Donkey Kong[c] is a 1981 arcade video game developed and published by Nintendo. As Mario, (known at the time as "Jumpman") the player runs and jumps on platforms and climbs ladders to ascend a construction site and rescue Pauline from a giant gorilla, Donkey Kong. It is the first game in the Donkey Kong series and Mario's first appearance in a video game.
Donkey Kong was created to salvage unsold arcade cabinets following the failure of Nintendo's Radar Scope (1980), and was designed for Nintendo of America's audience. Hiroshi Yamauchi, Nintendo's president at the time, assigned the project to first-time video game designerShigeru Miyamoto. Drawing inspiration from "Beauty and the Beast" and 1930s American media such as Popeye and King Kong, Miyamoto developed the characters and scenario and designed the game alongside chief engineer Gunpei Yokoi. It was the most complex arcade game at that point, using graphics for characterization, including it and cutscenes to illustrate a plot, and integrating multiple unique stages into the gameplay. Donkey Kong pioneered the platform game genre before the term existed, is the first to feature jumping, and is the first video game with a damsel in distress narrative. It had a limited release in Japan on July 9, 1981, before receiving a wide release some weeks later.
Although Nintendo of America's staff was initially apprehensive, Donkey Kong succeeded commercially and critically, becoming the highest-grossing game of 1981 and 1982. It was ported to the Game & Watch, selling eight million units, while Nintendo licensed the game to Coleco, a developer of arcade conversions for home consoles, selling six million cartridges. It was later ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), designed to replicate its technological capabilities; both the game and NES were integral in spreading Japanese video games to Western audiences. Donkey Kong's various ports sold more than 15 million units worldwide. Other companies cloned the game and avoided royalties altogether. Universal City Studios unsuccessfully sued Nintendo, alleging that Donkey Kong violated its trademark of the King Kong franchise.
Donkey Kong's success positioned Nintendo for market dominance for the 1980s and 1990s. The game debuts Mario, who became Nintendo's mascot and one of the world's most recognizable characters. It was mass marketed in multitudes of products, including breakfast cereal, toys, and television cartoons. Donkey Kong is considered one of the most important games from the golden age of arcade video games and one of the greatest and most popular arcade games of all time. It has been frequently referenced in pop culture and subsequent video games and has an active high score competition.
Following 1980's Space Panic, Donkey Kong is one of the earliest examples of the platform game genre,[8]:94[9] even prior to the term being coined; the U.S. gaming press used "climbing game" for games with platforms and ladders.[10] As the first platform game to feature jumping, Donkey Kong requires the player to jump between gaps and over obstacles or approaching enemies whilst Donkey Kong throws barrels at the player, setting the template for the future of the genre.[11] With four unique stages, Donkey Kong was the most complex arcade game of the time, and one of the first arcade games with multiple stages, following games such as 1980's Phoenix and 1981's Gorf and Scramble.[12]:66
In addition to the goal of saving Pauline, the player has a score. Points are awarded for the following: leaping over obstacles; destroying objects with a hammer power-up; collecting items such as hats, parasols, and purses; removing rivets from platforms; and completing each stage according to a steadily decreasing bonus counter. The player starts with three lives with a bonus life awarded at 7,000 points. A life is lost when Mario touches Donkey Kong or any enemy object, falls too far, or lets the bonus counter reach zero. The game ends when all lives are lost.
Each of the four single-screen stages represents 25 meters of the structure Donkey Kong has climbed: 25, 50, 75, and 100 meters. Stage one involves Mario scaling a construction site made of crooked girders and ladders while jumping over or hammering barrels and oil drums tossed by Donkey Kong. Stage two involves climbing a five-story structure of conveyor belts, each of which transport cement pans. The third stage involves the player riding elevators while avoiding bouncing springs. The final stage requires Mario to remove eight rivets from the platforms supporting Donkey Kong; this causes Donkey Kong to fall and the hero to be reunited with Pauline.[13] These four stages combine to form one level.
After each level, the stages repeat with increased difficulty. For example, Donkey Kong begins to hurl barrels faster and sometimes diagonally, and fireballs speed up. The victory music alternates between levels 1 and 2. The fourth level consists of five stages with the final stage at 125 meters. Level 130[d] is colloquially known as the kill screen, due to a programming error that kills Mario after a few seconds, effectively ending the game.[13]
Hank Chien at the Kong Off 3 tournament in Denver, Colorado, in November 2013
The 2007 documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters portrays Steve Wiebe's attempts to break the Donkey Kong world record, then considered to have been held by Billy Mitchell.[14] In the early 2010s, Hank Chien set a record of 1,138,600 points. This was broken four years later by Robbie Lakeman with a score of 1,141,800.[15] Lakeman's record was then broken by John McCurdy on January 11, 2021, with a score of 1,272,700.[16] Lakeman reclaimed the world record only five months later on June 8, scoring 100 more points than McCurdy. Making the new record 1,272,800.[17]
In 2018, Mitchell was stripped of his records by Twin Galaxies and banned from submitting new scores after Twin Galaxies concluded that Mitchell had illicitly used emulators to achieve his scores.[18] Twin Galaxies prohibits the use of emulators for high scores they publish because they allow undetectable cheating.[18] In 2020 Guinness World Records reversed its decision and reinstated Billy Mitchell's previous world records, based on new evidence including eyewitness reports and expert testimonials.[19]
There are other world record categories for Donkey Kong besides highest score. One of the most popular is the "No Hammer Challenge" where competitors try to get the highest score without using the hammer.[20] The current world record in this category was set by Jeff Wolfe on July 8, 2008, with a score of 735,100.[20] Some other categories include most points for different levels, and fewest points.[21]
Plot
On the final screen of each level, Mario and Pauline are reunited.
Story
Taking place in New York City, Jumpman (later known as Mario) was a carpenter who had watched a circus act starring a Kong named Donkey Kong Sr. (later known as Cranky Kong). Jumpman was astonished by the performance at first, until he unwittingly laughed at DK when the short-tempered gorilla kept fumbling during his circus acts where he had to use his legs to balance the barrel he was on, juggling pineapples and avoiding deadly flames (as seen in the Game & Watch prequel entry Donkey Kong Circus).
As revenge for being mistreated by the carpenter, DK literally "goes ape" and escapes while kidnapping Jumpman's girlfriend Lady (later known as Pauline) against her will to keep her for himself, then he runs and climbs to the top of a construction site. It is up to Jumpman to run, jump, climb and hammer his way through all four floors of a construction site that is 100 meters tall of the structure to save Pauline and outsmart the furious and mischievous pet ape.
