If today we talk about the prices and the format of Nintendo video games one tends to think (justified) that is protectionist to the extreme. The reasons: it took too long to adopt the disc format, the transition to the digital was slow and, unless the planets are aligned, their games cost the same launch as eight years later. The other reality, you create it or not, is that the great N was a pioneer when facing these three things frontally and their revolutionary solution was el Disk Writer.
In Vidraxtra we already told you about the Famicom and its controls, and also of how Nintendo's original plan was that the life cycle of that wonder – launched in 1983 – was three years and its overwhelming success resulted in that, while the NES was launched in the West, a record reader was put on sale that stretched the possibilities of that console and arrived wrapped by classics of worship as the first Zelda or the authentic sequel to Super Mario Bros. The name, by the way, was explained only: el Disk System.
This peripheral opened new doors and dimensions to the catalog of that 8-bit machine, but the most unique thing of everything, and here we resume the initial theme, is that with the change of Nintendo format it has an opportunity to radically change the way in which its own video games are distributed. Offering completely legitimate copies of their success at only 500 yen.
With that established, what if instead of manufacturing expensive cartridges, with their boxes and manuals, it was enabled that the players themselves recorded the new games paying just 1/5 of what it would cost to buy it? A apparently cracking plan although, as we will see, with elements that had to be drastically rethink.
How to release Nintendo's super releases for miserable 500 yen
From this point it is time to remember that we are in the late 80s. There is the Internet, and even the Famicom has different functions if we connect it to the telephone line, but the game download process (and engraved) should be done in situ. So, with the launch of the Disk System, Nintendo began to place the Disk Writer, machines very similar to drinking or tobacco vending, but with the latest novelties of Famicom At unbeatable prices.
It is impossible for a Disk Writer to go unnoticed: with a height of 1.70 meters and 155 kilos of weight, its strategic placement in specialized stores and department stores converted any small corner into a video game section with an unlimited amount of copies. Now, the recording process had to be carried out by a commercial or dependent.
- The first thing that should be done is to carry a re -regret album, called Quick Disk, whose price was 2,600 yen of the time and included a game. This curious format enabled that you could delete the content and record another “new” or that you liked it more, including premieres, for just 500 yen.
- With your quick disk prepared, the next thing you have to do is request in the store where the Disk Writer is recorded one of the games that are shown in the machine's showcase, which are exposed in a type of yellow cartridge more or less similar to those of the console.
- From there, the employee or the Disk Writer opens the showcase, protected by key, introduces in a slot the client's quick disk and in another slot the recording cartridge of the new game and initiates the re -record.
- As we commented, the process at that time takes time but even Nintendo came forward and while the data passed there was a video to entertain the operator and the client that showed what would have a process depending on the game.
However, an note: although within the showcase more than ten games could be stored as a exhibition for customers, and for the comfort of the operators, they could have many more titles to record outside it. In this regard Nintendo facilitated advertising, facsimiles and launch calendars so that there were always attractive news and the view in the Disk Writer. In this regard, everything was very well tied.
The origin and end of this Nintendera revolution
The Disk Writer idea was an attractive plan, but with a huge fissure. Go ahead that Nintendo saved an absurd amount of money for the manufacture of copies, sellers earned a spectacular space and customers could not only release games at laughter prices, but would never run out of copies due to lack of units.
Recall that originally Nintendo manufactured the cartridges – to avoid piracy – and when one was successful they had to spend months or wait for production lines to arrive repositions. In fact, according to the words of Hiroshi Imanishi For the Nintendo Dreamthis revolution was not only a solution, but also a necessity:
“We came from an era where everything we got sold. The main difficulty we were with was that of having sufficient components to meet demand. At that time we saw that we were losing benefits. We felt imprisoned in the shortage and slow production and we were looking for a means to break those chains.”
On the other hand, the system to prevent the use of other refrabable albums, Nintendo caused the relief with the acronym of his company to measure anticopias protection measurement. However, that plan had a skinny point: despite all the advantages of this distribution system at very assumed prices, that was a poisoned dart for developers and those who did the games.
Nintendo's relief logo was the perfect anti-Copy measure!
In other words: instead of aspiring to win up to 2,000 yen per copy sold, they received a small percentage – without specifying – of the 500 yen of that transaction. And that, for some developers, was an unsustainable situation. And although this format benefited Nintendo, they themselves realized the most essential: the key to success was not on the consoles, but in the games. And if little by little He was drowning the developers It would be a matter of time that they were seen in the same of Atari.
The rewritable disc system continued, and even occurred for subsequent Nintendo systems in Japan, but that plan would help little if both Nintendo partners and their own studies were being hit by the consequences. Would a solution capable of hitting everyone met with time? Offer premiere games for miserable 500 yen in the late 80s was A very beautiful fantasy to be reality. Perhaps the closest thing we have today are subscription models such as Game Pass.
But no matter how strong Nintendo was at the time, he was not interested that his developers, both their own and their partners, were unhappy with their own format. Something that, by the way, was experienced when Squaresoft took the Final Fantasy saga to PlayStation. But that, I'm afraid, it's another story.
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