Interesting info on NES marketing

[Arkanoid_Katamari]

So, I was reading the NES page on Wikipedia, and it was interesting to find out some of the more subtle marketing tricks Nintendo used when first releasing the system. This may be common knowledge, but it was stuff I hadn't noticed before. Most of their marketing was in reaction to the video game crash of 1983, one issue being that game cover art was wildly exaggerated in comparison to wat the game actually was like. A good example of that is Centipede on the Atari 2600, the artwork is very realistic, and even has a comic book to go with it. When in reality it was just a shooter.

But with the original 30 black box games they used artwork that looked like what the game looked like, in order to not deter customers into thinking they were being hoodwinked again. So even the simple pixeled art on the covers of games like SMB or Excitebike had a purpose in mind. That, I found interesting.

The other thing was Nintendo's Seal of Quality which was used to ensure skeptical customers that the game was decent. Even tho that was still a sliding scale obviously as some games were just crap anyway. But even putting the games into certain genres on the boxes like "sports" or "action" was also a marketing trick to keep from alienating the customers.

Idk if that was old news to most people, but I read it today, found it interesting.

[bb_hood]

The other thing was Nintendo's Seal of Quality which was used to ensure skeptical customers that the game was decent. Even tho that was still a sliding scale obviously as some games were just crap anyway. But even putting the games into certain genres on the boxes like "sports" or "action" was also a marketing trick to keep from alienating the customers.

I think the Nintendo seal of quality was used to distinguish licensed games from non-licensed ones.

Another thing they did was to discourage the use of the term 'video game' and market the NES under the term 'Entertainment System'.

[Tanooki]

I think the idea of that seal was both as you said for them having a licensed game approved by Nintendo, but also it was a seal to prove that it went through the NOA testing labs to at the least insure that it did not have any critical bugs that would progression stop or crash a game so it couldn't be finished. Clearly the team quality was loose when looking at the god awful shit that LJN and Acclaim often put out in most cases, but as bad as they were they worked. The license also worked as a way to scare and threaten both consumers but retailers since they'd twist arms about unlicensed titles going as far as lying to consumers how they'd break your system potentially and scaring retailers into getting no or delayed shipments if they carried the stuff which made locating Tengen, Color Dreams and other even more turd loaded unlicensed stuff at retail a pain.

The marketing angle is correct 1983 scared the hell out of NIntendo, it's why the Famicom was on the market 2 years before it came here rebranded entirely right down to the boring ass VCR looking box to make it not look like a game console and then pandered it off with a robot to try and get stores to take it because they would want to have nothing to do with a game console, especially one made by the Japanese. They tried at a basic level for at least the first year or so to be 'honest' with buyers so they showed on the box what to expect from the game front and back, little mystery, which was great because you knew what you were going to get and didn't have to worry so much about buying trash with a pretty picture on the box.

[aingevt]

From what I remember, they also refused to refer to their games as "cartridges" and called them "game paks" instead. Presumably this was also to differentiate themselves from Atari.

[Tanooki]

They did in fact do that, and there was plenty of word play. The ROB being a Robotic Operating Buddy (ie a robot friend in the big 80s high point of cool robot toys for kids) and even a light gun being a Zapper that sounded more toy like too. They wanted to pander it as a toy, not as a video game system since they spoiled the market just 2 years earlier. They wanted to give everything a visual and name similarity to hot toys in the market from laser tag to robot buddy 2-XL among others. Everything was a gimmick out of them to crappily disguise it from pissed off and scared retail outlets that it was a video game system after they lost their asses on those failures having to clear out the mess of them on the whole in 1983. It's covered pretty well in David Sheff's Game Over book that came out like 15 years ago.

For the public and the jittery store reps who sold toys (and once video games) they put this dog and pony show on and was just able to squeak enough stores to allow a soft test launch in LA and surrounding CA counties and then in NYC. With the luck we know, it worked out. But then it shifted into finding that companies then wanted to make games for it to pop up in the US and NOA went into nazi control scheme mode with the limit of games per year, restricting information, threatening stores about consequences for unlicensed games, scaring consumers about them as if they'd melt their system down, propaganda every 10min on TV spots on major networks to the NP advertising magazine mouthpiece. It was all very calculated.

[The Adventurer]

While pretty dishonest, reigning in unlicensed games was probably a good thing overall for consumers. Since they attributed a lot to the video game crash.

[Greg2600]

Nearly everything Nintendo did during that period was with the Atari-era mistakes in mind. I wouldn't call them tricks, they were strategies and tactics, to first persuade retailers and then consumers. The buying public were somewhat bored with the previous game era, and retailers were highly skeptical.

[Gentlegamer]

Nintendo had a herculean task of reviving the video game market after the crash. Video games were retail poison, and the tactics mentioned above were enacted to combat what the previous generation had done to the market, as Greg2600 noted.

[bb_hood]

Nintendo had a herculean task of reviving the video game market after the crash.

