I know you have just read the title and your instant reaction is “This man has no idea what he is on about! Nintendo Rock!” but I assure you that what I am about to present to you will make you see Nintendo in a different light. I agree Nintendo are the best games company out there; however they have had their fair share of failures along the way to glory. The majority of these failures come in the form of peripherals for their consoles and rarely the console itself. Be patient as all shall be revealed and hopefully there will be a few surprises along the way.

Power Glove (NES)
As you may have heard, Sony recently patented a controller that mimics this controller. The NES Power Glove was a basic motion sensing glove which could also detect finger positions. This allowed the user to control on screen elements using simple hand gestures. This controller was one of many odd accessories for the NES and like most of them, it failed miserably. The glove was released in 1989 but was only supported by 2 games; Super Glove Ball, and Bad Street Brawler. Although there were only 2 official Power Glove games the glove was compatible with a larger number of titles, although playing them with the glove was akin to playing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater with a Dance Mat nowadays. As you can see from the picture the Glove was an ugly, space age looking controller which more often than not was impractical to use. This glove is one in a long line of failures.

R.O.B (NES)
Was R.O.B. based on Johnny 5 from Short circuit, or was it the other way around? This little buddy was an interactive robot that would respond to games by the use of optical flashes from the TV screen. The idea was that you had R.O.B. by your side to aide you along in a game. R.O.B. was released in 1984 in Japan and 1985 in the USA and once again this accessory only had 2 compatible games; Gyromite and Stack-Up. The games consisted of having several different parts to them making them highly impractical, hard to understand and if you lost a part then you may as well have scrapped the entire thing. Although R.O.B. was an entirely new way of playing games and an extremely clever use of technology it was just doomed from the beginning. Complicated setups and extremely confusing games made this accessory for the NES a dead donkey from the start. R.O.B. is fairly rare now and if you’ve got one, keep hold of it as it is a piece of Nintendo history, however I dare you to try and set it up and use it!

Laserscope (NES)
The NES Laserscope was a Headset with a built in light gun and a microphone for voice recognition. It was probably the most ridiculous looking accessory ever made for the NES. The idea behind the headset was for you to look through the sight at the screen and shout ‘shoot’ to fire. Obviously back in the early 90s this was the most futuristic video game ever; however the practicality of the headset was flawed. The voice recognition was poor, meaning you could shout pretty much anything and it would fire. Not only that, but the headset was extremely bulky and uncomfortable to wear. Once again this accessory was lacking in software support. Officially it was only compatible with one game which was Laser Invasion by Konami, who originally developed the Laserscope, although it would work with most of the Nintendo Light Gun series.

Power Pad (NES)
We all know what a Dance Mat is, right? Well who knew that it was Nintendo that actually started it all off with the Power Pad for the NES. This specialised controller was originally developed by Bandai but Nintendo bought the rights to it in 1988 and released it in 1989 as the Power Pad. The Power Pad was effectively a Dance Mat with 12 pressure sensitive pads which users would use to run, dance, play memory games or even play music. The Power Pad was released with World Class Track Meet which was a track and field game where competitors could do the 100m Dash, 110m Hurdles, Long Jump and Triple Jump. These events each involved using the different numbered buttons on the Power Pad to build up speed buy running on them. The list of compatible games was a little more extensive than the previous mentioned accessories; however this list only reached about 8 titles. The Power Pad was yet another accessory that was a flop for Nintendo.

Game Boy Camera & Printer (Game Boy)
These two accessories came hand in hand with each other, hence putting them under one section. The camera was an accessory that allowed the user to take photographs using their Game Boy system. The camera was very basic and only took images with 4 colours at a resolution of 128×112 pixels. The printer was released alongside the camera and it allowed users to print their pictures onto thermal paper with an adhesive underside which allowed users to make fun stickers with their pictures. Although the camera was an accessory it was effectively a game with the camera attached. This also meant the camera couldn’t be used with any other games. The printer however was compatible with a few games, including the extremely popular Pokémon series. Pokémon Gold, Silver and Crystal allowed the user to print out their Pokédex and even print off the statistics of individual Pokémon. However despite the Pokémon connectivity, both the camera and printer were another Nintendo fad that soon passed.

Nintendo Scope / Super Scope (SNES)
This scope was developed for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and was the successor to the NES Zapper. The scope was a bazooka shaped light gun that sat on the user’s shoulder and then aimed at the TV screen. The scope was a wireless gun that used an infra red sensor that users placed on top of their TV set to detect shots. The infra red sensor is somewhat similar to the Nintendo Wii’s sensor bar. Although the NES zapper was extremely popular and had plenty of software support, the SNES scope was less popular and had less games available for it. The lack of support and the bulky design of the scope was probably the main reason it failed, not to mention the scope required 6x AA batteries, back in the days when batteries were expensive. Oversized, overpriced and over expensive, the SNES scope faded into the background along with all the other previously mentioned Nintendo ventures.