Concept
Donkey Kong is considered to be the earliest video game with a storyline that visually unfolds on screen.[11] Set on a construction site in New York City,[22] the eponymous Donkey Kong character is the game's de facto villain. The hero is a carpenter originally unnamed in the Japanese arcade release, later named Jumpman and then Mario.[23] Donkey Kong kidnaps Mario's girlfriend, originally known as Lady and later renamed Pauline. The player must take the role of Mario and rescue her. This is the first occurrence of the damsel in distress scenario that provided the template for countless video games released after.[24]:82
The game uses graphics and animation for characterization. Donkey Kong smirks upon Mario's demise. Pauline has a pink dress and long hair,[25]:19–20 and a speech balloon crying "HELP!". Mario, depicted in red overalls and a red cap, is an everyman character, a type common in Japan. Graphical limitations and the low pixel resolution of the small sprites prompted his design. A mustache implies a mouth,[26]:37 a cap obviates the animation of hair, and colored overalls distinguish his arm movements.[24]:238 The artwork of the cabinets and promotional materials make these cartoon-like character designs even more explicit. Pauline, for example, is depicted as disheveled like the 1930s King Kong's Fay Wray in a torn dress and stiletto heels.[25]:19–20
Like Pac-Man (1980), Donkey Kong has cutscenes, but innovates by advancing a complete plot.[27] The game opens with the gorilla climbing a pair of ladders to the top of a construction site, accompanied by a variation on the musical theme from Dragnet.[28] He drops Pauline and stomps his feet, warping the steel beams. He moves to his final perch and sneers. A melody plays, and the level starts. This brief animation sets the scene and adds background to the gameplay, a first for video games. At the stage, a heart appears between Mario and Pauline, but Donkey Kong grabs her and climbs higher, causing the heart to break. The narrative concludes when Mario reaches the end of the rivet stage. He and Pauline are reunited, and a short intermission plays.[26]:40–42
Nintendo of America was founded in 1980 with minor success at importing its parent's arcade cabinets from Japan. In early 1981, its president Minoru Arakawa bet the small startup company on a major order of 3,000 Radar Scope.[29]:103–105[23] Its poor reception in America filled a warehouse with 2,000 unsold Radar Scope machines, so Arakawa requested that the parent company president (and his father-in-law) Hiroshi Yamauchi send a conversion kit of new game software. Yamauchi polled the company's entire talent pool for fresh game design concepts to save the distressed startup.[29]:106[23][30]:157 This yielded Shigeru Miyamoto's debut as lead game designer of his Donkey Kong concept, and Yamauchi appointed head engineer Gunpei Yokoi as project supervisor[30]:158 with a budget of $267,000(equivalent to $895,000 in 2023) according to Miyamoto.[31]
Ikegami Tsushinki was subcontracted for some of the development, with no role in the game's creation or concept, but to provide "mechanical programming assistance to fix the software created by Nintendo".[32][33] Nintendo instructed Ikegami to produce a program according to its instructions and put it onto read-only memory (ROM) chips on printed circuit boards (PC boards). This later led to mutual lawsuits in 1983, as Ikegami asserted ownership over Donkey Kong which Nintendo denied as Ikegami was a subcontractor who had already been paid. Game Machine called it "simply a nuisance tactic" on the part of Ikegami.[34]
By late March 1981, Nintendo was also pursuing a license to make a game based on the Popeye comic strip.[35] When they experienced technical issues, Nintendo took the opportunity to create new characters that could be marketed and used in later games.[36] Miyamoto came up with many characters and plot concepts, but he settled on a love triangle between a gorilla, a plumber with a large hammer, and a girlfriend, mirroring the rivalry between Bluto and Popeye for Olive Oyl.[26]:39 Bluto became an ape, which Miyamoto said was "nothing too evil or repulsive".[29]:47 He would be the pet of the main character, "a funny, hang-loose kind of guy".[29]:47 Miyamoto has named "Beauty and the Beast" and the 1933 film King Kong as influences.[26]:36 Although its origin as a comic strip license played a major part, Donkey Kong marked the first time that the storyline for a video game preceded the game's programming rather than simply being appended as an afterthought.[26]:38 An unrelated Popeye game was released by Nintendo for the Game & Watch the following month, as well as a game called Popeye for arcades in 1982.
Yamauchi wanted primarily to target the North American market, so he mandated that the game be given an English title, as with many previous Nintendo games. Miyamoto decided to name the game for the ape, who he said was the strongest character.[26]:39 The story of how Miyamoto came up with the name "Donkey Kong" varies. A false urban myth says that the name was originally meant to be "Monkey Kong", but was misspelled or misinterpreted due to a blurred fax or bad telephone connection.[37] Another, more credible story claims Miyamoto looked in a Japanese-English dictionary for something that would mean "stubborn gorilla",[30]:158 or that "Donkey" was meant to convey "silly" or "stubborn"; "Kong" was common Japanese slang for "gorilla".[24]:238 A rival claim is that he worked with Nintendo's export manager to come up with the title, and that "Donkey" was meant to represent "stupid and goofy".[29]:48–49 In 2001, Miyamoto stated that he thought the name would convey the thought of a "stupid ape".[38]
Miyamoto had high hopes for his new project. He was not a programmer, so instead consulted technicians for concept feasibility. He wanted to make the characters different sizes, and have different movements and reactions. Yokoi thought Miyamoto's original design was too complex,[29]:47–48 though he had some difficult suggestions, such as using see-saws to catapult the hero across the screen which was eventually found too hard to program, though a similar concept came later in the Popeye arcade game. Miyamoto then thought of using sloped platforms, barrels, and ladders. When he specified that the game would have multiple stages, the four-man programming team complained that he was essentially asking them to implement the game repeatedly.[26]:38–39 Nevertheless, they followed Miyamoto's design, creating a total of approximately 20 kilobytes of content.[30]:530 Yukio Kaneoka composed a soundtrack to serve as background music for the levels and story events.[39][40]
The circuit board of Radar Scope was restructured for Donkey Kong. The Radar Scope hardware, originally inspired by the NamcoGalaxian hardware, was designed for a large number of enemies moving around at high speeds, which Donkey Kong does not require, so the development team removed unnecessary functions and reduced the scale of the circuit board.[41] The gameplay and graphics were reworked for updated ROM chips, and the existing CPU, sound hardware, and monitor were left intact.[42] The character set, scoreboard, upper HUD display, and font are almost identical to Radar Scope, with palette differences.[43] The Donkey Kong hardware has the memory capacity for displaying 128 foreground sprites at 16x16 pixels each and 256 background tiles at 8x8 pixels each. Mario and all moving objects use single sprites, the taller Pauline uses two sprites, and the larger Donkey Kong uses six sprites.[44]
Hiroshi Yamauchi thought the game was going to sell well and phoned to inform Arakawa. Nintendo of America's distributors, Ron Judy and Al Stone, brought Arakawa to the lawyer Howard Lincoln to secure a trademark.[30]:159
The game was sent to Nintendo of America for testing. The sales manager disliked it for being too different from the maze and shooter games common at the time,[29]:49 and Judy and Lincoln expressed reservations over the strange title. Still, Arakawa adamantly believed that it would be a hit.[30]:159 American staff began translating the storyline for the cabinet art and naming the characters. They chose "Pauline" for the Lady, after Polly James, wife of Nintendo's warehouse manager Don James.[26]:200 Arakawa suggested that the name of "Jumpman", a name originally chosen for its similarity to the popular brands Walkman and Pac-Man,[26]:34–42 be changed to "Mario" after Mario Segale, the landlord of the original office space of Nintendo of America.[45][46][26]:42[29]:109 These character names were used in promotional materials, although Mario was called Jumpman in the operations manual and instructions.[47]Donkey Kong was ready for release.[26]:212
Stone and Judy convinced the managers of two bars in Seattle, Washington, to set up Donkey Kong machines. The managers initially showed reluctance, but when they saw sales of $30 a day—or 120 plays—for a solid week, they requested more units.[12]:68 In their Redmond headquarters, a skeleton crew composed of Arakawa, his wife Yoko, James, Judy, Phillips, and Stone gutted 2,000 surplus Radar Scope machines and applied the Donkey Kong conversion kits imported from Japan, consisting of motherboards, power supplies, and marquee graphics.[23][29]:110 The game officially went on sale in July 1981.[30]:211
Ports
The Game & Watch port of Donkey Kong is the first device to feature the modern d-pad.