Yeah, although in the end I think the products sold themselves. I think Nintendo knew that if they could get a foot in the door they would be all set.
It wasnt like they were fooling anyone, calling a video game console an entertainment system isnt going to convince people to drop 300$ on a toy, especially back in 1985.
ROB was included in the first set, and I guess that too was there to make it look like more than just another 'video game'.

[peeingas]

The "Nintendo Seal of Quality" is one of those things that gets a lot more attention on the internet than it ever did in real life. It is mostly used as a punchline for jokes about bad games, but back in the day, no one really cared about it or even noticed it. If anyone did notice it, they knew it was just a gimmick and didn't pay it much attention.

[PizzaKat]

I remember reading this some years back. Very interesting. They also asked Atari if they can distribute the NES but Atari said no so they went out on their own, good thing too.

[SparTonberry]

Yes it is well known Atari backed out after Coleco (unintentionally?) violated their Donkey Kong license by porting it to the Adam when they were only licensed for ColecoVision. Atari viewed that as a threat to their computer business, and thinking Nintendo was responsible called off the Famicom deal.

[Jorpho]

But with the original 30 black box games they used artwork that looked like what the game looked like, in order to not deter customers into thinking they were being hoodwinked again. So even the simple pixeled art on the covers of games like SMB or Excitebike had a purpose in mind. That, I found interesting.

All this time, that never once occurred to me. It's brilliant in its elegance! Maybe that explains why the box art for Zelda and Zelda II was so darn boring-looking as well.

Yes it is well known Atari backed out after Coleco (unintentionally?) violated their Donkey Kong license by porting it to the Adam when they were only licensed for ColecoVision. Atari viewed that as a threat to their computer business, and thinking Nintendo was responsible called off the Famicom deal.

Something like that. Actually, the ADAM had the ability to play ColecoVision cartridges, and Atari had already negotiated exclusive rights to "computer" versions DK, so it looked like Nintendo was going behind their backs when DK was seen running on the ADAM. Or so the story goes.
http://web.archive.org/web/200705170.../index24.shtml

[Tanooki]

I found it fascinating well after various third party games did pop out on the market that Nintendo stuck to their original 'honesty in marketing' designs of the black box games into the silver box titles, yet they did bend it a few times before just changing it up with SMB2. You had the trio of of 'silver box' games with Rad Racer, Metroid and Kid Icarus which are all the same style (even Rad Racer almost ended up black too, there are some black manuals out there with blue font.) Then you have Mike Tyson's Punchout being the other, still the boring black box design but instead had a live shot of Tyson on the front doing damage. It wasn't until SMB2 where you got the poppy cartoon visuals to make the title stand out at retail with that big mario on the blue cloudy background.

[bb_hood]

All this time, that never once occurred to me. It's brilliant in its elegance! Maybe that explains why the box art for Zelda and Zelda II was so darn boring-looking as well.

It never occurred to me either, I never thought that the black box games' pixelated art had a purpose to show a realistic image of the game's graphics.
People say they look boring but I think they look awesome. I think the boxes for the first 2 zelda games are beautiful. I love how they have the part of the shield cut out revealing the gold cart underneath.

[Gentlegamer]

It never occurred to me either, I never thought that the black box games' pixelated art had a purpose to show a realistic image of the game's graphics.
People say they look boring but I think they look awesome. I think the boxes for the first 2 zelda games are beautiful. I love how they have the part of the shield cut out revealing the gold cart underneath.

It should also be remembered that the black box art was showing off state of the art graphics for the time. It was a step back from the fanciful/deceptive art of the previous gen, but it was also a huge step up from the actual graphics of the previous gen.

I wish Game Over would go back into print, the last edition sells used for ridiculous prices just like many classic games, these days, $50 for a mass market paperback.

I have the abridged edition, and it's really good, but I'd pay good money for a royalty paying hardcover of the full edition.

[Gentlegamer]

Serendipity!

RetrowareTV posts The Video Game Years, 1985 part 1, covering the test marketing/launch of NES and covers the topic of this thread!

[Tanooki]

I wish I still had Game Over, but it was game over for it like 10 years ago so I think I gave it away in a bundle of stuff as a thank you. If they ever throw that sucker up on the Kindle format I'm in for another read as it's a good one and works as a nice reference as well on 20th century Nintendo since it stopped right as the GC was about to pop out.

[Gentlegamer]

I wish I still had Game Over, but it was game over for it like 10 years ago so I think I gave it away in a bundle of stuff as a thank you. If they ever throw that sucker up on the Kindle format I'm in for another read as it's a good one and works as a nice reference as well on 20th century Nintendo since it stopped right as the GC was about to pop out.

http://www.amazon.com/Game-Over-Nint...er+david+sheff

[Az]

It never occurred to me either, I never thought that the black box games' pixelated art had a purpose to show a realistic image of the game's graphics.

Perhaps also the reason behind Sega's early year extremely minimalistic SMS covers?