said the nx wouldn't be a continuation of either the wii u or the 3ds rather it would appeal to a broad audience by taking into account different playing habits worldwide this comment sparked speculation that the nx would lack region locking letting players import games without modding their console around this time wired's chris kohler made an accurate prediction the nx would integrate a handheld and home console into a single device he presented the investors his presentation in march 2014 as evidence where wada expressed frustration that nintendo had to make handheld and home console software separately the handheld and home console divisions of nintendo had historically been separated as a result but in 2013 iwata united the two under genyo takeda's supervision iwata claimed vast technical advances allowed nintendo to achieve a fair degree of architectural integration taking advantage of this allowed nintendo to easily port games between handhelds and home consoles helping solve the problem of game shortages on their systems however iwata said nintendo would only truly be able to take advantage of this advance with their next system he was doubtful nintendo could completely integrate the hardware into a single device and envisioned an architecture more like the ios a singular platform allowing nintendo to upgrade hardware more frequently kohler concluded by predicting the nx was a suite of devices rather than a single one it was around the time of this restructuring that nintendo began taking pitches from third parties to develop hardware for their next console amd in particular was highlighted in rumors surrounding the nx in july 2015 venture beat speculated nintendo would collaborate with amd due to their accelerated processing units allowing for easier backwards compatibility nintendo previously used powerpc processors alongside an amd gpu in the wii u which with its low power and extra screen made developing for the console awkward for third-party developers consoles at the time tended to use x86 technology which is industry standard and easier to develop for on june 14 2015 a video claiming to show leaked footage of nintendo's new console was uploaded to youtube supposedly having been filmed on a phone at e3 2015 even though it started circulating before nintendo's presentation the console revealed in the footage was called the xds it combined features of the wii u and 3ds and was able to play games from both systems the top screen could be turned around and slotted back in making the xds resemble a more traditional single screen unit many spotted signs the presentation was fake the voice used in the clip seemed to be bill trenins a nintendo treehouse employee unlikely to host such a high profile presentation it was speculated the audio was lifted from a treehouse event or nintendo direct additionally nintendo had no physical presentation at e3 that year opting for a nintendo direct presentation finally the idea for the console contradicted iwata's statements that the nx wouldn't continue the wii u or 3ds lines no major news sites reported on the footage instead reporting on contradictory yet more reliable rumors but then another fake presentation surfaced this one showed a console called the nintendo cross which played on rumors about the partnership between nintendo and amd the console was supposedly able to stream wii u and 3ds games to tablets smartphones or the wii u gamepad it also boasted an unrealistic launch lineup including mario metroid and the legend of zelda the controller shown as a part of the presentation was an edited image of a wii u pro controller with obvious artifacting around the edges as with the xds this obviously fake leak didn't get much traction in july 2015 taiwan-based news organization digitimes claimed nintendo entered a contract with foxconn electronics and planned to begin pilot assembly on the nx by october this information which also claimed the nx had a projected july release came from an inside source but couldn't be verified rumors began circulating that nintendo's new console was a virtual reality slash augmented reality machine news outlet digi capital speculated nintendo was entering the vr space to try and fill a market gap as miyamoto and regifizame both had talked about a lack of fun social games commercially viable in vr on august 21st a nintendo patent was published for a stationary game apparatus game apparatus game system recording medium and speed control method the patent was filed on february 10th and describes a controller with a display screen that has no disk drive in its place is a card slot where a memory card containing software can be inserted some speculated this meant a return to cartridge-based systems in october the wall street journal reported nintendo had begun distributing nx development kits among third-party developers such as square enix who had announced dragon quest 10 and 11 for the nx in july however they shortly walked this back and said an nx launch was only being considered the wall street journal sources stated the nx took the form of a console with at least one portable component they also reported the console used industry-leading chips these reports of a portable component led to speculation that the console was going to be similar to the wii u with a separate portable device analyst david gibson told the wall street journal it was likely nintendo would launch the nx in 2016 due to declining support for their current hardware in november 2015 the digitimes article claimed 12 million nx units were expected to ship globally in 2016. according to the article the target was initially 20 million but this number was scaled back due to difficulty obtaining the required components around this time another patent was published online the patent filed by nintendo in june 2015 was for a game apparatus and information processing apparatus and showed a long oval device with two pentagons at either side similar to the 3ds's circle pad these pentagons could be used as buttons