Hardware
This 1983 console that brought 8-bit gaming to Japan had a truncated name; it sold over 19 million units before finally being discontinued in 2003.
What is the Famicom? (Family Computer)
This actor who voiced an iconic character with a red hat and blue overalls from 1993 to 2023 before becoming this character's ambassador.
What is Charles Martinet?
This longtime President of Nintendo from 2002 to 2015 famously stated, "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer."
Who is Satoru Iwata?
This title introduced a temporal fracture in the series' continuity, resulting in three distinct timelines: the Child Timeline, the Adult Timeline, and the Fallen Hero Timeline.
What is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time?
This mechanic allows a single input to perform different tasks—like opening a chest or speaking to an NPC—based on the player's current situation, often employed in singleplayer openworld games.
What is Context-Sensitive Input? (Action Button)
This codename for Nintendo's 7th generation console featured motion tracking controls and supported backwards compatibility with the GameCube.
What is Revolution?
This tactical RPG series didn't see an international release until 2003, following the popularity of its characters in Super Smash Bros. Melee.
What is Fire Emblem?
This type of playing card featured beautiful and elegant illustrations was produced in the late 1800s in response to crackdowns on illegal gambling.
What is Hanafuda? (Flower Cards)
This 2008 narrative campaign utilized silent, pantomime storytelling to depict an existential threat from a primordial dimension that sought to "trophyize" the universe and absorb it into a void of non-existence.
What is The Subspace Emissary? (Super Smash Bros. Brawl)
This "Show, Don't Tell" design philosophy, used in World 1-1 of Super Mario Bros., teaches players game mechanics through level design rather than tutorials or third party expose.
What is Tutorialization? (Level-Driven Instruction, Invisible Tutorial)
This console enhancement chip designed by Argonaut Games, allowed for RISC-based / "Plot" instruction rendering seen in Stunt Race FX.
What is the Super FX chip?
This 1990 SNES launch title utilized the DSP-1 (Digital Signal Processor) co-processor to handle the intensive trigonometry and 3D coordinate transformations required for its flight-simulated "Mode 7" environments.
What is Pilotwings?
This attorney who represented Nintendo in the 1983 legal case Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd.
What is John Kirby?
The true narrative arc of this adventure centers on the cycle of cosmic death and rebirth, detailed in an unlockable storybook that describes a "traveler among the stars" and the ultimate sacrifice of the Lumas to restart the universe.
What is Super Mario Galaxy?
This specialized internal group was established as a separate entity from R&D, they are responsible for the "Kyaku-hon" or final polish stage, utilizing rigorous "Debug-Play" sessions to identify and rectify "illogical" design elements across Nintendo published titles.
What is the Mario Club? (Mario Club Co., Ltd.)
Utilizing the St.GIGA satellite radio network, this 16-bit peripheral offered "SoundLink" titles which required players to synchronize their gameplay with a live FM broadcast transmitted across Japan.
What is the Satellaview? (or BS-X)
This franchise developed by Noise and released for the Nintendo 64 in Japan features 6-inch-tall combat robots and served as a mechanical inspiration for the modularity found in the LBX series.
What is Custom Robo?
This American animation studio accepted a landmark licensing agreement with Nintendo to allow them to produce playing cards featuring their characters in 1959.
What is Disney? (Walt Disney Productions)
This trilogy utilizes a "Multiversal Schism" plot point, revealing that its disparate worlds were birthed from a single scientific experiment conducted using a reality-warping artifact known as the Conduit.
What is Xenoblade Chronicles?
This design philosophy, often attributed to the development of the Game & Watch, dictates that revolutionary gameplay should be achieved using mature, inexpensive, and mass-produced components rather than cutting-edge, unproven technology.
What is Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology? (Kareta Gijutsu no Horisontal na Shinkō)
Though internally designated as the T210B01, this 16nm FinFET revision of the "Logan" architecture utilized a "Mariko" die to resolve the RCM-mode side-channel vulnerability found in its 20nm predecessor to power later Nintendo Switch HAC-001(-01) models.
What is the NVIDIA Tegra X1+? (Switch V2/OLED SoC)
This 1996 Super Famicom action-adventure title served as the directorial debut of Eiji Aonuma, it utilized a three-character switching mechanic that served as the direct precursor to the engine and design philosophy of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
What is Marvelous: Mouhitotsu no Takarajima?
This chain of short-stay Japanese lodging establishments Nintendo briefly operated including a "Daiya" taxi service during a period of aggressive diversification in the 1960s.
What are Love Hotels?
This Silicon Knights-developed title, published by Nintendo, utilizes "Meta-Diegetic Dissonance"—a sub-type of ludonarrative conflict where the software intentionally misreports hardware failure and data corruption to the player, effectively weaponizing the "Fourth Wall" to align the player's personal anxiety with the protagonist's internal psychological collapse.
What is Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem?
This four-step Japanese narrative structure—Introduction, Development, Twist, and Conclusion—is employed to design levels in Super Mario 3D World.
What is Kishōtenketsu?