Nintendo Company Report 1993

In the days before the World Wide Web allowed companies to easily disseminate information, the main way to share company details was through print.  The document shown here is an example of this. It was aimed at the financial market in Japan: business journalists, shareholders and people interested to acquire stock in the publicly listed company.

Nintendo Company Report 1993 (front cover)

Unlike Nintendo's more recent artfully designed colorful Company Guides aimed at prospected employees, the design is business-like, with a glossy grey cover with "NINTENDO COMPANY REPORT 1993" and the Nintendo logo printed on the front in shiny silver.

The report starts with a foreword by company president Hiroshi Yamauchi (山内溥), in which he lists a number of sales highlights as well as the company's commitment to provide the best digital entertainment through a combination of hardware and software.

The next section provides an overview of the company's 104 year history. The color bars at the top use the iconic color scheme from the Super Famicom, Nintendo's most recent release.

This color scheme returns on the next spread that shows the company achievements, highlighting the hardware and software sales for Nintendo's three video game platforms at the time: Famicom (NES), Gameboy and Super Famicom (SNES).

The information listed is for units sold up to December 1992.

Units sold (since)	Hardware (Japan)	Hardware (abroad)	Software (Japan)	Software (abroad)
Famicom (1983) NES (1985)	18,000,000	41,750,000	221,930,000	265,120,000
Gameboy (1989)	8,430,000	20,520,000	53,510,000	89,060,000
Super Famicom (1990) SNES (1991)	7,390,000	11,640,000	49,650,000	43,490,000

Truly mind-boggling numbers. Famicom and NES total nearly half a billion games together (487 million to be exact)!

The Famicom (and NES) sales had plateaued at this stage at almost 60 million units sold. The sales numbers for the newer Super Famicom (and SNES) would still increase significantly from the 32 million at this point in time, to close to 50 million at end the console's life cycle.

The Gameboy also had plenty of life ahead, its sales invigorated by the launch of the Gameboy Pocket and Gameboy Color in 1996 and 1998, respectively.

The EVR mystery solved (sort of)

A warning up front: this post is somewhat of an anti-climax.

Nintendo EVR Race from 1975 was a video based race simulation system. It utilised the Electronic Video Recording (EVR) moving image display technology.

Two versions of EVR Race were made: horse racing and car racing.

Nintendo EVR Race cabinet - with a horse racing game

Multiple EVR Race cabinets could be linked up for multi player games (in this case car racing)

Some five years ago, I acquired two EVR Race reels in a Nintendo arcade lot. The sale included only the reels, not the EVR Race cabinet itself.

Nintendo Picture Cutter Ultraman (ピクチャー カッター ウルトラマン, 1966)

The second half of the 1960s and early 70s, Nintendo released a bunch of Ultraman boardgames (check this previous post and this one), Ultraman playing cards and even an Ultraman clock.

Ultraman, the star of the Japanese super hero TV series that debuted in the summer of 1966, was very popular and Nintendo quickly acquired a license to use him in their products.

One of the Ultraman items released by Nintendo is this Picture Cutter Ultraman (ピクチャー カッター ウルトラマン).

Purple Nintendo Crossover from 1981

Some time ago, I completed my set of Nintendo Crossover (クロスオーバー) puzzles from 1981.

The version I found is in very good condition and complete with storing case and instruction booklet.

Three color variants of Crossover exist in total. For some reason the purple one is the hardest to track down.

It is not clear if the purple version was produced in smaller quantities than the red and green versions, or if it is just a coincidence that less purple ones have surfaced so far.

Anyway, the search is over and I am very happy with this trio!

For more info about this wonderful and rare puzzle, check out this previous post.