Coleco
Makers of video game consoles were interested. Taito offered a considerable fee for all rights to Donkey Kong, but Nintendo declined after three days of internal discussion.[29] Rivals Coleco and Atari, Inc. approached Nintendo in Japan and the United States respectively. In the end, Yamauchi granted Coleco exclusive console and tabletop rights to Donkey Kong because he believed that "it [was] the hungriest company".[29]:111 In addition, Arakawa believed that as a more established company in the U.S., Coleco could better handle marketing. In return, Nintendo received an undisclosed lump sum plus $1.40 per game cartridge sold and $1 per tabletop unit. On December 24, 1981, Howard Lincoln drafted the contract. He included language that Coleco would be held liable for anything on the game cartridge, an unusual clause for a licensing agreement.[30]:208–209 Arakawa signed the document the next day, and, on February 1, 1982, Yamauchi persuaded the Coleco representative in Japan to sign without review by the company's lawyers.[29]:112
Coleco bundled the game with the ColecoVision console, which went on sale in August 1982, though the individual cartridge was also available in stores. Coleco offered Atari 2600 and Intellivision versions as well.[49] Coleco's Atari 2600 port was programmed by Garry Kitchen.[50][51]:35 Kitchen was contracted to port the game through his brother Steve, who had connections to an executive at Coleco. He was given only three or four months to develop the port and worked without sleep for the last 72 hours before shipping. Kitchen received no assistance from Nintendo and minimal aid from Coleco, who only provided him with an arcade machine for temporary use. These factors combined with the limited memory of Atari 2600 cartridges forced him to omit two of the original game's four levels.[51]:35 Coleco's sales subsequently doubled to $500 million and its earnings quadrupled to $40 million.[30]:210 Coleco also released stand-alone Mini-Arcade tabletop versions of Donkey Kong, along with Pac-Man, Galaxian, and Frogger in 1982.[52][53] Coleco also bundled a copy of Donkey Kong with its Atari VCS clone, the Coleco Gemini, in 1983.[54]
Atari
Atari obtained the license for home computer versions of Donkey Kong[55] and released it for the Atari 8-bit computers. When Coleco unveiled the Adam Computer, running a port of Donkey Kong at the 1983 Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, Illinois, Atari protested that it was in violation of the licensing agreement. Yamauchi demanded that Arnold Greenberg, Coleco's president, withdraw his Adam port. Greenberg complied, and the game was not published.[30]:283–285
The Atari 8-bit conversion of Donkey Kong contains one of the longest-undiscovered Easter eggs in a video game.[56] Programmer Landon Dyer's initials appear if the player dies under certain conditions and returns to the title screen. This remained undiscovered for 26 years until Dyer revealed it on his blog, stating that "there's an Easter egg, but it's totally not worth it, and I don't remember how to bring it up anyway".[57] The steps required to trigger it were later discovered by Don Hodges, who used an emulator and a debugger to trace through the game's code.[58]
The game was ported by Nintendo Research & Development 2[59] to Nintendo's Family Computer (Famicom) console and released in Japan on July 15, 1983, as one of the system's three launch games.[60]Masayuki Uemura, the Famicom's lead architect, designed the console specifically to faithfully recreate Donkey Kong.[61][62] It is an early Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) game in the Arcade Classics Series, released in June 1986 in North America and October 15 in Europe. Omitted are the cement factory stage and most of the cutscenes, because early ROM cartridges do not have enough memory. It includes a new song composed by Yukio Kaneoka for the title screen.[39] Both Donkey Kong and its sequel, Donkey Kong Jr., are included in the 1988 NES compilation Donkey Kong Classics.
A complete remake of the original arcade game on the Game Boy, titled Donkey Kong (referred to as Donkey Kong '94 during development) contains levels from both the original Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. arcades. It starts with the same gameplay and four locations as the arcade game and then progresses to 97 additional puzzle-based levels. It is the first game to have built-in enhancement for the Super Game Boy system.[63]
Upon release in arcades, Computer and Video Games compared it favorably with King Kong and predicted that it would likely become a success.[6] In his 1982 book Video Invaders, Steve Bloom described Donkey Kong as "another bizarre cartoon game, courtesy of Japan"[26]:5 and said it was one of the "most exciting variations" on Pac-Man's maze theme along with Sega's Frogger due to how players need to "scale from the bottom of the screen to the top" which make them "more like obstacle courses than mazes" since "you always know where you're going — up".[76] In January 1983, the 1982 Arcade Awards gave it the award for the best single-player video game and the Certificate of Merit as runner-up for Coin-Op Game of the Year.[77]
In September 1982, Arcade Express reviewed the ColecoVision port and scored it 9 out of 10.[78]Creative Computing Video & Arcade Games in 1983 stated that "Coleco did a fabulous job" with Donkey Kong, the best of the console's first five games and "the most faithful adaptation of the original video game I have seen".[79] The magazine's Danny Goodman stated that of Coleco's three console versions, the one for the ColecoVision was the best, followed by Atari and Intellivision.[80]Computer and Video Games reviewed the ColecoVision port in its September 1984 issue and scored it 4 out of 4 in all four categories of Action, Graphics, Addiction and Theme.[66] Ed Driscoll reviewed the Atari VCS version of Donkey Kong in The Space Gamer No. 59.[81] Edwards commented that the game is near perfect and that anyone can be caught in Donkey Kong "fever".[81]
Commercial performance
Donkey Kong was popular worldwide, garnering a positive reaction from consumers, and was a significant commercial success for Nintendo, pulling them out of financial troubles. After the game's initial 2,000 arcade cabinets sold out, more orders were made. Arakawa began manufacturing the electronic components in Redmond because waiting for shipments from Japan was taking too long.[30]:160 The game's success led to Arakawa expanding Nintendo of America. By October, Donkey Kong was selling 4,000 units a month, and by June 1982, Nintendo had sold 60,000 Donkey Kong machines in the United States, earning $180 million.[30]:211 Judy and Stone, who worked on straight commission, became millionaires.[30]:160 Arakawa used Nintendo's profits to buy 27 acres (11ha) of land in Redmond in July 1982.[29]:113 Nintendo earned another $100 million on the game in its second year of release in America,[29]:111 totaling $280 million in US cabinet sales by 1982[82] (equivalent to $940,000,000in 2023).