Virtual Boy Console
This console was developed and released in 1995 in Japan and America. The Virtual Boy consisted of a stand with a visor at the top. The user was then supposed to look into the visor whilst holding the controller in their hands. The Virtual Boy was supposedly the first console to offer real 3D graphics, however in reality the graphics were just optical illusions to imitate 3D graphics. With the invention of 3D game environments, Nintendo had to invent a controller that allowed the user to move around within this environment. Nintendo came up with the dual d-pad controller which allowed users to move in the X, Y and Z axis. The Virtual Boy failed for several reasons. Not only was the Virtual boy completely impractical and uncomfortable to use, it was also extremely expensive ($180) and had no decent games. The console was also so new in ideas that it frightened developers. Developers were used to creating 2D games and had several IPs based on 2D games that just simply wouldn’t work in a 3D environment. This caused developers to shy away from creating games for the Virtual Boy. Social gaming was also removed with the Virtual Boy as when someone was playing, others around could not see what was happening; and it also had no multiplayer support. The console also had disclaimers on the box stating that the console could “…cause eyestrain and eye problems, especially for those under 7 years of age.” which scared consumers.

64DD (N64)
The 64DD was an add-on developed for the N64 console. The 64DD was designed to use a rewriteable disk media which was intended for users to do things like create music, levels and textures for games and then save them to their 64DD disk. The 64DD was also intended for users to be able to expand their existing N64 games by adding new levels and characters etc. Nintendo already saw that the 64DD would be a commercial flop and, in doing so, only made the 64DD available to registered users of RANDnet (an online subscription based service for the Nintendo 64DD). Nintendo also gave registered users 2 games every 2 months along with special 64DD magazines. Only nine 64DD games actually came into existence and when Nintendo announced that it was no longer supporting the 64DD many games developers converted the 64DD games to regular N64 titles. Games such as Banjo-Tooie, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, Pokémon Stadium and Paper Mario were all 64DD titles that were moved onto the regular N64 system.

Radar Scope (Arcade)
Radar scope was one of Nintendo’s first arcade titles released in Japan. Radar Scope was a cross between Space invaders and Galaxian where users controlled a spaceship that could be moved left and right and had to shoot enemy space ships that moved in from above. Radar Scope was received well by the Japanese market and this caused the head of Nintendo America to place a massive order for the arcade units to be placed in American arcades. However by the time the machines hit America, Radar Scope was no longer an anticipated title and was a complete failure. With over 3,000 units in American arcades, the head of Nintendo America called upon the services of one Shigeru Miyamoto to try and improve the Radar Scope game so that it would appeal to Americans. Instead of improving the game, Miyamoto created a completely new game which everyone now knows as Donkey Kong and luckily Donkey Kong became a great success and placed Nintendo strongly in the American games market.

Sony PlayStation / Phillips CD-I Consoles
Not many people know this but Nintendo was involved with both of these home consoles. Back in 1988 Sony and Nintendo were in development together to create consoles that used Sony’s Compact Disc media. The console was supposed to be a SNES-CD console; Sony was also developing a SNES compatible console which would be more of a home entertainment system. The SNES-CD was to be announced in 1989 however after Nintendo re-read the original 1988 contract between themselves and Sony they realised that the contract handed complete control to Sony of all titles released on SNES-CD format. Outraged by this, Nintendo secretly cancelled all plans with Sony and then announced a partnership with Phillips. After creating an agreement with Phillips to create a CD based Nintendo system, the deal fell through, however this agreement still allowed Phillips to use Nintendo characters on their system, despite not being developed or licensed by Nintendo in any way.

The Phillips CD-i system was released and games such as Hotel Mario, Link: The Faces of Evil, Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon and Zelda’s Adventure were released totally out of the control of Nintendo.

After Sony and Nintendo split, Sony continued the development of its CD based console and tried to release the ‘Play Station’ console in 1991. Nintendo filed a law suit against Sony claiming that they owned the ‘Play Station’ name. The lawsuit fell through for Nintendo and Sony won the rights to the ‘Play Station’ name and the original Play Station was released. It was theorised that only 200 of these consoles ever came into existence. Later in 1992 Nintendo and Sony came to an agreement that the Play Station would be released with a SNES port but Nintendo would still control all rights to SNES software. However after long legal battles with Nintendo, and Sony seeing that the SNES was seeing the end of its days, Sony decided to cut all ties with Nintendo, remove the SNES port and rename the brand ‘PlayStation’. Then in 1993 they released the Sony PlayStation that we all know today.

The PlayStation and the CD-i were two consoles that Nintendo were heavily involved in but, due to messy legalities, lost all ties with. Just imagine where Nintendo would be today if it had remained with Sony and was involved in the Nintendo PlayStation 2.

You’re probably thinking “I can’t believe he’s trying to make out Nintendo are failures”, but have you looked over what I’ve pointed out and thought to yourself “Oh, you can do that with the Wii now”?
This is my point: All these things have failed but they have inspired Nintendo to create their Wii and DS systems. The DS has voice recognition and 3D graphics with easy multiplayer, Super Mario 64 DS also contains elements from Super Mario 64 2, a 64 DD title. The Wii has motion sensitivity, light gun capabilities, CD based system, a sensor bar that sits on top of the TV and user creativity with Mii characters. Not only has Nintendo created all this but they have also inspired the entire games industry with such invention as Dance Mats, Dual Analogue Controllers for 3D environments, 3D graphics and much more. This article is a celebration of Nintendo’s history and, if you are not a Nintendo fan, hopefully you can see that whether you like it or not, Nintendo own the games industry.

Images and sources courtesy of Wikipedia