The Video Game Crash of 1983 was caused by more than just E.T. for the Atari; it was the end result of an unregulated market that was too over saturated with mediocre products, copy cats, and an overabundance of companies that cared very little about the quality of their products, which in turn led, again, to the mediocre or downright awful products being sold. Atari allowed any game company to make video games for their system, the 2600, and that policy is what eventually led to the Crash. Nintendo, who had just released their latest system, the Famicom, was determined not to allow that to happen to them; so when they released the Famicom in America, they were forced to take up some pretty Draconian measures. But, they also had to 'wow' an audience that had grown cynical about video games. They needed a game that could blow people's minds away. Enter Super Mario Bros.
What happened next is common knowledge, at least among gamers: Nintendo went on to become a juggernaut in gaming, and for years in North America, became synonymous with gaming itself. Hell, it took my own family YEARS to wrap their head around the fact that there were OTHER gaming systems beside Nintendo! But of course, that didn't happen overnight.
To understand why Super Mario Bros. became the entertainment giant that it did, we have to look at the state of gaming at the time. Simply put, gaming was a mess. The American consumer was dead tired of console gaming, thanks in no small part to the Crash. As I stated earlier, the Crash was caused by an over abundance of mediocre to shoddy products in the gaming market. What that means is that far, far too many games were being released without testing for bugs or glitches. This is, again, best exemplified by the E.T. game.
The E.T. game is one of the most infamous cases in gaming history. The game, based on the movie of the same name, was created in six weeks by one person. It turned out to be a colossal mess of unplayability: the controls were confusing, the graphics were ugly, the goals weren't clear, NOTHING about it was good. There was also, of course, the Pac-Man game, again for the Atari 2600. One of the most disastrous ports of all time, Pac-Man for the Atari was NOTHING like Pac-Man for the arcade. Arcade Pac-Man had fluid animation; Atari Pac-Man had glitchy animation.
The state of gaming was terrible in the year 1984, at least in North America. In Japan, however, gaming was as strong as ever. Particularly, Nintendo was doing pretty darn good. After Donkey Kong, Nintendo kept releasing arcade classics, like Donkey Kong Jr, and Mario Brothers. Releasing a home console was simply a logical step.
Japan was the second biggest video game market in the world at the time, and considering just how bad the North American market at the time was, one could well forgive Nintendo for not bothering to release the Famicom there. And yet, they did anyway. Nintendo did not forget that America was where the real money could be made, and they already had a foothold in the market, thanks to their arcade classics. Problem was, no store worth its salt was bothering selling video game consoles.
The Famicom was refitted for the American market. It was given a new design inspired by the VCR's of the time. It was then rechristened the Nintendo Entertainment System, to further the system away from the memory of gaming consoles that led to the Crash. But if there was one lesson Nintendo knew well, it's that a console doesn't sell itself, it needs games to be played. Specifically, Nintendo needed a game that showed off how good the NES was, And THAT is where Super Mario Bros. comes in,
SMB was miles ahead of what people had seen at the time. To put it into pictures, here's what people called "console gaming" back in 1983:
Pitfall for the Atari 2600
And THIS is what SMB was offering:
Graphically speaking, SMB was miles ahead of anything the Atari, Colecovision, or Intellivision could produce. The game demonstrated that the NES was the most powerful home machine on the market for gaming. But THAT is not what made the game an instant classic.
SMB was a game that redefined how a game could be. The game was super fast; one level could be beat in half a minute, if the player is fast and experienced enough. The game was challenging; level 4-1, to give an example, is an exercise on speed and reflexes for the player, as he or she must not just race to the end of the level, but must also dodge constantly spawning enemies that are dropped by another enemy that's far from the player's reach. The game offered differing challenges for the player, from unforgiving levels, to grueling boss fights.
But why was the game popular? Besides the fact that it came with pedigree (Nintendo already had a good reputation among arcade gamers thanks to Donkey Kong and Mario Bros.) the game was like nothing the world had ever seen before. This was a game whose screen scrolled to the side, meaning the stages were one big, continuous map, instead of several separate screens, like Pitfall.
SMB showed the world that technology was changing, and video games were not going to be left behind. The game proved to be an achievement of technology and entertainment: video game consoles no longer had to be limited to the graphical equivalent of stick figures, as now more detailed sprites were possible. No longer did a black screen have to be the default; backgrounds were possible. Music was no longer optional, it was to be a mainstay in all gaming, as important to a game's presentation as graphics were.
But more than anything, SMB demonstrated that a game has to be FUN. Nintendo has always been good at focusing on that bottom line for gaming, consistently making fun games for well over thirty years with no signs of stopping. It is no exaggeration to say that SMB was the first game to sell the Nintendo Entertainment System, though certainly not the last. But the single most important thing SMB did was to help revive the American gaming market. The game has sold over 40 million units, for a good reason.
Ultimately, SMB was more than just one game, it was THE game that helped turn Nintendo into the entertainment juggernaut it is today. More than that, it's the game that saved the American gaming market, ushering in a new era of gaming where Japan, not America, was the prime creator of games AND consoles. This was an era that would last until the release of the Xbox, in 2001.
Super Mario Bros. proved that gaming was here to stay, not a fad as many gaming opponents so proudly touted just two years earlier, Nintendo's name wasn't on the map, it was the center of gaming. A new era began, where Nintendo's main competition would try to outperform Nintendo with superior machinery. On the next entry, we'll explore how Star Fox schooled the world on what a console SHOULD be capable of.
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