Issue 39 - The King and the Donkey

[The Escapist Staff]

SpannerBefore Nintendo released their first home console system, their American branch was in the business of licensing games to other manufacturers. Spanner details a defining moment of Nintendo of America, its legal battle with Universal Studios over Donkey Kong.

 

[The Escapist Staff]

Original Comment by: Jim

AFAIK "Donkey Kong" was not a mistake. If memory serves right, Miyamoto said later that donkeys are stubborn hence the name...

 

[The Escapist Staff]

Original Comment by: Nikudada

Cheers for a great article. Its this kind of reading that makes the escapist such a pioneer in game journalism. I would never expect to see this topic in an hard copy publication which is what has kept me coming back to the Escapist since my first foray back when Greg Costikyan wrote Death to the Games Industry. Clearly an interesting read and something I would never have known short of doing my own research - which I never would have done because I didn't know the history was so interesting. Are the lives of other such companies this interesting? Will we get to hear more about their history?

 

[The Escapist Staff]

Original Comment by: 666

Good article & shows why Nintendo will be here long after the rest have left.

 

[The Escapist Staff]

Original Comment by: Mark
http://frontal-lobe.net
Reading the part about the court case with Universal, I felt like playing Phoenix Wright.

 

[The Escapist Staff]

Original Comment by: Jim

I've read the story before in Steven L. Kent's book... but your article is a great one nonetheless. Superb!

 

[The Escapist Staff]

Original Comment by: Oscar

Excellent article!
It?s very impressive to see how far Nintendo has come along, and after reading this article you can?t help but understand why Nintendo is what it is, and where the Revolution fits in it?s future.

 

[The Escapist Staff]

Original Comment by: Eben

I'm sorry but this article bored me out of my wits. Not only that, but this sophomoric school-report format is a disservice not only to the beauty of Nintendo's whimsy and charm, but more importantly to video-game criticism in general. The story here is the game and the designer, not a long, drawn-out exposition of backroom dealings made bearable only by quirky trivia.

Doesn't it matter that Miyamoto had radically changed the approach to designing games and the format of thousands of games to follow it? That he was the first (and possibly, lamentably, last) playful game designer? There is such a rich history of Donkey Kong and the early years of Nintendo that not only involves Miyamoto's playful innovation, but also the complexities of how a game made up of various mistranslations and mingling intercultural narrative motifs was so widely embraced and and quickly absorbed into the the pop-cultural consciousness of the West.

I can't tell; either you haven't read Chris Kohler's Power-Up, or you did and totally missed the point.

 

[The Escapist Staff]

Original Comment by: Oscar

Haven't read it, and as a student I can't afford the $12.99 from Amazon.
(Off to buy an imported DS Lite! Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!)