Nintendo N&B Block Universe Set (任天堂 N&B ブロック 宇宙セット, 1968)

The Nintendo N&B Block sets were a successful attempt by Nintendo to step into the block-building market-segment created by LEGO. Thanks to good product design and clever marketing, Nintendo even managed to upstage the Danish company for a while in Japan in the late 1960s.

Nintendo N&B Block Universe Set(1968)

The N&B Block Universe Set is the largest, most luxurious set in the Nintendo N&B Block series.

It was released in 1968 and cost ¥2,800, which also makes it the most expensive of all N&B Block sets.

Ever heard of the Nippon Game company?

Some time ago, I posted a story about the various logos used by Nintendo over its long history.

I forgot to mentioned one interesting piece of information, though. When Nintendo branched out from playing cards to board games, they decided to do this under the name Nippon Game. This name was only used for a brief time, but if it had stuck we would be waiting for the Nippon Game Wii U right now!

In the early 1960s, Nintendo released games under the name Nippon Game

Meet the collectors - #3 - Tomoyuki

Today we continue our meet the collectors series. After tours around the great collections of Simon from Australia and Fabrice from France, we now travel to Japan.

Maybe this episode should be called meet the seller, as all the stuff you see below is for sale. But as we will find out, Tomoyuki is a collector as well. Let's go and meet him.

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"Hi there, everyone! My name is Tomoyuki. I live in Osaka, Japan. But I grew up in Saitama, which is close to Tokyo. I work at the e-commerce section of One company, selling old vintage Nintendo items on Ebay and other platforms. But I personally collect Nintendo items as well.

So far I sold a lot of Nintendo items, but none from my private collection. I am not going to sell mine though.

I want to thank Erik for his awesome work. This blog is really something. It is neatly classified according to history, and I am always looking forward to reading it. I can't remember when and how I found this blog, but anyway, I just happened to find it last year, and have been checking it out almost everyday, because I like these before mario toys. Funny, as I did not grow up with most of them. Actually, I was an after mario age boy."

Tomoyuki with his favorite Nintendo toy: the Ultrascope

"When I was seven years old, I really wanted a Nintendo Family Computer. Most of my classmates had it, but my parents were old fashioned and we (me, my brother and sister) did not get one at that time. Instead, they gave us Shogi (Japanese Chess), playing cards, and Karuta. I now totally understand this was good for us.

So when I was young I did no play the Family Computer. I loved to go to the forest to find insects such as stag beetles."

Nintendo Kôsenjû Duck Hunt - How it works

In a previous post, we saw what Nintendo's Kôsenjû Duck Hunt (光線銃 ダックハント) is capable of: it projects life-like flying ducks, that crash down when hit by the light-beam shotgun.

Today we will take a peek inside this wonderful machine, to try and understand how it actually works.

Nintendo Kôsenjû Duck Hunt (1976)

Duck Hunt is an electro-mechanical toy from 1976. It combines various technologies Nintendo developed for the Laser Clay Shooting System as well as for Kôsenjû SP and Kôsenjû Custom light-beam guns and targets.

Nintendo's engineers managed to pack all this technology into a small, relatively affordable device, fit for home use.