The entire production was an unmitigated disaster. Bill White knew that—he had seen it firsthand—but still, a part of him couldn’t help but wonder if things might turn out okay after all. Drama and insubordination aside, they had at least shot enough footage to piece together a coherent ninety-minute film. And however bad it turned out to be, nothing could take away the fact that the movie would have stars, special effects, and the iconic Mario name. By this point, White was willing to admit that it would not be nominated for any Academy Awards, but there was still a good chance that it would make a ton of money. Take the game Super Mario Bros. 2, for instance, which was Nintendo of America’s last-minute attempt to put a Band-Aid on Japan’s sequel. That game was weird and kind of creepy, but still managed to sell ten million copies. So despite whatever it was that Kalinske thought he knew about the movie, White knew the truth, and he also knew the greater truths about hype-driven consumer culture.
“I don’t know what you’ve heard,” White said to Kalinske, “but I’m more than happy to bet you that it will wind up being the highest-grossing film of the year.”
“Well, then,” Kalinske replied, “I guess I need to get myself some better sources. I just figured that if the movie turned out to be as bad as a few folks have been saying, Nintendo is going to be looking for a fall guy.”
“And you think I’ll be the fall guy?”
“What happened to speaking in theoreticals?”
“Good point,” White said. “I don’t think we should be speaking at all. I appreciate the call, and honestly, I’m flattered by your insults, but it’s time for me to go.”
“Wait,” Kalinske said with a dash of urgency. “I have just one more question.”
“Ask fast,” White said, “before I hang up.”
“Fine, fine,” Kalinske said. “I was just wondering if you might be able to tell me: what the hell is this Mode 7 thing?”
35.
SHOSHINKAI
Tony Harman stared out the window of a Tokaido Shinkansen bullet train, admiring the extraordinary way Japan’s green-gray-gold countryside blurred together at 170 miles per hour. He was headed east, traveling in a private car with Mr. A., Mrs. A., and Mr. Y., all of them on their way to the 1992 Shoshinkai held in Tokyo. Shoshinkai was Japan’s annual industry event similar to the Consumer Electronics Show, except that Shoshinkai only featured videogames and, even more specifically, it only featured videogames made by Nintendo and their licensees. It was an important occasion, headlined by a keynote speech from Nintendo’s president, which explained why Mr. Y. was making the three-hour trip east and why Mr. A. had made a ten-hour plane trip to join him for this train ride.
Most of the commute had consisted of Mr. A. rolling his eyes as Mrs. A. translated Mr. Y.’s bombardment of questions for Harman. The inquiries were typically directed at Harman because the young American understood videogames better than most employees on either side of the ocean, and also because Mr. Y. loved challenging people with questions, and he suspected that his daughter and his son-in-law did not much appreciate jumping through hoops. Why do people enjoy playing videogames? he asked. Why should Nintendo make hardware when the real money is made on software? And why is it that only the Japanese know how to make good games? Harman answered all with savvy and sincerity until, at some point along the way, the other members of his party dozed off.
Harman found a strange joy in witnessing Mr. A. and Mr. Y. at rest. Both men were such unforgiving workaholics that at times it was truly hard to imagine that either ever slept. Mr. A. typically hung around NOA headquarters until after midnight, and Mr. Y. was rarely seen anywhere outside the office. Although both men possessed vastly different leadership styles (Mr. A. saw himself as one of the guys; Mr. Y. saw himself as the guy), each had earned the right to take it easy and enjoy life. But these were no ordinary businessmen; rather, they were artists, and nothing gave them greater joy than being authors of culture, purveyors of technology, and, most important, architects of emotion. In the same way that those responsible for envisioning, financing, and constructing this speedy train had indirectly awed Harman with a sense of power as the train rushed through the countryside, Mr. A. and Mr. Y. were responsible for creating similar feelings of possibility for an entire generation. With jobs like those, it was no wonder business was their pleasure. And it was no wonder that they would take a brief nap whenever their bodies and minds were willing to rest.
