if you'd seen uh game and watch was not
so popular and that atari had this crash
was there any point where you felt you
might be wasting your time i do myself
yes yes yes
any hints for us what's the best
strategy
i forgot
1971
that's the time when he can get into
nintendo what was it like to be in
nintendo at that time
there's a lot of freedom at the company
in the worst case scenario that there's
nothing i could do when i got into the
nintendo
there's a lot of anticipation that i
could do something really interesting by
being that part of the company what was
the size of nintendo when you joined and
how did it grow
when i joined nintendo there's virtually
no one who are specialized in electrical
engineering
i had one colleague who studied at the
university levels uh for electrical
engineering and that's about it
i haven't played it recently so
during the testing period i would play
it like all the time
was there a separation between hardware
and software okay
i know
basically we're on the same team
so initially the hardware designer also
works on like sound design graphic
design and even game design yourself and
develop games
so there's a lot of people who are
specializing in electrical engineering
but also as a hobby they play
guitars or the pianos and all these
stuff so those people are available
some also into old painting as a hobby
okay so
during that time even though they're
designing hardware but simultaneously
some worked on music others work some
graphic
and then and all together they created
game design
but then after the business start you
know grow everybody needs to focus on
specialized functions by expanding
business by
implementing what is called divisional
labor so we could have more product in
shorter times
so we then eventually hire somebody who
specializes in music compositions at the
university i will be recruited and also
those guys who are specializing art
are recruited to our companies
back then these days somebody will start
with a design program to make something
did you literally just start writing on
paper how did it start
in in back then in japan and in a lot of
cases we studied
video game developed in america it's got
such templates
it's the same situation not only
nintendo but also like a title sega
so they would import atari products from
america and while they're doing their
business on the side they also study
and what they've done the atari has done
as a product
so one of the most breakthrough back
then was a spacing better i developed a
title
developed by mr nishikado
he ended up developing
spacing better but before then he
studied quite a bit about
all these games developed in america
and we also studied what the title has
done on space invader
so after space invader became a huge hit
and there was a toy that used electrical
calculator to make it as a game
and that's how it started
so some of them decided or that they
started developing
space invader type game using electrical
calculator having lsi small monitors
so that's how nintendo came up with the
new uh
gaming watch that uses like a mechanism
from electric calculator and then
putting lcd monitors do you know so
nintendo their first work for the home
use game like device is game and watch
we also were studying about arcade game
because we had an operation that focused
on arcade game service and stuff so we
knew
that is something that we should focus
on but then you know we thought it was
not possible to create toys that focus
on that function because
it's just not possible so that's why we
first started out with game and watch
how does it feel to have that controller
in your hand again
i remember testing it all the time
your list of credits and things that
you're involved in is is very impressive
how did it feel to be involved in all
these things well i'm really so
surprised as i look back now that i did
a lot of amazing stuff
i'm surprised
it's good
but while i was developing this
project
i was not completely satisfied because
in one time it was too expensive the
other time i wanted to do something more
but with technical limitation we
couldn't do that much so there's a lot
of complaint
that i had for that project
but i now realize it now that
if we try to do
something interesting with technical
limitation then we'll be able to come up
with interesting stuff that would
attract
it's not possible to recreate this kind
of jumping action
really difficult to recreate towards the
end it was really not possible for a
while because
so so what we did
for our perspective was that when atari
2600 came out we imported that device
and then played the games with that but
then
after the analysis after studying the
atari 2600 their conclusion was that
it was not convincing for
kids in japan enough to be able to make
it as a marketable product
because
same time we had another information
that the donkey kong that they developed
in japan became more popular in america
than
those in japan
at the time the game watch was really
popular in japan so there as a corporate
their decision was that
they don't need to create like a donkey
kong stuff because game watch was
already popular
but then during the time for the video
game shakeout took place in america uh
with athali started collapse in 1983
also the game
watch was no longer popular during that
time
by that time we had a prototype
which they're working on for the family
computer
and then with that the fact that the
game watch is not selling well as it
used to be
then there was a command from the
top
corporate to to sell the family computer
as a product
but at that time
there's no company that could supply lsi
which could be used for a family
computer it's uh because a majority of
semiconductor company in japan was
focusing on developing computer chips
for home computer use
but then there's one company called rico
which are usually creating chips for the
office copying machines were able to
create the chips that is suitable for
the famicom
because even though rico had a
capability to creating semiconductors
lsi the company didn't allow them to put
the device into like a copy machine so
the team are designing lsi was a bit
frustrated at the time so that was time
that nintendo couldn't find the company
that could create the lsi riko who could
come accrete lsi so they're
met
together and get together we have donkey
kong behind you and you've been working
on bringing this into the home trying to
understand how you go about that so
destiny at first the lsi that the
semiconductor company that creating ssi
was saying it's not possible
because it costs a lot of money to do
that i know at that time in order to to
faithfully recreate what you could do
with arcade game version of donkey kong
you need like a full lsi to do that
right
but then the order from the president
was to make sure to sell this in the
product
at the retail price of 15 000 yen
at maximum it got screen aside
that means we could only use two chips
not four
so it's just a collaboration deal
between a nintendo and an lsi developer
that make sure to put maximum amount of
graphical and sound capability with
donkey kong simultaneously put them into
two chips
and that was quite challenging for rico
as well
[Music]
so it was a challenge for both of us
but we just did our best
i see your name is down as producer for
donkey kong is this because of the
famicom version of it maybe
yes that's for the family computer
version
because a look and the graphic design
wise it's very similar
but then from program perspective the
family conversion and
arc devices are completely different
what tricks did you use to make it work
so did the advances in science help with
that was it the chips were getting more
capable
i know so we were able to rectify the
graphic chips
during that time so that's why even
though cpu itself the 606503
we have to put all this maximum graphic
capability into this processing model
we had a source code for the arcade
version of donkey kong
so for the arcade version you use a g80
instead of 6502 it's famicoms
different cpu
so we have to program it from scratch
but we have the arcade game right
outside so during the porting process
we played it as much as possible to be
able to faithfully recreate how it is on
a family competition
it was really hard challenged in such a
short time with such a different type of
technical capability of the cpus today
maybe the game is written in a high
level language and then you can port
from one to another to another
and that was not how this was
not at all
you have to work on with hardware no
operation
there's no operation system available
then over my shoulder we have a famicom
here how does this feel to hold this
again
it's a toy
it's a good toy
well i guess i look back
i guess it was in fact a very amazing
piece of toy
the important portion of this device is
this place right here the ejection
directions this one allows the kids to
eject the cartridge
pops out if you push it
from uh
device perspective that eject button is
not necessary
but he put it on purpose because it's a
toy
another thing was that we initially
thought that we would just only put one
controller
because this is a device which allows
kids to
be in front of tv and then play alone
that was the new things about the toy
but then around that time there's arcade
games which allowed two players to play
simultaneously thus we decided to put
two controllers one
so i think a lot of people are shocked
at how um
faithfully ported this arcade device to
the pharmacy
especially looking at this jumping
sequence of the games
you know
jump is actions that are done by kids
those are this kind of
the jumping is action it's not that
smooth and kids will realize that
but then donkey kong was faithfully able
to recreate that jumping action so
that's one thing great about this game
they know what they're doing right he
takes this over one and produces that
same a1 so that he can decrypt the
message and read it right so alice maybe
wants to send another one so she's going
to tick this kdf function again she's
going to produce a new key and a2 right
she's going to send that to bob he's
going to tick this receiving function a2
now bob wants to send a message