that adjusted to meet the players preferences such as changing to suit left or right handed players most notably the entire front of the pad was a touch screen display while it wasn't confirmed to be an official nintendo venture the nature of this patent and the odd shape of the display led some to conclude the device was the reason nintendo partnered with sharp sharp's free form display was perfect for such a device and the rumored holes in the screen could be used for analog pads another patent was registered by nintendo of america on december 3rd the patent hinted at a device that was both a home console and a portable console the portable console attached to a supplemental computing device to provide additional processing resources there's been no official connection made between this patent and the nx though it sounds like it describes the nintendo switch dock in january 2016 market research company gfk released a survey inexplicably containing information about the nx the survey stated the console would allow the player to make video calls support 4k 60 frames per second video streaming and support 900p 60 frames per second gameplay participants were asked how much they'd pay for such a console these specs seemed odd as many wii u games ran at 1080p the survey was later confirmed to be pure speculation on gfk's part then came even more rumors the wall street journal tech reporter takashi mochizuki claimed the annex might work with smartphones pcs and even rival the playstation 4. he cited industry insider david gibson as a source for this on january 28th industry consultant dr circan toto announced bandai namco was developing several nx titles including super smash brothers which was said to be a launch title whether this game was to be a sequel 2 or port of super smash brothers for wii u was unclear in february 2016 behind the scenes info was given to dualpixels.com from a leaker known as gino gino had a reliable track record of leaks having accurately predicted new pokemon forms and microsoft's a looma room project he outlined a console that started production in 2014 and alleged nintendo hadn't had this much forward momentum on a console launch since the original famicom internally the annex was supposedly thought of as iwata's final project and employees were set to end meetings and brainstorms by chanting for iwata gino went on to describe a console with a wireless hdmi dongle that allowed it to connect to the television and the analog sticks had small motors in them for haptic feedback this meant if the player ran into a wall the analog stick could snap in the opposite direction to give a sense of impact the feature would also be used when firing a gun taking damage or moving over rough terrain the console was able to sync via bluetooth with everything including smartphones and tablets for viewing texts and phone calls it ran on an operating system called nintendo os and was said to have social features similar to pokemon go the system architecture was easy to develop for and the system was allegedly closest in power to the xbox one this was pointed to as the reason nintendo was happy to give out dev kits so late one dev is quoted as saying the nx was the easiest device we've ever developed for on the 3rd of march gino once again provided dual pixels with info about the nx they claimed ubisoft's long-awaited beyond good and evil 2 was to be an nx exclusive with nintendo funding the project in a manner similar to bayonetta ii the game was said to be titled beyond good and evil the prejudices of philosophers a reference to a specific chapter dealing with authority and morality in frederick nietzsche's beyond good and evil this rumor was lent weight by michael ansel name-dropping miyamoto when discussing the sequel with tim schaefer upon investigation destructoid confirmed many of gino's details with a second unnamed source on the 15th of march dual pixels published another article this time claiming luigi's mansion 3 was to be a launch title for the nx the game would show off how powerful the console was by creating a game that looked like the american commercial for luigi's mansion darkmoon the game would also use haptic feedback in the analog sticks the following month gino claimed activision was throwing their support behind the nx gunning for a new call of duty game called bloodlines to be on the console on march 17 2016 images began circulating of a controller with an lcd screen that looked very similar to the patent made public in december 2015. initial images were posted to reddit by user idris 2dev containing the console and a post-it note reading you will say wow the quote was from iwata in reference to the wii idris2dev claimed the shoulder buttons had a scroll function similar to a mouse wheel users were quick to point out inconsistencies with the image suggesting it was fake the lighting under the screen wasn't uniform and the image on it appeared to be an unreal engine 4 demo which nintendo was unlikely to use a similar image was uploaded by user perkel37 six days later the entire rumor was soon undermined when the first image was revealed as a fake a video was posted proving the 3d image of idris 2 dev's controller was edited together percel 37's photo was soon proven fake as well but unlike the first hoax it was of a physical object made using a 3d printer youtube user frank sanqvist uploaded a video on march 25th showing how he made the mock-up [Music] at a nintendo investors meeting in march 2016 iwata successor tatsumi kimishima confirmed the nx would launch in march 2017 and would not be sold at a loss more rumors emerged in april 2016 reddit user untyped hero posted small tidbits of information the nx ran on an x86 architecture backed up data to a nintendo server could handle ports of current gen games interacted with smartphones and tablet apps and could support an additional screen the user was verified by the mod team as someone with connections to wii u developers lending weight to his claims then in came a large