The success of the NES was based on three strong pillars: the quality, fun and exclusivity of its gamesNintendo synthesized these abstract concepts into a golden seal that guaranteed gamers (and their parents) that what they had in their hands or were about to buy was special. When it came to fun, a team of experts was created who understood gamers, while the exclusivity of their own great games or those from Capcom, Konami and Squaresoft was a huge advantage. And what about quality?
Let’s just put it into context: in the mid-to-late 1980s, Nintendo didn’t have a monopoly on console gaming, but it was close. Not because there was no competition, mind you, but because its domestic reach was unmatched. According to official datain 1989 there was a Famicom in 37% of Japanese households and in the United States the figure for the NES was at 30%. The PAL territory is more diffuse, but even in those we arrive at the same conclusion: with the perspective of a time in which video games were not so established, the success of Nintendo defied all logic.
When the Big N stopped counting the NES consoles sold worldwide, including the Famicom, the final figure was close to 62 million units. It may be a figure that pales in comparison to current systems, but three or four decades ago it was an outrage, to which we must add the famous “famiclones” and those consolas Made in China that clung to their popularity. And all this together brings us to the key point: how the guarantee of the quality of Nintendo systems and games established its overwhelming success against other consoles and clone systems. A commitment that was present from the instruction manuals and extended to the Nintendo World Class Service.
Not a household appliance, not a “Chinese machine”: a Nintendo console
Nintendo’s first battle won In the days of the NES, it was about achieving a space dedicated to video games in hypermarkets and large commercial chains, as well as a little corner of your own in the small shops
To achieve this, and establish the concept of quality, Nintendo used two clear strategies: in terms of the consumer, it was able to connect with video game lovers through its software and by creating its own image for its hardware and characters. This was done through advertising, cartoons, merchandising and initiatives such as the Nintendo World Championship. In terms of sellers (and small and large businesses), it introduced protocols and videos that solved their doubts and anticipated the most frequent problems. In both cases, it generated a a feeling of security and assurance as a brand and company.
In fact, here you can see one of Nintendo’s promotional videos produced in 1991, in which, despite the fact that The Brain of the Beast was already looming, the NES continued to raise doubts among consumers and sellers while the value of the Game Boy as a portable console was being determined. Reminding both parties, in fact, that a console from the Big N should not be treated like a toaster.
With this in addition another battle was won that was taking place and that we already mentioned: although it would take years to see how SEGA tried to steal Nintendo’s toast and catch up with it with the fastest hedgehog in video games, the 8-bit titan’s great concern was the cloned systems. Most of them imported.
Nintendo not only offered guarantees to sellers and consumers, but also guaranteed both that what it offered, unlike its imitators, was a quality entertainment system. Because for practical purposes the games of Super Mario Bros. They looked exactly the same on those tube TVs, but Nintendo’s deployment and infrastructure was an extra guarantee. At least, in the vast majority of cases.
Naturally, the more Nintendo consoles were sold around the world, the more the Big N was exposed to facing returns with or without justification and players disappointed with the console or the game they had bought. Sometimes for not reading the basic instructions when connecting them to the television and other times because, logically, with more than 60 million NES sold and an astronomical number of cartridges, the eternal probability that they were legitimately defective was there. And that is where the Nintendo World Class Service.
How Nintendo set the standard for testing and repairing video games
In 1983 there was a major video game crisis in the United States The failure of the game to sell and sell was a result of many factors, including a lack of confidence in the hardware and software by sellers and buyers. The most widespread example is the failure of the game ET the Extraterrestrial, whose commercial success ended up being a nightmare for everyone, especially Atari, which, overwhelmed by the number of returns, preferred to bury the cartridges in the desert rather than lose more money paying to store them. Nintendo was clear that that couldn’t happen to him.
As we mentioned, each NES game was tested in the offices to ensure that they were genuinely fun, entertaining and fascinating, and in the process, production times of the cartridges were controlled to offer an attractive and constant flow of new releases. However, that is only one side of the dice that established the quality of the Nintendo brand. The other was the confidence that its games and systems conveyed. And if they failed, for whatever reason, they would resort to the Nintendo World Class Service.
Nintendo’s World Class Service was a well-thought-out infrastructure that extended the usual 90-day warranty given to consumers at the time (provided they kept the receipt) and allowed sellers to breathe a little easier with record-time repairs and returns.
The procedure was simple: those sellers enrolled in the program only had to contact them through the official number given by Nintendo distributed in 13 states and the Big N tested, repaired and, in general, took care of everything. Not by magic, but thanks to technology:
- For starters, Nintendo distributed a huge system called Nintendo Games since 1988. Nintendo Test Station with everything necessary to easily detect problems at the service centers. And not only that, since in 1991 it added an add-on that made it compatible with the SNES.
- What if it was the consoles that were failing? Nintendo made specific cartridges available for all regions. They were created for the NES, the Game Boy, the SNES and even for relatively recent systems such as the Nintendo DS, which made it very easy and quick to determine if the fault with the console was occurring when trying to interpret what the controller was doing, if a colour was missing or if the sound was faulty and proceed with the repair.
Of course, this also needs to be seen in perspective: we are talking about times when online patches for games did not exist and when not all repairmen and technicians, specialized in household appliances and television and radio equipment, had barely received training to be able to fix these most modern video game consoles. So these two tools added to the coverage of the Nintendo World Class Service They were a real peace of mind for everyone, including wholesalers, sellers who simply understand at the counter of their small shop and, of course, for Nintendo itself.
The secret of the NES’s success beyond its own great games
If there were so many NES (and Famicom consoles) spread across the planet it is for the fun of games. Neither more nor less. However, what was achieved with Nintendo initiatives such as the Nintendo World Class Service It was a momentous event for the video game industry: not only did it restore trust in the medium on the part of sellers and consumers, but it also established quality standards. As we mentioned, it is one of the essential pillars of the Big N.
Having a support number to call or a repair service to trust helped to retain players, but also to convince sellers in small and large stores that Nintendo was worth betting on. And not only that, they were much more interested in offering and promoting their consoles and video games than those of the competition or the much cheaper Chinese alternatives. Among other things, because they would give them less problems and, by extension, they would have more satisfied customers.
Perhaps we have assimilated these milestones very well today. But it is worth remembering the commitment of a Nintendo of thirty or forty years ago to offer quality consoles and video games in the face of a recent panorama in which the hardware does not always come out in the best conditions and the video games are fixed little by little, patch by patch, after their own launch. In some things we have evolved for the better and in others It seems like we have gone backwards.
In any case, Nintendo’s well-founded commitment to associating its brand with fun, the exclusivity of its games and – as we mentioned – quality, not only bore fruit, but has gradually spread to its current image. Conquering, based on complete trust, a loyalty that, added to the magic of Nintendo, today extends to the new generations of buyers and sellers. And that their children will possibly inherit.
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