However, when Harman looked away from the window and found Mr. Y. examining him with those crisp, inquisitive metallic eyes, he began to wonder whether Nintendo’s president had ever really fallen asleep. Maybe this was just another test. If it was, then from the looks of Mr. Y.’s clenched-teeth smile, Harman felt like he had passed.
Later that day, from inside the silver-domed Makuhari Messe convention center in Chiba City, thousands of adoring fans gathered to discover the latest and greatest from Nintendo. It was August 26, and between the addictive Super Mario Kart, the adorable Tiny Toon Adventures, and the assortment of indistinguishable Street Fighter II clones, these videogame zealots would ecstatically spend the next seventy-two hours waiting for the chance to try out the newest games. The lines were long and twisty, but the incredulous oh-my-God expressions on their faces told the whole story: it was as if they had died and gone to Mode 7 heaven. Nothing could snap them out of their wonderful stupor—nothing, that is, until their pious god arrived.
Hiroshi Yamauchi, the unparalleled Mr. Y., stepped to the podium. Without prompting or prodding, members of the crowd uniformly dropped their controllers to listen to Nintendo’s sixty-five-year-old president. Wearing, as he always did, a dark tie and a pair of caramel-tinted glasses, Yamauchi unveiled what was planned for the coming year. He began by cautioning the audience that the marvels of Mode 7 had only been the beginning. This best was yet to come, a joyous future indeed, because in early 1993 Nintendo would be launching something called the Super FX chip. Unlike anything ever made before, this custom-made RISC processing device would be used in select cartridges to render true, groundbreaking three-dimensional graphics.
The Super FX chip was Nintendo’s answer to the Sega CD. Not directly, as neither had been developed with the other in mind, but metaphorically it highlighted the difference between each company’s approach to technology. Sega, with its CD device and its recently rumored plans for a virtual-reality peripheral, planned to leap forward through innovative hardware. Nintendo, with its Mode 7 and this Super FX chip, was dedicated to evolving through upgrades in the software. Sega’s approach was riskier and more costly, but if successful, it could shift the entire paradigm. If Sega CD caught on or virtual reality became the diversion du jour, then Sega could take the industry from 0 to 60 in half a heartbeat. Nintendo, however, ignored this sprint and chose to run a marathon through gradual innovations. Not only would consumers not have to routinely shell out small fortunes, but by transplanting technology into software, hardware’s most vital organ, this would extend the lifespan of the Super Nintendo beyond that of its competitor.
This was part of the reason Nintendo never considered Sega to be a serious long-term threat, or at least it provided a valid philosophical justification whenever slumping sales met thumping denial. The other reason Nintendo didn’t consider Sega to be the next coming was epitomized by the event currently taking place at the Makuhari Messe convention center. The name of Nintendo’s annual trade show was derived from Japan’s main association of toy industry retailers, not coincidentally called Shoshinkai. The Shoshinkai was a multitiered distribution network that, also not coincidentally, Yamauchi had come to control over the years. Although the organization had initially been formed to “promote friendly relations between industry participants,” Nintendo’s great products and its pinpoint attention to quality had provided the Shoshinkai something even more enticing: stability. Nobody got rich, but everyone made money and the Nintendo-controlled status quo became more important than promoting friendly relations for companies like Atari,
NEC, and of course Sega.
Some might say that this was a monopoly, and if such a claim were lobbed at Yamauchi, he very likely might have said “thank you” and taken a bow. Unlike America, where monopolies and oligopolies are considered to be capitalism-crippling viruses, in Japan market control was par for the course. Look no further than the Japanese insurance industry, where not only have the top five firms (Toki, Taisho, Sumitomo, Nippon, and Yasuda) remained in the top five slots for the past forty years, but over that time the market shares of each have not increased or diminished beyond a few decimal points. That kind of stability is not so different from the kind of stability that appealed to the Shoshinkai, and further proved that in Japan, the notion of a monopoly was more like that in the board game Monopoly, where the goal was to build hotels on Park Place and wipe out the little guy who thought Baltic Avenue was a worthwhile investment. Time after time, this type of behavior was rewarded, with the only caveat being that if you’re going to be the guy with the hotels on Park Place, then you must share some of that fortune with the thimble, the car, and the other pieces in the game. Nintendo did this by keeping the Shoshinkai content, sharing pieces of the pie with licensees like Capcom, Konami, and Namco, and by outsourcing the manufacturing to Japan’s other electronic companies, like Sony, Sharp, and Ricoh.