In Japan, the annual Game Machine charts listed Donkey Kong as the highest-grossing arcade game of 1981,[83] and then the sixth highest-grossing arcade game of 1982,[84] with Game Machine later listing the game in its October 1, 1983 issue as the twentieth most successful table arcade cabinet of the month.[85] In the United States, Donkey Kong topped the Play Meter arcade charts in October 1981, setting a weekly earnings record,[86] and it was later listed by RePlay as the highest-grossing arcade game of 1982.[87] It was also among the thirteen highest-grossing arcade games of 1983 in the United States.[88] According to Electronic Games in June 1983, the home versions contributed to the arcade version's extended popularity, compared to the four to six months that the average game lasted.[89] It remained Nintendo's top seller into mid-1983,[30]:284 with steady sales in Japan.[26]:46 A total of 65,000 arcade units were sold in Japan,[90] and 67,000 arcade units in the United States,[91] for a total of 132,000 arcade units sold in Japan and the United States.
Nintendo's Game & Watch handheld version of Donkey Kong released in 1982 sold 8 million units.[92] Coleco had sold 6 million Donkey Kong cartridges for home consoles, grossing more than $153,000,000(equivalent to $483,000,000 in 2023)[e] and earning Nintendo more than $5 million in royalties;[93] the bundled ColecoVision version sold 2 million units,[94] while the Atari 2600 version sold 4 million units in 1982[95][96][97] for $100 million,[95][98] making it one of the best-selling Atari 2600 games. It was also one of the earliest cartridges available for video game rental at certain stores in 1982.[99] Atari's 1987 re-release for the Atari 2600 sold a further 180,523 units for $1,258,282 by 1990.[100] Coleco's Mini-Arcade tabletop versions of Donkey Kong, along with Pac-Man, Galaxian, and Frogger, had combined sales of three million units.[52][53] In Japan, 840,000 units of the Famicom version were sold; the Famicom Mini version for the Game Boy Advance later had a further 160,000 units sold, for a total of 1 million units sold in Japan.[101] The Atari 8-bit computer version sold 25,502 units in 1986 and 1990.[100] This totals 15,206,025 units sold worldwide for the Game & Watch, ColecoVision, Atari and Famicom ports. As of 2015[update], all versions of the original Donkey Kong are estimated to have grossed $4.4 billion in revenue.[102]
In April 1982, Sid Sheinberg, a lawyer and the president of MCA and Universal City Studios, learned of the game's success and suspected it might be a trademark infringement of Universal's own King Kong.[30]:211 Nintendo was given 48 hours to turn over all profits from the game and dispose of all Donkey Kong inventory.[103] On April 27, he met with Arnold Greenberg of Coleco and threatened to sue over Coleco's home version of Donkey Kong. Coleco agreed on May 3 to pay royalties to Universal of 3% of their Donkey Kong's net sale price, worth about $4.6 million.[29]:121 Meanwhile, Sheinberg revoked Tiger's license to make its King Kong game, but O. R. Rissman refused to acknowledge Universal's claim to the trademark.[30]:214 When Universal threatened Nintendo, Howard Lincoln and Nintendo refused to cave. In preparation for the court battle, Universal agreed to allow Tiger to continue producing its King Kong game as long as they distinguished it from Donkey Kong.[30]:215
Universal sued Nintendo on June 29 and announced its license with Coleco. The company sent cease and desist letters to Nintendo's licensees, all of which agreed to pay royalties to Universal except Milton Bradley and Ralston Purina.[104]:74–75Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo, Co., Ltd. was heard in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York by Judge Robert W. Sweet. Over seven days, Universal's counsel, the New York firm Townley & Updike, argued that the names King Kong and Donkey Kong were easily confused and that the plot of the game was an infringement on that of the films.[104]:74 Nintendo's counsel, John Kirby, countered that Universal had argued in a previous case that King Kong's scenario and characters were in the public domain (by way of the Novelisation of the 1933 film). Judge Sweet ruled in Nintendo's favor, awarding them Universal's profits from Tiger's game ($56,689.41), damages and attorney's fees.[30]:217
Universal appealed, trying to prove consumer confusion by presenting the results of a telephone survey and examples from print media where people had allegedly assumed a connection between the two Kongs.[105]:118 On October 4, 1984, the court upheld the previous verdict.[105]:112 Nintendo and its licensees filed counterclaims against Universal. On May 20, 1985, Judge Sweet awarded Nintendo $1.8 million for legal fees, lost revenues, and other expenses,[30]:218 but he denied Nintendo's claim of damages from those licensees who had paid royalties to both Nintendo and Universal.[104]:72 Both parties appealed this judgment, but the verdict was upheld on July 15, 1986.[104]:77–78
Nintendo thanked John Kirby with the gift of a $30,000 sailboat named Donkey Kong and "exclusive worldwide rights to use the name for sailboats".[29]:126Kirby, the protagonist of the Kirby series, was named in John Kirby's honor.[106] The court battle also taught Nintendo they could compete with larger entertainment industry companies.[29]:127
After the release of Donkey Kong Jr., the arcade successor to Donkey Kong, Ikegami sued Nintendo for the unauthorized duplication of the Donkey Kong program code.[107] Nintendo managed to settle the dispute out of court after the two companies came to an agreement. At the time of the suit, computer programs were not considered copyrightable material. The Tokyo High Court gave a verdict in 1989 that acknowledged the originality of program code. Ikegami and Nintendo reached a settlement the following year; the terms of it were never disclosed.[108]
Legacy
In 1996 Next Generation listed the arcade, Atari 7800, and cancelled Coleco Adam versions as number 50 on their "Top 100 Games of All Time", commenting that even ignoring its massive historical significance, Donkey Kong stands as a great game due to its demanding challenges and graphics which manage to elegantly delineate an entire scenario on a single screen.[109] In February 2006, Nintendo Power rated it the 148th best game made on a Nintendo system.[110] In 2017, The Strong National Museum of Play inducted Donkey Kong to its World Video Game Hall of Fame.[111] Today, Donkey Kong is the fifth most popular arcade game among collectors.[112]
