Nintendo History Discussion
Doing my rounds of Japanese interviews. And last month have stumbled onto interesting information.
- Originally I thought that Nintendo R&D1 developed Clu Clu Land. But Japanese historian site claims that Takashi Tezuka worked on the game after Devil World. The timing and similarity of design to Devil World does make it very likely. Also Akito Nakatsuka composed the soundtrack to Clu Clu Land, and since he worked on Devil World. Again makese sense. So it seems Devil World was EAD's first NES game? Clu Clu Land was the second NES game by EAD. Excitebike, Kung Fu, and Ice Climbers were next.
- The NES version of Kung Fu was definitely developed by EAD. Although it was licensed and based on Irem's Arcade game Spartan X.
- Another misconception was that R&D1 developed some NES games like Pinball, F-1 Race (the one before Famicom Grand Prix: F-1 Race). But it seems like R&D2 developed those games. R&D2 also developed Baseball and Mahjong. Pretty much all the early 83 and 84 games for the Famicom were done by R&D2 . EAD and R&D1 started releasing NES games by late 84.
- R&D1 first NES games were pretty much throwback games that resembled Game&Watch (Urban Champion) and the Leisure System Games (Wild Gunman, Hogan's Alley, Duck Hunt). I believe all these games were by the Game & Watch minds (Makoto Kano). Sakamoto, Kiyotake, and Matsuoka's games (Balloon Fight, Gyromite, Wrecking Crew) were the first truly evolved ideas. And then even more so when Sakamoto and Osawa started doing scenario adventures like Metroid, Kid Icarus. Which then evolved to text story adventure games.
- I believe Gyromite was designed by Kiyotake and or Matsuoka? Not sure. Kiyotake did Duck Hunt.
- Tadashi Sugiyama designed one of the first games Satoru Iwata helped Nintendo repair. Could be Pinball, F-1 Race, or Golf. Never figured this one out.
- Always scouring to find the development team of Pacman Vs., Flipnote Studio (at least another programmer involved), and the other EAD Tokyo game Make Your Own DS Guide.
- Miyamoto revealed that one more uncredited EAD artist worked on Super Mario Bros. He supposedly polished the artwork him and Tezuka did. I wonder who this artist is.