information dump from neogaf user 10k describing yet another console nintendo supposedly had in development set to be a successor to the wii u's gamepad streaming technology the console would have a screen controller with basic os functions but no processing power of its own this controller was able to access the nx console from anywhere though 10k did not explain the logistics of such a feature they added that the console would have a custom polaris-like gpu referencing the polaris series of amd chips according to the post final fantasy xv was coming to the system and the nx would launch at different times around the world these rumors led to some speculation about the future of nintendo's handheld consoles as well as the feasibility of the proposal in consideration of the wii u's performance on april 12th industry insider emily rogers tweeted that several ports were in development for the nx including zelda smash brothers mario maker and splatoon however she made it clear that while these ports were in development this was not confirmation they would be released while zelda was ported the other three games received sequels instead rogers then doubled down on these rumors posting zelda was coming to both wii u and nx that the game featured full voice acting with the exception of link and that players could choose between a male and a female link while the latter prediction was untrue it must be noted this possibility was debated internally at nintendo in the same month nintendo confirmed on twitter that the nx would launch in march 2017. this announcement came on the heels of the same info being presented in their consolidated financial statements for 2015 through 2016. nintendo also announced breath of the wild would release on both wii u and nx simultaneously delaying its release until march 2017 many assumed the console was going to finally be revealed at e3 that year but nintendo stated they were showing only the new zelda at e3 and not the nx in june digitimes reported on this rumor claiming nintendo delayed mass production of the nx from mid 2016 to early 2017 in order to add vr features as the only vr feature nintendo has added takes the form of nintendo labo this claim is doubtful in may rumors the nx was ditching optical disks for cartridges resurfaced macronyx the company historically responsible for supplying nintendo with its rom chips stated they were expecting a large amount of growth around the launch of nintendo's new console on may 13th rogers posted on her blog refuting claims the nx ran on x86 architecture she said the console used custom-made industry-leading chips she finished her post by noting the only console the nx beat in terms of power was the wii u rogers's claims were corroborated by reggie fisa may in june after microsoft's xbox one x was announced at e3 2016 under the name project scorpio discussions about the new system's revolutionary power opened up when asked about the nx in an interview with bloomberg west visa may said they were prioritizing content over power on june 14th a trademark was submitted for breath of the wild which stated a game was downloadable available on game disc and available on a video game cartridge confirming the cartridge rumor another nintendo patent was made public on june 30th filed on december 3rd 2015 the patent described a handheld game console with speakers a touch screen and force feedback the patent noted sound and vibration in conjunction gave the player a sense of depth and direction in three-dimensional space this rumble patent is similar to the switch joy-cons hd rumble feature on july 26 a major leak confirmed a number of details about the switch tom phillips of eurogamer sourced info that said the nx was a handheld console with detachable controllers on each side the mock-up eurogamer presented is remarkably similar to the final product philips also accurately claimed the portable console would connect to a tv using a dock and the console used cartridges according to philips's information nintendo considered making the nx digital download only but eventually decided against it the console wouldn't be backwards compatible and the report claimed the final product ran on nvidia's tegra processor rather than amd as many assumed the information was largely accurate it was also backed up by an independent report from the wall street journal whose sources described a hybrid console however they added the erroneous detail that the device could play nintendo's mobile game such as pokemon go metro reported similar details but added some speculation of their own about the existence of the supplemental computing device nintendo had patented the previous year this speculation proved to be on the money over the following months information came out supporting eurogamer's report neogaf user disorientator found a patent from nintendo detailing detachable controllers like in the report nintendo also patented a gesture control feature that hasn't been seen on their console laura kate dale while conducting independent research into the nx for let's play video games found the eurogamer report was accurate and added the console allowed force feedback and wii remote functionality for multiplayer games dale later posted a new article detailing a handheld device with a striking resemblance to the switch while some of the details are inaccurate the overall shape is unmistakably the switch the drawing even had segmented directional buttons rather than a d-pad dale reported the console did not have region locking in august an anonymous 4chan leak claimed the console was called the nintendo focus and was a hybrid console so far so good but the leaker also included a lineup of games that left many skeptical the lineup included both a new super smash brothers for focus as well as super smash brothers melee hd ports of pokemon gold and silver and pokemon sun and moon and a retro studios helmed new f-zero on september 16th the breath of the wild amiibo range inadvertently revealed the nx's release date they