Impact
Donkey Kong spawned a number of other titles with a mix of running, jumping and vertical traversal, a novel genre that did not match the style of games that came before it.[113] The genre was initially referred to as "Donkey Kong-type" or "Kong-style" games,[114][113] before the genre eventually came to be known as platform games.[113] The game was also a milestone in terms of video game storytelling and cutscenes. While there were earlier games that either told a story or used cutscenes, Donkey Kong combined both concepts together to introduce its own new concept: using cutscenes to visually advance a complete story.[27] It also notably had multiple, distinct levels that progressed the storyline.[115][27]
Donkey Kong was also one of the first Japanese games brought to Western regions that introduced a surreal concept using cute artwork, a representation of typical Japanese fantasy but unusual to Western audiences. For that reason, Donkey Kong and similar games that followed were briefly called "novelty games" by Western gaming press. Donkey Kong and other such games helped to acclimate Western audiences to Japanese approaches to game design, narrative, and abstraction that would become key elements in the decade that followed with the release of the NES.[113]
Computer and Video Games called Donkey Kong "the most momentous" release of 1981, as it "introduced three important names" to the global video game industry: Nintendo, Shigeru Miyamoto, and Mario. These three figures went on to play a significant role in video game history.[116]Donkey Kong paved the way for the NES, known as the Famicom in Japan. Following the success of Donkey Kong, Nintendo began developing the Famicom, the hardware of which was largely based on the Donkey Kong arcade hardware, with the goal of matching the system's powerful sprite capabilities in a home system.[117] Nintendo wanted the Famicom to match the Donkey Kong arcade hardware, so they took a Donkey Kong arcade cabinet to semiconductorchip manufacturer Ricoh for analysis, which led to Ricoh producing the Picture Processing Unit (PPU) chip for the NES.[118]
Emulation
The NES version was re-released as an unlockable game in the first Animal Crossing, both through its Nintendo Space World 2000 demo[119] as well as the final game. It was also published on Virtual Console for the Wii, Wii U, and Nintendo 3DS.[120] The Wii U version is also the last game that was released to celebrate the 30-year anniversary of the Japanese version of the NES, the Famicom. The original arcade version of the game appears in the Nintendo 64 game Donkey Kong 64, and it must be beaten to finish the game.[121] Nintendo released the NES version on the e-Reader and for the Game Boy AdvanceClassic NES Series in 2002 and 2004, respectively.[122] In 2004, Namco released an arcade cabinet which contains Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., and Mario Bros.[123]
Donkey Kong: Original Edition is an update of the NES version that reinstates the cement factory stage and includes some animations absent from the original NES version, and has only ever been released on the Virtual Console. It was preinstalled on 25th Anniversary PAL region red Wii systems,[124] which were first released in Europe on October 29, 2010.[125] In Japan, a download code for the game for the 3DS Virtual Console was sent to users who purchased New Super Mario Bros. 2 or Brain Age: Concentration Training from the Nintendo eShop from July 28 to September 2, 2012.[126] In North America, a download code for Original Edition for the 3DS Virtual Console was sent to users who purchased one of five select 3DS games on the Nintendo eShop and registered it on Club Nintendo from October 1, 2012, to January 6, 2013.[127][128] In Europe and Australia, it was released for purchase on the Nintendo 3DS eShop in September 2014.[129][130][131] The original arcade version was re-released as part of the Arcade Archives series for Nintendo Switch on June 14, 2018,[132] and the NES version was re-released as one of the launch titles for Nintendo Switch Online on September 19.[133]
Clones
Donkey Kong was one of the most widely cloned video games in the early 1980s, along with Space Invaders (1978) and Pac-Man (1980). By 1983, Donkey Kong clones had become available on various different platforms.[114]The Giant List of Classic Game Programmers lists 17 different Donkey Kong clones released for various home platforms.[134] There were so many games with multiple ladder and platforms stages by 1983 that Electronic Games described Nintendo's own Popeye game as "yet another variation of a theme that's become all too familiar since the success of Donkey Kong".[135] That year Sega released a Donkey Kong clone called Congo Bongo in arcades.[136] Although using isometric perspective, the structure and gameplay are similar.
Crazy Kong was officially licensed from Nintendo and manufactured by Falcon for some non-US markets. Nevertheless, Crazy Kong machines found their way into some American arcades, often installed in cabinets marked as Congorilla. Nintendo was quick to take legal action against those distributing the game in the US.[105]:119Bootleg copies of Donkey Kong also appeared in both North America and France under the Crazy Kong, Konkey Kong or Donkey King names. The 1982 Logger arcade game from Century Electronics is a direct clone of Donkey Kong, with a large bird standing in for the ape and rolling logs instead of barrels.[137]
In 1981, O. R. Rissman, president of Tiger Electronics, obtained a license to use the name King Kong from Universal City Studios. Under this title, Tiger created a handheld LCD game with a scenario and gameplay based directly on Nintendo's creation.[30]:210–211Epyx's Jumpman (Atari 8-bit, 1983) reuses a prototypical name for the Mario character in Donkey Kong. A magazine ad for the game has the tagline "If you liked Donkey Kong, you'll love JUMPMAN!"[138]Jumpman, Miner 2049er (Atari 8-bit, 1982), and Mr. Robot and His Robot Factory (Atari 8-bit, 1984), focus on traversing all of the platforms in the level, or collecting scattered objects, instead of climbing to the top.
