Citations: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16gK3gP8edIs0LMtAILghLEPu6oZpDONvefQFVCQL0gE/edit#heading=h.2u88qqw55arx


Introduction – 0:00
Historical Background – 4:08
Print Importance – 22:59
Baseball – 29:22
Tennis – 34:45
Soccer – 41:05
Golf – 47:03
10-Yard Fight – 53:12
Gyromite – 57:53
Stack-Up – 1:05:55
Duck Hunt – 1:13:13
Hogan’s Alley – 1:23:31
Wild Gunman – 1:30:59
Excitebike –  1:39:09
Wrecking Crew – 1:48:24
Pinball – 1:59:29
Clu Clu Land – 2:02:33
Ice Climber – 2:13:18
Kung Fu – 2:21:54
Super Mario Bros – 2:29:51
1986 Transition – 2:43:25
Donkey Kong 1-3 – 2:46:51
Popeye – 3:08:38
Mario Bros. – 3:19:00
Donkey Kong Jr. Math – 3:32:01
Gumshoe – 3:44:17
Mach Rider – 3:55:38
Balloon Fight – 4:05:54
Urban Champion – 4:17:58
Pro Wrestling – 4:25:52
Volleyball – 4:33:08
Slalom – 4:38:02
Conclusion – 4:46:55


In 1983, the American home video game market imploded, suffering a 97% decrease in revenue in just 2 years time. Meanwhile, Nintendo, a Japanese company that had been dabbling in consumer electronics since the early 1970s, was taking the world by storm. Since the success of the arcade hit Donkey Kong, they had expanded into the Japanese home console market through the Family Computer, capable of playing numerous interchangeable carts.

Nintendo had been looking to bring this device into the American console market, but the road ahead was treacherous. Years of oversaturation in the video game market, loads of expensive, unsold consoles, and generally poor quality games had caused both retailers and consumers to distrust the industry as a whole. Nintendo had a plan. The company removed any mention of the word “video game” from their console, instead naming it the Nintendo Entertainment System. They designed it to look more like a VHS than a game console. They bundled it with ROB the Robot and the NES Zapper, two toy-like peripherals, that allowed them to skirt the dangerous shelves of the video game aisle, instead positioning it in the toy section. Most importantly, their software was designed to avoid all the pitfalls that previous game consoles had fallen into.

Every one of their 30 games released between 1985 and 1987 featured an iconic black box design, a prominent screenshot from the game to avoid any false advertising, an issue that plagued the previous market. They added a Seal of Quality, assuring that each game met with their strict standards. Of course, this doesn’t mean every game was an unequivocal critical or commercial success. However, from Super Mario Bros. to Slalom, each title has its own important part in video game history. Gumshoe, one of the games utilizing the light gun, was the first endless runner ever produced, paving the way for a genre populated by popular modern-day games like Subway Surfer and Flappy Bird. Wrecking Crew gathered a dream team of Nintendo developers and designers together, the same team that would expand on their previous ideas and produce Metroid just two years later. By analyzing these games in a historical context, providing gameplay descriptors and examples, and looking into how these games altered the landscapes around them, I hope to identify the importance of the black box set, not just to the success of the NES’s launch in America, but to the video game industry as a whole.


Special thanks to:
– Patrick Jagoda and Jon Satrom for giving me the opportunity to create something I care about for my MAAD colloquium
– Michelle Awh for helping me edit scripts, telling me my VOs were bad and making me redo them, helping with a billion other things, and being extremely supportive throughout this whole project
– My parents for putting up with me filming in their bathrooms and populating a bookshelf with video games (and so much more)
– Anne Awh for helping to design the title cards
– Vivian Li for help on the thumbnail
– @JeremyParish for answering my questions and letting me use his HD gameplay footage for multiple sections

And thanks to you, the viewer, for watching!

Further readings:
Nintendo's company history – Florent Gorges, The History of Nintendo 1889-1980 https://www.amazon.com/History-Nintendo-1889-1980-Florent-Gorges/dp/2918272159
Nintendo Archive Project – https://happy-today.org/nintendo/history/history1-05.html
Life of Satoru Iwata – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4cJh2YgrKE
Jeremy Parish's NES Works – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ugMeN4Zqy4&list=PLd3vJYdenHKHYZ55MLfjgVWlBIunt32Yh


More of me:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nintendo.novelties/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/nintendonovelty