This closely monitored system of carrots and sticks worked well for Nintendo and its network of partners, but—unsurprisingly—didn’t sit well with its competitors. This dynamic was the reason, at least according to Sega of Japan, why they had failed to match Sega of America’s success with Sonic, 16-bit systems, and a share of the cultural mind-set. From SOJ’s perspective, they had been left out in the rain, faces pressed against the window of Nintendo’s Park Place hotel, with no remaining choice but to beg for scraps from those leaving the royal feast. Sega of Japan’s complaints were not unfounded, but neither were its woes all that different from Sega of America’s early struggles. Perhaps there was no Shoshinkai in the United States, but there were retailers like Wal-Mart who didn’t want to upset Nintendo or upend the wonderful new status quo. And while companies like Capcom, Konami, and Namco were not willing to work with Sega of Japan, it’s not as though they were willing to work with Sega of America. In 1990, the third-party situation at SOA had not been any easier than it was for SOJ; if anything, it had probably been even worse in America, where there were fewer experienced programmers, no domestic manufacturing resources, and a software company bent on reverse-engineering the Genesis. So what was the difference between SOA and SOJ? Was Sega of Japan just a victim of bad luck, bad timing, and their own poorly crafted advertisements? Or was it that when Sega of America found themselves standing drenched outside the Park Place hotel, Tom Kalinske, Al Nilsen, Shinobu Toyoda, and the rest of those risk takers charged at the window together and broke through the glass?
Whatever the case, the fact remained that Nintendo dominated over 80 percent of the Japanese videogame market, and from the podium at Shoshinkai, Hiroshi Yamauchi hoped to increase his monopoly. After introducing the Super FX chip, he continued to speak about new games, innovations, and characters. What he went on to say was probably very interesting, at least judging by the collective oohs and aahs of the crowd, but Tony Harman had no idea what Nintendo’s deity was talking about.
Harman sat with Nintendo’s designers in the back of the auditorium and couldn’t help but wonder if there was anything more boring than listening to someone deliver a passionate speech in a language you did not understand. Watching paint dry was not exactly exciting either, but at least that didn’t make you feel oblivious. The only upside to Harman’s boredom was that he got to be bored next to six of Nintendo’s living legends. These were the guys responsible for the games, systems, and iconic characters that made Nintendo extraordinary. If Mr. A. and Mr. Y. were the architects of Nintendo, than these six were the designers, builders, and interior decorators:
1. Gunpei Yokoi: Nintendo’s godfather of gaming, the inventor of Game & Watch, Game Boy, all of the early arcade games, and, essentially, the company’s entry into videogames. Yokoi was the head of R&D1, a division that created both hardware and software as well as most of Nintendo’s peripherals. Currently they were heavily focused on making games for Game Boy.
2. Takehiro Izushi: A key member of R&D1, where he had served as Yokoi’s right-hand man since 1975. Izushi spearheaded one of Nintendo’s first commercial light guns, the Beam Gun Custom, and played an integral role in developing hardware for the Color TV–Game 6, Game & Watch, and Famicom.
3. Yoshio Sakamoto: A designer on R&D1’s exclusive Team Shikamaru. This subgroup was responsible for designing characters and generating scripts for hit games like Metroid, Kid Icarus, and Wrecking Crew.
4. Masayuki Uemura:The designer of both the Famicom and the Super Famicom and the leader of R&D2, which focused almost exclusively on engineering and manufacturing oversight. Also, his wife was the one who had come up with the name Famicom.
