History of Nintendo
Their first video arcade game was 1975's "EVR Race"; a handful of others followed in the next several years, "Radar Scope" and "Donkey Kong" being among the most famous of these. The early 1980s saw Nintendo's video game division (led by Yokoi) creating some of its most famous arcade titles. The massively popular "Donkey Kong" was created in 1981, with Shigeru Miyamoto as its mastermind, and released in the arcades and on the Atari 2600, Intellivision, and ColecoVision video game systems (although Nintendo themselves generally had no involvement with these early console ports). This release method would be used on several later Nintendo arcade games of this same period, including the original "Mario Bros." (not to be confused with the later "Super Mario Bros.") In addition to this arcade and dedicated console game activity, Nintendo was testing the consumer handheld video game waters with the Game & Watch.
History of Nintendo
In 1982, Nintendo developed a prototype system dubbed the "Advanced Video System" (or AVS for short) and had controllers much like the NES. There were accessories such as a tape drive, a joystick and a lightgun, and along with all of that, the system was made of a computer, much like the Atari 400, Commodore Vic-20 and Commodore 64. It was never released and is on display at the Nintendo World Store in New York. In July 1983, Nintendo released the "Famicom" ("Family Computer") system in Japan, which was its first attempt at a cartridge-based video game console. The system sold over 500,000 units within two months at a price around $100 USD. However, after a few months of favorable sales, Nintendo received complaints that some Famicom consoles would freeze when the player attempted to play certain games. The fault was found in a malfunctioning chip and Nintendo decided to recall all Famicom units that were currently on store shelves, which ultimately cost them approximately half a million USD .