Many home computer clones directly borrowed the gorilla theme: Killer Gorilla (BBC Micro, 1983), Killer Kong (ZX Spectrum, 1983), Crazy Kong 64 (Commodore 64, 1983), Kongo Kong (Commodore 64, 1983), Donkey King (TRS-80 Color Computer, 1983), and Kong (TI-99/4A, 1983). One of the first releases from Electronic Arts was Hard Hat Mack (Apple II, 1983), a three-stage game without an ape, but using the construction site setting from Donkey Kong. Other clones recast the game with different characters, such as Cannonball Blitz (Apple II, 1982), with a soldier and cannonballs replacing the ape and barrels, and the American Southwest-themed Canyon Climber (Atari 8-bit, 1982).[139]
Nintendo attempted to take legal action against unauthorized clones of Donkey Kong, but estimated they lost $100,000,000(equivalent to $335,000,000 in 2023) in potential sales to these clones.[113] By 1990, Nintendo had successfully won over thirty lawsuits related to Donkey Kong.[140] For example, Nintendo won a 1990 Japanese lawsuit against Falcon Company, which had sold 12,000 counterfeit arcade cabinets in the United States during the 1980s.[141]
Donkey Kong spawned a franchise, beginning with the sequel Donkey Kong Jr. (1982) with the player controlling Donkey Kong's son in an attempt to save his father from Mario. The spin-off Mario Bros. (1983) introduced Mario's brother Luigi in a single-screen cooperative game, set in a sewer, and launched the Mario franchise. The final arcade installment, Donkey Kong 3 (1983), appeared in the form of a fixed shooter, with an exterminator named Stanley ridding the ape—and insects—from a greenhouse.
In 2004, Nintendo released Mario vs. Donkey Kong, a sequel to the Game Boy's Donkey Kong, in which Mario must chase Donkey Kong to get back the stolen Mini-Mario toys; Mario vs. Donkey Kong has since continued as its own series. In 2004, Nintendo released the first of the Donkey Konga games, a rhythm-based game series that uses a special bongo controller. Donkey Kong Jungle Beat (2005) is a unique platform action game that uses the same bongo controller accessory. In 2007, Donkey Kong Barrel Blast was released for the Wii. It was originally developed as a GameCube game and would have used the bongo controller, but was delayed and released exclusively as a Wii game with no support for the bongo accessory.
Donkey Kong appears as a game in the Wii U game NES Remix, which features multiple NES games and sometimes "remixes" them by presenting significantly modified versions of the games as challenges. One such challenge features Link from The Legend of Zelda traveling through the first screen to save Pauline. The difficulty is increased compared to the original Donkey Kong because Link cannot jump, as in Zelda. Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U include a demo of the NES version of Donkey Kong. A stage called "75m", a replica of its Donkey Kong namesake, has appeared in the Smash series since Brawl.[143]
In popular culture
By June 1982, Donkey Kong's success had prompted more than 50 parties in the U.S. and Japan to license the game's characters.[30]:215 Mario and Donkey Kong appeared on cereal boxes, board games, pajamas, and manga. Several animated commercials were produced by FilmFair Studio for the cereal, featuring Larry Moran as Mario, Jo Belle Yonely as Pauline, and William Marshall as the narrator.[144][145][146][147] In 1983, the animation studio Ruby-Spears produced a Donkey Kong cartoon (as well as Donkey Kong Jr.) for the Saturday Supercade program on CBS. In the show, mystery crime-solving plots in the mode of Scooby-Doo are framed around the premise of Mario and Pauline chasing Donkey Kong (voiced by Soupy Sales), who has escaped from the circus. The show lasted two seasons.
The game has also been referenced and discussed in several films and documentaries. The 2007 documentary The King of Kong follows the efforts of Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell to break the world record for high scores in Donkey Kong.[51]:31 The documentary inspired Hank Chien to start playing the game for fun; he became the new world champion on February 26, 2010.[51]:32 The game's creation and lawsuit with Universal were discussed in the second episode of High Score on Netflix, which also featured an interview with John Kirby (who the episode was dedicated to as he died shortly before its release).
In the 2015 film Pixels, a film where aliens take on the form of 1980s arcade characters as they attack Earth, the alien leader takes on the form of Donkey Kong in the film's climax. In the 2023 Super Mario Bros. Movie, Charles Martinet (Mario's voice actor in the video games), makes a cameo appearance as Giuseppe, who resembles how Mario looked back in Donkey Kong. Giuseppe is also seen playing Donkey Kong on an arcade cabinet, but in the film the game is called "Jump Man", referencing Mario's original name.
Fallout 4 features a holotape game called Red Menace that is inspired by Donkey Kong's levels. The game can be found in Vault 111 and played on the player's Pip-Boy.[150]
Notes
↑ The Family Computer/Nintendo Entertainment System version was ported by Nintendo R&D2.
↑ Limited publication on July 9, 1981.[2][3] Wide release in mid-July 1981.[4]
↑ "And we received from Coleco an agreement that they would pay us three percent of the net sales price [of all the Donkey Kong cartridges Coleco sold]". It turned out to be 6 million cartridges, which translated into $4.6 million.[29]:121
Related Research Articles
ColecoVision is a second-generation home video-game console developed by Coleco and launched in North America in August 1982. It was released a year later in Europe by CBS Electronics as the CBS ColecoVision.
A platformer is a subgenre of action game in which the core objective is to move the player character between points in an environment. Platform games are characterized by levels with uneven terrain and suspended platforms that require jumping and climbing to traverse. Other acrobatic maneuvers may factor into the gameplay, such as swinging from vines or grappling hooks, jumping off walls, gliding through the air, or bouncing from springboards or trampolines.
The video game crash of 1983 was a large-scale recession in the video game industry that occurred from 1983 to 1985 in the United States. The crash was attributed to several factors, including market saturation in the number of video game consoles and available games, many of which were of poor quality. Waning interest in console games in favor of personal computers also played a role. Home video game revenue peaked at around $3.2 billion in 1983, then fell to around $100 million by 1985. The crash abruptly ended what is retrospectively considered the second generation of console video gaming in North America. To a lesser extent, the arcade video game market also weakened as the golden age of arcade video games came to an end.
Mario Bros. is a 1983 platform game developed and published by Nintendo for arcades. It was designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Gunpei Yokoi, Nintendo's chief engineer. Italian twin brother plumbers Mario and Luigi exterminate creatures, like turtles (Shellcreepers) and crabs emerging from the sewers by knocking them upside-down and kicking them away. The Famicom/Nintendo Entertainment System version is the first game to be developed by Intelligent Systems. It is part of the Mario franchise, but originally began as a spin-off from the Donkey Kong series.
Radar Scope is a 1980 shoot 'em up arcade game developed by Nintendo R&D2 and published by Nintendo. The player assumes the role of the Sonic Spaceport starship and must wipe out formations of an enemy race known as the Gamma Raiders before they destroy the player's space station. Gameplay is similar to Space Invaders and Galaxian, but viewed from a three-dimensional third-person perspective.
