Nintendo

Nintendo (Japanese: 任天堂; {{Template:nasdaq|NTDOF}}, {{Template:tyo|7974}}) was originally founded in 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi to produce handmade hanafuda cards, for use in a Japanese playing card game of the same name. Over the years, it became a video game company, one of the most powerful in the industry. Aside from video games, Nintendo is also the majority owner of the Seattle Mariners, a Major League Baseball team.

Policies

Emulation

Nintendo is known for a "no tolerance" stance against emulation of its video games and consoles. It claims that mask work copyright protects its games from the exceptions that United States copyright law otherwise provides for backup copies. Nintendo uses the claim that emulators running on personal computers have no use other than to play pirated video games, contested by some who say these emulators have been used to develop and test independently produced "homebrew" software on Nintendo's platforms, and that Nintendo's efforts fudge the truth about copyright laws, mainly that ROM copiers are illegal , and that emulators are illegal .

Related Topics:
Emulation - Mask work copyright - Copyright - Backup - Personal computer - Pirated - "homebrew" software

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The revival of the NES and SNES through emulation has gradually settled down, and NES and SNES ROMs are actually getting easier to find. A common justification pirates try to make is that they believe will never see the light of day again and because the titles are no longer on sale, no damage is done to the company. However, Nintendo's opposition remains, due largely to its tendency to re-release old games within new ones, as with Animal Crossing, Metroid Prime, and The Legend of Zelda Collector's Edition, as well as with the re-release of many older games for the Game Boy Advance Classic NES Series. The enhanced remake idea sometimes, but not always, curbs the need for emulation of NES quality games on the Nintendo GameCube. Recently Nintendo has announced that their upcoming Nintendo Revolution console will be backwards compatible, allowing users to play Gamecube games by inserting the game discs. The system will also allow for the downloading of NES, SNES and N64 games onto the console over the Internet, with them being playable on the console which may actually be achieved through emulation. With this new feature, coined the "virtual console" by the company's president, Nintendo may be able to reduce the illegal ROM downloading and open up a new revenue stream, although success is still unknown.

Related Topics:
Animal Crossing - Metroid Prime - The Legend of Zelda Collector's Edition - Game Boy Advance - Classic NES Series - Enhanced remake - Nintendo GameCube - Nintendo Revolution

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Censorship

For many years, Nintendo of America had a policy of strict censorship for video games published on its systems. In 1994, when the ESRB video game ratings system was introduced, Nintendo chose to abolish most of these policies in favor of gamers making their own choices about the content of the games they played. When this policy was still in effect, religious symbols, appearance of excessive blood or gore, nudity, sexuality, or smoking was all removed from licensed games. This zero tolerance policy was praised and championed by U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman, but others criticized the policy, claiming that gamers should be allowed to choose the content they want to see. Today, changes to the content of games are done primarily by the game's developer. Nintendo has since allowed several mature-content games to be published on its systems, including (but not limited to): Perfect Dark, Conker's Bad Fur Day, BMX XXX, Resident Evil 4, ', and ', and Geist, all prime examples of Nintendo lessening their practices. These games are all rated "M" (for mature), as are their counterparts for Sony's and Microsoft's systems. Interestingly enough, the Playstation 2 version of BMX XXX had censored breasts in it, while Nintendo left it alone.

Related Topics:
Censorship - 1994 - ESRB - Religious symbol - Blood - Gore - Nudity - Sexuality - Smoking - Zero tolerance - U.S. Senator - Joe Lieberman - Perfect Dark - Conker's Bad Fur Day - BMX XXX - Resident Evil 4 - Geist

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One known side effect of this policy was the Sega Genesis version of Mortal Kombat selling over double the number of the Nintendo's Super NES version, mainly due to the fact that Nintendo had forced Acclaim to recolor the red blood to look like white sweat and replace some of the more gory attacks in their release of the game, unlike Sega, which allowed the selling points of blood and gore to remain in the Genesis version. (Nintendo allowed the Super NES version Mortal Kombat II to ship uncensored the following year.) Also, Square executives have suggested that the price of publishing games on the Nintendo 64 along with the degree of censorship and control Nintendo enforced over their games -- most notably Final Fantasy VI -- were factors in moving their games to Sony's PlayStation console.

Related Topics:
Sega Genesis - Mortal Kombat - Acclaim - Mortal Kombat II - Square - Nintendo 64 - Final Fantasy VI - Sony - PlayStation

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Although Nintendo had begun lessening their censorship of console games with the 1994 introduction of the ESRB, portable games continued to be censored for some time. For example, Konami was forced to remove all references to cigarettes in the 2000 GameBoy Color game '. Another example is the Game Boy version of Mortal Kombat II, which contains no blood whatsoever and has extremely toned down fatalities (though it is unknown if this was at Nintendo's demand). However, Mature-rated GameBoy Advance games such as 2003's Max Payne and 2004's Grand Theft Auto Advance suggest that Nintendo is no longer interested in censoring the games that appear on its systems, console or portable.

Related Topics:
Konami - 2000 - Mortal Kombat II - 2003 - Max Payne - 2004 - Grand Theft Auto Advance

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Nintendo's censorship policies have created a false view of Nintendo as a "kiddie company", which was taken advantage of by their competitors. In recent years, Nintendo has done much to shed this reputation and has begun to create more mature games such as Geist. The original Super Smash Brothers on the Nintendo 64 was rated E by the ESRB, while its GameCube sequel, Super Smash Bros. Melee was rated T. The Metroid Prime games and the new ' have been notably more adult oriented.

Related Topics:
Geist - Super Smash Brothers - Nintendo 64 - Super Smash Bros. Melee - Metroid Prime

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Public relations

For years and to today, Nintendo has been regarded as a secretive company by the press. Rarely does Nintendo confirm or deny rumors. Nintendo is known as one of the top companies for customer service, however.

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In this vein, Nintendo is known as the rulers of unveiling things at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles every year. The Nintendo DS was first revealed here, and many online sources rely on E3 to come around for Nintendo to launch news about new systems. However, at this year's Expo, Nintendo released very few technical details about their upcoming console, the Nintendo Revolution. The Nintendo Revolution controller, which had been shrouded in secrecy, was revealed on September 16, 2005 at the Tokyo Game Show (TGS).

Related Topics:
E3 - Nintendo DS - Nintendo Revolution - Nintendo Revolution controller - September 16 - 2005 - Tokyo Game Show

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Nintendo of America uses an outside firm, Golin Harris, to handle much of its public relations. Beth Llewelyn is the in-house senior director of public relations at Nintendo of America. Tom Harlin is Nintendo of America's manager of public relations. Nintendo of Europe also uses an outside firm, Cake Media, to handle much of its public relations.

Related Topics:
Golin Harris - Cake Media

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