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.
Nintendo Entertainment Analysis &amp; Development
One of the first games developed by the R&D4 department was "Mario Bros." in 1983, designed and directed by Miyamoto. The department was, however, unable to program the game with such an inexperienced team, and so counted with programming assistance from Gunpei Yokoi and the R&D1 department. One of the first completely self-developed games was "Super Mario Bros.", the sequel to "Mario Bros." The game set standards for the platform genre, and went on to be both a critical and commercial success. In 1986, R&D4 developed "The Legend of Zelda", for which Miyamoto again served as a director. The phenomenal sales of "Super Mario Bros." and "The Legend of Zelda" fueled the expansion of the department with young game designers such as Hideki Konno, Katsuya Eguchi, Kensuke Tanabe, Takao Shimizu, who would later become producers themselves.