BurgerTime, originally released as Hamburger in Japan, is an arcade video game from Data East. It was published in 1982 for the DECO Cassette System. The player controls chef Peter Pepper who walks across oversized ingredients in a maze of platforms and ladders, causing them to fall and stack on buns below, eventually creating complete burgers. The chef is pursued by anthropomorphic hot dogs, fried eggs, and pickles. A limited supply of pepper can be thrown at aggressors immediately in front of Peter, briefly stunning them.
1983 has seen many sequels and prequels in video games, such as Mario Bros. and Pole Position II, along with new titles such as Astron Belt, Champion Baseball, Dragon's Lair, Elevator Action, Spy Hunter and Track & Field. Major events include the video game crash of 1983 in North America, and the third generation of video game consoles beginning with the launch of Nintendo's Family Computer (Famicom) and Sega's SG-1000 in Japan. The year's highest-grossing video game was Namco's arcade game Pole Position, while the year's best-selling home system was Nintendo's Game & Watch for the third time since 1980.
In the history of video games, the third generation of video game consoles, commonly referred to as the 8-bit era, began on July 15, 1983, with the Japanese release of two systems: Nintendo's Family Computer and Sega's SG-1000. When the Famicom was released outside of Japan, it was remodeled and marketed as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). This generation marked the end of the video game crash of 1983, and a shift in the dominance of home video game manufacturers from the United States to Japan. Handheld consoles were not a major part of this generation; the Game & Watch line from Nintendo and the Milton Bradley Microvision that were sold at the time are both considered part of the previous generation due to hardware typical of the second generation.
Excitebike is a motocross racing video game developed and published by Nintendo. In Japan, it was released for the Famicom in 1984 and then ported to arcades as VS. Excitebike for the Nintendo VS. System later that year. In North America, it was initially released for arcades in 1985 and then as a launch game for the Nintendo Entertainment System later that year, becoming one of the best-selling games on the console. It is the first game in the Excite series.
Popeye is a 1982 platform game developed and released by Nintendo as an arcade video game. It is based on the comic strip of the same name created by E. C. Segar and licensed from King Features Syndicate. Some sources claim that Ikegami Tsushinki did programming work on the game. As Popeye, the player must collect hearts thrown by Olive Oyl from the top of the screen while being chased by Bluto. Popeye can punch bottles thrown at him, but can only hurt Bluto after eating the one can of spinach present in each level. Unlike Nintendo's earlier Donkey Kong games, there is no jump button. There are three screens.
Donkey Kong Jr. is a 1982 arcade platform game that was released by Nintendo. It is the sequel to Donkey Kong, but with the roles reversed compared to its predecessor: Mario is now the villain and Donkey Kong Jr. is trying to save his kidnapped father. It first released in arcades and, over the course of the decade, was released for a variety of home platforms. The game's title is written out as Donkey Kong Junior in the North American arcade version and various conversions to non-Nintendo systems.
The Nintendo VS. System is an arcade system that was developed and produced by Nintendo. It is based on most of the same hardware as the Family Computer (Famicom), later released as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). As Nintendo was planning to release the NES in North America, they were aware of the video game crash of 1983 and its effects on the home console market. By March 1984 the arcade industry recovered enough for a plan to introduce NES titles there, with the VS. System later being a presentation to players who did not yet own the console. It became the first version of the Famicom hardware to debut in North America.
Tennis is a tennis video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Family Computer (Famicom). It was originally released in Japan in 1984, with an arcade game version titled VS. Tennis released for the Nintendo VS. System the same year, becoming a hit at Japanese and American arcades that year; it was the sixth top-performing arcade game of 1984 in the United States. Tennis is one of 17 launch games for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in North America and Europe. The game was re-released for the Game Boy as a launch game in North America.
The history of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) spans the 1982 development of the Family Computer, to the 1985 launch of the NES, to Nintendo's rise to global dominance based upon this platform throughout the late 1980s. The Family Computer or Famicom was developed in 1982 and launched in 1983 in Japan. Following the North American video game crash of 1983, the Famicom was adapted into the NES which was launched in North America in 1985. Transitioning the company from its arcade game history into this combined global 8-bit home video game console platform, the Famicom and NES continued to aggressively compete with next-generation 16-bit consoles, including the Sega Genesis. The platform was succeeded by the Super Famicom in 1990 and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1991, but its support and production continued until 1995. Interest in the NES has been renewed by collectors and emulators, including Nintendo's own Virtual Console platform.
Baseball is a baseball video game developed and published by Nintendo. It was originally released December 7, 1983, after the July 15 launch of the Famicom in Japan. In 1984, it was ported to the VS. System arcade as VS. Baseball with additional graphics and speech, becoming a number one hit in Japan and North America that year. It was localized as a Nintendo Entertainment System launch game in North America in 1985, and in Europe in 1986. IGN said the universal appeal of the American sport made Baseball a key to the NES's successful test market introduction, and an important piece of Nintendo history. The game was also competing with Sega's arcade hit Champion Baseball, released earlier in 1983.
The history of Nintendo, a Japan-based international video game company, starts in 1889 when Fusajiro Yamauchi founded "Yamauchi Nintendo", producing handmade hanafuda playing cards. Since its founding, the company has been headquartered in Kyoto. Sekiryo Kaneda was company president from 1929 to 1949, and succeeded by Hiroshi Yamauchi. Hiroshi Yaumauchi's Nintendo started producing toys like the Ultra Hand and operating love hotels. In the 1970s and 80s, they made arcade games and related accessories, as well as the Color TV-Game series of home consoles and the Game & Watch series of handheld electronic games.
The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on July 15, 1983, as the Family Computer (Famicom). It was released in US test markets as the redesigned NES in October 1985, and fully launched in the US the following year. The NES was distributed in Europe, Australia, and parts of Asia throughout the 1980s under various names. As a third-generation console, it mainly competed with Sega's Master System.
Mario is a multimedia franchise created by game designer Shigeru Miyamoto for the Japanese video game company Nintendo, which produces and publishes its installments. Starring the titular Italian plumber Mario, it is primarily a video game franchise but has extended to other forms of media, including television series, comic books, a 1993 feature film, a 2023 animated film, and theme park attractions. The series' first installment was 1983's Mario Bros. even though Mario made his first appearance in 1981's arcade game Donkey Kong and had already been featured in several games of the Donkey Kong and Game & Watch series. The Mario games have been developed by a wide variety of developers. Mario games have been released almost exclusively for Nintendo's various video game consoles and handhelds, from the third generation onward.
