Just read this beaut of an article about the origins of Nintendo. Some stuff you may have known before – about how it started in the 1800s (only just… 1889. But still… old ahoy), as a company selling playing cards, and how it shipped over to the USA in the 1980s. But loads of other bits – like how Mario Bros ripped off an arcade game called Joust, how Nintendo nearly folded in the early 80’s, and a few random tit-bits about the people running it. Pretty fascinating stuff – and well written too, which goes to prove how the GRiG is re-shaping the world of video games journalism. Ahem.
Anyhoo, it’s from a book that’s actually about both Nintendo and Sega, which makes it doubly tasty. So tasty in fact that I went straight to Amazon to buy that sucker (well played to the marketing guru who had the idea of publishing this teaser article to lure in saps like me…) Sadly, the book’s only out in America (comes out here in August) and the postage was, like, £30. But lo! I had some free Prime offer thing so – woohoo – free postage from America ahoy!
A video of Joust, yesterday. Using the iframe code ahoy!
Except, I’ve kind of ruined this story with the title of the article. As, yes, Amazon are wily enough not to let you use a UK Prime membership to order stuff for free from thousands of miles away. But I do now have 30 days free so if you want anything purchasing… let me know.
And instead, I’ve bought the book on Kindle, which means it’s out in a couple of weeks. I’ll let you know how it goes… And ps, apparently they’re making it into a film – hence the fact the book has a foreword by Seth Rogen. Interesting…
see the div class code for doing centre align is great, but doesn’t it leave loads of unwanted lines of space in things because you have to pad the div tags? but lo, i totally did it look!
and i see you cleaned up the embeds in that other article too – thanks! i just went to do it… it’s funny how long i spend fiddling with these pieces on here when at most us three are gonna read em once and then never look at it again… ! but hey, it’s a labour of love… and i just hate seeing sloppy editing…
One day every article on here will be legendary, once the rest of the world catch on. They just need to come around.
It’s funny, I read a story the other day about this book, except they said it was a book about Sega. I guess it depends which side of the fence interested you most back in the day. Or still now even. Whatever, it sounds like its gonna be a good read with a lot of interesting nuggets from those awesome days!
My open orders still says 19th June, still later than the Americas by the sounds of it. But I doubt I’d ever get round to reading, I mean all the quality gaming stuff is on the GRiG.
If you guys have been logged in when you visit the GRiG then you shouldn’t be in analytics and we’re still averaging 15-20 hits a day.
Ooh you bought it too? Read that sucka! (On kindle I take it? Cos otherwise you’re getting it way earlier than I thought you could!!)
Hard cover I think, I pre ordered when it was first announced, it’s currently unavailable now so maybe I will just get it early ^^
Yes searching for it only shows the paperback for August 7th. So either I get mine early and not read it for 3 years or it won’t come at all because of a screw up in the listings. Probably just sold out of hard cover though.
Know what this made me think is that I bet it’s got pictures – which will look totally lame on the kindle. Oh man, I totally should have stuck with getting the book… Ho hum…