5. Genyo Takeda:The head of R&D3, which was best known for technical software innovations like bank switching, MMC chips, and creating a battery backup that allowed players to save their games (designed specifically for The Legend of Zelda). Although they were the smallest group, they created a handful of notable games like Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! and StarTropics.
6. Shigeru Miyamoto: Nintendo’s greatest treasure, Miyamoto had been appointed the leader of R&D4, which was solely responsible for developing NES/Famicom games. In 1992, with the release of the Super Nintendo, this group was renamed the Entertainment Analysis Division (EAD) and was dedicated to developing 16-bit games. In addition to titles like F-Zero and Pilot Wings, EAD was responsible for making all of the Mario and Zelda games. Currently they were hard at work on a flying game that would launch the new Super FX chip.
Whenever Harman accompanied Mr. A. to Japan, he savored the time he got to spend with these men. Their minds just worked at a different level, and it was an inspiring thing to behold. Particularly Miyamoto, who so obviously saw the world differently and used his games to invite others into his memories. The castles that he used to explore as a boy became the enigmatic dungeons in The Legend of Zelda, the neighbor’s vicious dog (held back only by a rusty chain) became the Chain-Chomp villains in Super Mario Bros. 3, and in a million other ways he managed to transform the invisible world that only he could see into the pixels of these games.
In the middle of Mr. Y.’s speech, Harman was watching Miyamoto and these other magicians, trying to see the world through their eyes, when suddenly they all simultaneously shot their heads up at once. In hushed tones and anxious murmurs they ricocheted whispers back and forth, debating, dissecting, and discussing a matter of contention until their conversation ceased and slowly they all looked up silently at Harman.
“What?” he asked sheepishly, having no idea what had spurred their concerns.
Miyamoto was the one who explained. Apparently, Mr. Y. had just announced to the world that not only had he bought the Seattle Mariners, but Nintendo was currently making the world’s greatest baseball game, a game so perfectly wonderful that it would put all others to shame. The problem, however, was that he had never previously told any of the R&D heads that he wished to create such a game.
“Well,” Harman said, taking this in, “one of us should tell him.”
Harman’s suggestion spurred another round of murmurs, and after this brief powwow the designers decided that nobody wanted to tell Nintendo’s president that there was no baseball game under development. Instead they decided that one of them was going to have to produce the game, and to do it so quickly so that Mr. Y. would never suspect a thing.
“Okay,” Harman said, skeptical of this plan. “Who’s going to oversee this?”
“You,” Miyamoto said, and the others chimed in with laughter.
“All right,” Harman said, digesting this news. Those were some mighty big eggshells he’d have to walk on, but this was the opportunity Harman had been waiting fo
r. Mr. Y. was so powerful that Nintendo’s top magicians would rather make a multimillion-dollar game than have a quiet conversation to correct his mistake. Harman was going to make a baseball game for the Super Nintendo, but for next few moments he couldn’t help but join in on their laughter.
36.
PROMETHEUS REVISITED
Luke Perry, Beverly Hills 90210’s sultan of sideburns, walked up to the podium at the eighth annual MTV Video Music Awards, airing live on September 9, 1992. Although each of the awards given out so far that night had been presented by celebrities in pairs (like Halle Berry and Jean-Claude Van Damme, or Marky Mark and Vanessa Williams), Perry, curiously, was alone. But the sly grin on his face revealed that he wouldn’t remain alone for very long.
After quieting an assault of sexy shrieks, Perry got down to business. “Okay,” he started, speaking with the MTV generation’s requisite mixture of exhilaration and detachment. “I would like to introduce my copresenter, because nobody else had the balls to show up and do it!”
About twenty rows from the stage, Kalinske looked on as the sexy shrieks returned at full blast. He had come down to LA to watch the awards with Nilsen, Toyoda, Van Buskirk, and the rest of Sega of America’s inner circle, minus Diane Adair, who was getting married in three days.
“So from a land far away and long, long ago,” Perry continued, “it’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a really bad smell . . .”
Console Wars Page 39