The 1980s was the second decade in the industry's history. It was a decade of highs and lows for video games. The decade began amidst a boom in the arcade video game business with the golden age of arcade video games, the Atari 2600's dominance of the home console market during the second generation of video game consoles, and the rising influence of home computers. However, an oversatuation of low quality games led to an implosion of the video game market that nearly destroyed the industry in North America. Most investors believed video games to be a fad that had since passed, up until Nintendo's success with its Nintendo Entertainment System revived interest in game consoles and led to a recovery of the home video game industry. In the remaining years of the decade, Sega ignites a console war with Nintendo, developers that had been affected by the crash experimented with PC games, and Nintendo released the Game Boy, which would become the best-selling handheld gaming device for the next two decades. Other consoles released in the decade included the Intellivision, ColecoVision, TurboGrafx-16 and Sega Genesis.
↑ マリオ映画公開記念！宮本茂さんインタビュー 制作の始まりから驚きの設定まで[Commemorating the release of the Mario movie! Interview with Shigeru Miyamoto From the beginning of production to the surprising setting]. Nintendo Dream (in Japanese). April 25, 2023. Archived from the original on April 25, 2023. もともと『マリオブラザーズ』は、土管がいっぱいあるニューヨークの地下で活躍する兄弟、ニューヨークのなかでもたぶんブルックリン、というところまで勝手に決めていて。『ドンキーコング』は舞台がニューヨークですし。その土管が不思議な森（キノコ王国）につながったのが、『スーパーマリオブラザーズ』なんです。[Miyamoto: Originally, Mario Bros. was arbitrarily decided as brothers who are active in the underground of New York, where there are many clay pipes, and probably Brooklyn in New York. Donkey Kong is set in New York. That clay pipe led to the mysterious forest (Mushroom Kingdom), which is Super Mario Bros.]
1 2 3 De Maria, Rusel, and Wilson, Johnny L. (2004). High Score!: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill/Osborne.
1 2 Ray, Sheri Graner (2004). Gender Inclusive Game Design: Expanding the Market. Hingham, Massachusetts: Charles Rivers Media, Inc.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Kohler, Chris (2005). Power-up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life. Indianapolis, Indiana: BradyGAMES.
↑ Copyright law decisions. Commerce Clearing House. 1985. Archived from the original on July 10, 2017. Retrieved February 26, 2012. An English translation of the Japanese term Donkey Kong is "crazy gorilla". Nintendo Co., Ltd. expended over $100,000.00 in direct development of the game, and Nintendo Co., Ltd. hired Ikegami Tsushinki Co., Ltd. to provide mechanical programming assistance to fix the software created by Nintendo Co., Ltd. in the storage component of the game. The name "Ikegami Co. Lim." appears in the computer program for the Donkey Kong game. Individuals within the research and development department of Nintendo Co., Ltd., however, created the Donkey Kong concept and game.
↑ Mikkelson, Barbara; Mikkelson, David (February 25, 2001). "Donkey Wrong". Snopes. Archived from the original on January 9, 2022. Retrieved August 29, 2014.
↑ Kohler, Chris (February 17, 2012). "Game Life Podcast: When Jay Mohr Met Tomonobu Itagaki". Wired. Archived from the original on April 17, 2014. Retrieved September 28, 2024. And so we thought, 'This guy [Segale] is a recluse. No one's ever actually met him.' So we thought, 'Wouldn't it be a great joke if we named this character Mario?' And so we said, 'That's great,' and we sent a telex to Japan, and that's how Mario got his name. Interview with Don James starts at 51:16. Quotation occurs at 52:00.
↑ "Nintendo Treehouse Live - E3 2018 - Arcade Archives Donkey Kong, Sky Skipper". YouTube. Nintendo Everything. June 14, 2018. Archived from the original on October 3, 2023. Retrieved September 28, 2024. Mr. Arakawa, who was the president, and myself looked at the character, and we had a landlord that happened to be named Mario as well, and we'd never met the guy, so we thought it'd be funny to name this main character Mario after our landlord in Southcenter. And that's actually how Mario got his name. Quotation occurs at 2:25.
1 2 3 4 Carroll, Martin (2021). "Coin-op Capers: Donkey Kong". In Jones, Darran (ed.). 100 Nintendo Games to Play Before You Die – Nintendo Consoles Edition (3rded.). Future plc.
↑ Iwata, Satoru. "Iwata Asks: New Super Mario Bros: Volume 2: It All Began In 1984". iwataasks.nintendo.com. Archived from the original on August 16, 2013. Retrieved January 25, 2019. I worked on a wide variety of titles together with R&D2, including Donkey Kong, which was released at the same time as the Famicom.
↑ Jörg Ziesak (2009), Wii Innovate – How Nintendo Created a New Market Through Strategic Innovation, GRIN Verlag, p.2029, ISBN978-3-640-49774-4, archived from the original on April 18, 2016, retrieved April 9, 2011, Donkey Kong was Nintendo's first international smash hit and the main reason behind the company's breakthrough in the Northern American market. In the first year of its publication, it earned Nintendo 180 million US dollars, continuing with a return of 100 million dollars in the second year.
↑ Pearl, Rick (June 1983). "Closet Classics". Electronic Games. p.82. Archived from the original on January 7, 2015. Retrieved January 6, 2015.
↑ Ashcraft, Brian; Snow, Jean (2008). Arcade Mania: The Turbo-charged World of Japan's Game Centers (1sted.). Tokyo: Kodansha. ISBN978-4-7700-3078-8. Archived from the original on February 25, 2021. Retrieved March 3, 2021. Jumpman hopped over barrels, climbed ladders, and jumped from suspended platform to suspended platform as he tried to rescue a damsel from his pissed-off pet gorilla. The game was a smash, and sixty-five thousand cabinets were sold in Japan, propping up the then-struggling Nintendo and laying the groundwork for Nintendo and Donkey Kong creator Shigeru Miyamoto to dominate gaming throughout the 1980s and beyond.
↑ Bienaimé, Pierre (January 13, 2012). "Square Roots: Donkey Kong (NES)". Nintendojo. Archived from the original on February 1, 2012. Donkey Kong sold some 67,000 arcade cabinets in two years, making two of its American distributors sudden millionaires thanks to paid commission. As a barometer of success, know that Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man are the only arcade games to have sold over 100,000 units in the United States.
1 2 3 4 5 Altice, Nathan (2015). "Chapter 2: Ports". I Am Error: The Nintendo Family Computer / Entertainment System Platform. MIT Press. pp.53–80. ISBN9780262028776.
↑ "Donkey Kong Cereal Commercial". YouTube. January 10, 2012. Retrieved November 13, 2024. Jo Belle Yonely: The client, Albert Melshenker, knew me and my work. He asked me to read the script. We recorded it the following day at Chicago Recording Co. I was the voice of Pauline. The Mario voice was Larry Moran, aka "the funny voice man". He did many character voices. William Marshall played the announcer. The animated portions of these commercials were done at FilmFair Studio in Studio City. Craig Clark was an assistant animator.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