were posted with a launch date of march 4th 2017 although this date was quickly changed to a vague march the date ended up being one day out with the switch launching on march 3rd on september 20th pokemon company ceo sunikazu ishihara stated in an interview with the wall street journal that the nx was trying to change the concept of what it means to be a home console device or a handheld device many took his statement as definitive proof the nx was a hybrid console later that same month what was believed to be a sketch from a foxconn employee was posted to neogaf the sketch detailed a machine that looked very similar to the final switch console including one stating the dock improved the power of the handheld the accuracy of the sketch is surprising as it was soon confirmed to be fake the original image was sourced to a since-deleted chinese forum thread where users posted their ideas for the nx however it must be noted the same form had previously been used to leak the playstation 4 slim and playstation 4 pro designs on october 14th my nintendo news writer ssf 1991 revealed that the macquarie group an investment banking firm had predicted the nx would be revealed the following week this information was correct and the nx was unveiled as the nintendo switch on october 20th 2016 putting an end to years of rumors however rumors persisted even after this announcement in december 2016 three sources told eurogamer that the switch would have gamecube games on its virtual console service several gamecube games were apparently running with mario sunshine luigi's mansion and super smash brothers melee emulating perfectly and an animal crossing emulation was being worked on eurogamer were also told there'd be an upgrade program similar to the wii u's where past virtual console purchases could be upgraded for a small amount rather than being purchased again at full price apparently the switch's increased power over wii u allowed for proper gamecube emulation which is why nintendo avoided gamecube during the wii u era another driving force behind a gamecube virtual console was apparently nintendo's desire for super smash brothers melee to be easily playable with the announcement of nintendo online in january 2017 this rumor was seemingly debunked on october 4th 2018 the wall street journal reported nintendo was planning a new version of the switch to be released the next year the new model was meant to boost the console's momentum which had waned after its launch year nintendo's known for revised versions of their handheld hardware such as the game boy advance sp the ds lite and dsi and the 3ds xl and new 3ds nintendo frequently denied claims they were planning a hardware revision in january 2019 president shintaro furukawa stated in an interview with the san k news that rumors of a price drop or hardware revision weren't true nevertheless a nikkei report issued soon afterwards claimed the nintendo would release a smaller cheaper switch in 2019. this smaller switch was to cost less but have fewer features in april nintendo gave a muted forecast for its financial performance and included no plans to unveil a new version of the switch at e3 that year some investors and analysts considered this a bad move however a drop in the number of switches nintendo held in inventory led many to believe they were indeed preparing for the release of a new switch the wall street journal citing sources from a supply chain in southeast asia reported nintendo would continue releasing the original switch model along with two new versions in june a series of switch light accessories appeared on chinese gaming accessory manufacturer hansson cn's website many were skeptical as the renders used a mock-up of a switch mini that was circulating online there also were no specifications listed for the item's size or weight on july 1st when future leaker roland quant received images of a silicone case for the console from a reliable source suggesting the final products look this was followed by the nintendo switch light being officially revealed on july 10 2019. of course the wall street journal had reported two new versions of the switch on august 7th they reported sharp was to supply nintendo with exo display panels for its new video game machines exo displays are designed to be high resolution durable displays that don't consume much power sharp didn't specify which switch models were outfitted with exo displays on september 7th nintendo life uncovered a new patent for nintendo's joy-con controllers appearing on japan's official patent database the patent displayed what appears to be joy cons with hinges these hinges allow the left analog stick and face buttons to be angled down while in use back in february several outlets including direct feed games game informer and ju video claimed xbox game pass would be coming to the switch this would work via an app that streamed the games to switch from a microsoft server a few months later industry insider david gibson reported on twitter that nintendo would work with microsoft's azure to offer its own streaming service although several rumors about nintendo and microsoft collaborating in some ways surfaced around this time there's little evidence to directly support them did you also know that the boxer for super mario 64 ds is a sly reference to mario kart double dash or that mario party was censored in korea due to gambling concerns for a whole hour of nintendo ds facts click or tap the video on screen was your favorite handheld console mine has to be the gameboy advance sp i think it's so tasteful and so cool

Channel: DYKG Clips

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Keywords: nintendo, nintendo consoles, nintendo gamecube, gamecube, gcn, nintendo 64, n64, nes, snes, super nintendo, nintendo switch, switch, nintendo facts, nintendo history, nintendo easter egg, caddicarus, brutalmoose, space hamster, projared, pro jared

Id: hJHJwjBPb9Y

Length: 61min 1sec (3661 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 09 2022