The People Behind Mario: When Hiroshi Yamauchi, president of Nintendo Co., Ltd. (NCL), hired a young art student as an apprentice in 1980, he had no idea that he was changing video games forever. That young apprentice was none other than the highly revered Shigeru Miyamoto, the man behind Mario. Miyamoto provided the inspiration for each Mario game Nintendo produces, as he still does today, with the trite exception of the unrelated “Mario-based” games produced by other companies. Just between the years 1985 and 1991, Miyamoto produced eight Mario games that went on to collectively sell 70 million copies. By record industry standards, Miyamoto had gone 70 times platinum in a brief six years. When the Nintendo chairman Gunpei Yokoi was assigned to oversee Miyamoto when he was first hired, Yokoi complained that “he knows nothing about video games” (Game Over 106). It turned out that the young apprentice knew more about video games than Yokoi, or anyone else in the world, ever could. Miyamoto’s Nintendo group, “R&D4,” had the assignment to come up with “the most imaginative video games ever” (Game Over 49), and they did just that. No one disagrees when they hear that "Shigeru is to video gaming what John Lennon is to Music!" (www.nintendoland.com) As soon as Miyamoto and Mario entered the scene, America, Japan, and the rest of the world had become totally engrossed in “Mario Mania.” Before delving deeply into the character that made Nintendo a success, we must first take a look at Nintendo, and its leader, Hiroshi Yamauchi. Hiroshi Yamauchi ruled Nintendo, and the Japanese and American video game industries, with an iron fist. He led with astonishing commitment and work ethic. David Sheff points out in Game Over, Press Start to Continue that “commitment to an idea and pure tenacity are inherent in Japanese business philosophy” (172), which certainly fitted Yamauchi’s case. What he said was law, and his own employees and heads of other companies alike were at his mercy. His leadership style involved intimidation and lacked compromise, and according to one Nintendo manager “he is so certain that he is right that he listens to no one” (Game Over 39). A rival company executive claimed: “We all were intimidated. Like a God, Yamauchi wielded power” (Game over 71). Even though Yamauchi had never played a video game in his life, his sixth sense enabled the best decisions in the industry. While others laughed at the name: “Donkey Kong,” he persisted in selling it. Donkey Kong (1981, Arcade) later went on to save Nintendo of America and fuel the success of its parent Japanese company, Nintendo Co., Ltd. His decisions were risky, and still are today, yet Yamauchi always comes out on top. Only a few Nintendo products, out of hundreds, have flopped, namely the “Virtual Boy,” which only sold 50,000 in Japan out of an expected 3 million, “Radarscope,” whose old consoles were cleverly converted into auspicious Donkey Kong consoles, and other minor cases. Yamauchi has been described as “either remarkably intuitive or terrifically lucky.” (Game Over 39) He pitted engineers against each other so they would compete and create a better product, and rarely congratulated his workers, thus elevating the worth of his compliments. As one Nintendo engineer put it: “We lived for his praise” (Game Over 23). Sheff continues to note that “a nod from Yamauchi could make a day—or week, or month. Engineers were ecstatic when they came up with an idea that delighted him” (Game Over 39). If Miyamoto and the game designers were the blood of early Nintendo, Yamauchi was undoubtedly their heart.While Hiroshi Yamauchi had his firm grip on the Japanese home video game market, Minoru Arakawa was trying to reach the American market. Arakawa started out in a Manhattan office with one assistant who was the first employee of Nintendo of America (NOA): his wife Yoko. Developing NOA consisted of high stress, low rent living for the Arakawas, as they contacted retailers by hand to get their product out. Nintendo’s first challenge was to enter the 8 billion dollar coin-op business, which was ruled by Atari and others. They attempted to do this with a game called “Radarscope,” a shooting game that was highly hyped, yet resembled too much the hackneyed concept of the “shoot ‘em up” to sell well. When the savior Donkey Kong arrived from Japan, Arakawa and his warehouse team had little to say, and less to hope. Yet they still converted the old Radarscope (1980) consoles into Donkey Kong machines. After the immense profits fueled by Donkey Kong, Yamauchi and Arakawa wanted to go after the American home video game market, which at the time was totally in shambles after the fall of Atari. Yet every retailer Arakawa tried to sell games to gave him the same response. As David Sheff points out, “the last thing anybody wanted to hear about was a new video game system. Everywhere [Arakawa] went, he heard one name over and over again: Atari” (130). Despite extreme discouragement by American retailers, along with industry experts and failed control group tests, Yamauchi believed in his company. The persistence of the two men pulled through, and he gave Arakawa an investment of 50 million dollars backed by NCL. Entering the American home video game market wasn’t made easy by this investment, though. Arakawa and his small staff of marketers, Ron Judy and Bruce Lowry, headed to toy stores to get the Nintendo Entertainment System, and most importantly Mario, on the shelves. Part of the demand for Mario amongst retailers was created by contacting industry analysts and displaying NCL’s stunning financial figures. Peter Main, Nintendo’s Marketing head and 1989 Adweek Marketer of the year, remarked that “it became a self-fulfilling prophecy that something would happen” (Game Over 172). After many sleepless nights of setting up game displays and begging manufacturers, Mario, with the help of Arakawa, had moved to the U.S. Mario’s history consists of a list of some 70 games, many of them being “Mario-based” games, where the game play is dissimilar to that of a Mario game yet Mario is used as an icon. These “non side-scrolling,” but still quite profitable games include: Super Mario Kart (1992, SNES), Mario Kart 64 (1996, N64), and Mario Golf (1999, N64). Mario also made several novelty appearances in games where the game play is not only different from
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