The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokémon and Beyond—The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World (49 page)
Authors: Steven Kent
Disaster struck Worlds of Wonder as the 1987 Christmas season approached. Mistakenly confident in the continued popularity of Teddy Ruxpin, Worlds of Wonder management grossly overestimated its inventory needs. The company ended up with so many extra copies of the expensive robotic bear that it faced bankruptcy.
In October, Minoru Arakawa contacted Worlds of Wonder to break off the partnership. Nintendo now had so much clout that it no longer needed a distribution partner. By coincidence, Arakawa contacted Don Kingsborough about discontinuing the Worlds of Wonder relationship around the time that Kingsborough was preparing to lay off his sales force. Arakawa decided to hire them instead. Ironically, Worlds of Wonder connected Nintendo with the exact sales force it had once tried to enlist through Atari.
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For a more complete account of the New York launch, see
Game Over.
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Super Mario Bros.
was not the first side-scrolling game.
Scramble, Defender, Super Cobra
, and several others predated it by several years.
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At one point in the game, players could even walk through a brick wall to enter a seemingly endless underwater world.
Pac-Man, the most successful arcade character of all time, at E3.
Donkey Kong—the 300-pound gorilla that put Nintendo on the map.
After selling Atari to Warner Communications, Nolan Bushnell bought back the rights to Chuck E. Cheese Pizza Time Theaters. Atari made Bushnell famous, but it was “the rat” that made him rich.
David Rosen, the man who brought photomats, bowling alleys, and arcade machines to Japan, then led Sega to the United States.
Bushnell hired his neighbor, Joseph P. Keenan, to work for Atari. Keenan went on to become the president of Kee Games, and later, Data East USA.
Roger Hector and Nolan Bushnell at the launch of Sente.
Workers assemble
Centipede
machines.
Atari’s Don Osborne demonstrates the
Star Wars
coin-op “cockpit” to George Lucas.
Possibly the greatest coin-op designer of all time, Dave Theurer created
Missile Command, Tempest
, and
I*Robot.
Former Disney animator Don Bluth provided the artwork for
Dragon’s Lair
, the first laser disc–based arcade game. Some pundits thought
Dragon’s Lair
would be the game to restore the arcade business, but with an average price tag of $4,300 and requiring special maintenance, laser disc games were a short-lived fad in arcades.
Nicknamed “Golden Boy” by his coworkers, Atari’s coin-op engineer Ed Logg has a history of hits that includes
Asteroids, Centipede, Gauntlet
, and the Tengen version of
Tetris
for the NES.
