Monday Night Game G8, 2 days L8

I should apologize for being l8 on this post, but since it's the first one and nobody was expecting it, I'll save my breathe. This is the launch of Remo's Game G8 - facts, nostalgia, and other useless to life information that the 8 Bit world has and has-had to offer will be meaninglessly streamed here every Monday, or late Tuesday (since both days are just about the same thing to me) for your viewing pleasure between pron surfing and checking your myspaces. L8er it'll accumulate into interviews with random 8 Bit musicians found on myspace and reviews on emulated NES, SNES, SEGA, ect games long forgotten (or for a few of us, played yesterday.)

So enjoy, any tips or ideas, send 'em to my email address remosantuccione@yahoo.com

(insert deity here) knows, I might use 'em, or ignore them completely.

Let's start with some fun facts shall we?

We shall.

Did you know that Nintendo started it's enterprise more than a century ago? It was back in 1889 when the great grandfather of the current Nintendo president, Fusajiro Yamauchi, founded "Nintendo Koppai". Of course they weren´t making videogames back in 1889, they started out making special playing cards called Hanafunda ( or "flower cards"). All the cards Fusajiro produced were tenderly hand made using the bark of mulberry or mitsu-mata trees. The Hanafunda deck consisted of 48 cards divided into 12 different suits, one for each month of the year. Instead of numbers, the cards had symbols like the wind, a deer, the moon, or the chrysanthemum. Different combinations of symbols and suits were worth different points. The most popular Hanafunda game was a simple matching game that could become very complex. This game was taken very seriously by many players (think about that kid in middle school that cried for 2 days straight when one of his Pokemon foil cards bent in one corner). The cards were sold in Nintendo's own shops in both Kyoto and Osaka (more so in Kyoto). In other regions, Fusajiro sold other cards with different symbols, like swords and mountains. At first the Hanafunda cards were only used as a domestic amusement, and Fusajiro didn´t sell large amounts of the handmade cards (hello, they're hand made). But after a while the cards began to be used in gambling, eventually leading to the Yakuza (The Japanese Mafia, in case you've been under a rock for a ridiculously long time ) to use the cards in high stake gambling games. Since all the professional players wanted to start a new game with a new fresh deck, Fusajiro suddenly had problems keeping up with the demands, leading him to train apprentices to mass produce the cards.

The company grew, and eventually Fusajiro retired in 1929, leaving Sekiryo Kaneda in charge (which after his marriage with Fusajiro's daughter, Tei Yamauchi, got the Yamauchi surname). By now Nintendo was the largest playing cards company in Japan. Sekiryo Yamauchi established a joint-venture partnership named Yamauchi Nintendo & Co.



Now, in 1949, Hiroshi Yamauchi (the current president at Nintendo) took office as president instead of his father Shikanojo, who ran away when Hiroshi was only 5 years old leaving him and his mother Kimi alone. He knew he wasn't welcome by Nintendo's employees, so he started firing all the old managers and many of the old workers to make sure that there was no one to question his authority. Devious little fuck. He then changed the company's name to Nintendo Playing Cards Co. Ltd. (or Nintendo Karuta Co. Ltd in Japan) in 1951.

In 1959, Hiroshi struck a deal with Disney to let Nintendo produce playing cards featuring Disney's characters. With the aid of successful TV ads and a good distribution system through many big toy and department stores around Japan, the cards sold more than 600.000 packs that same year. Chu-Ching! ( that came out sounding like a Japanese pun. It's not. )

In 1963 they changed the company name to what it is today, Nintendo Co. Ltd. and started to manufacture games and toys instead of playing cards. New products were produced, for instance portioned instant rice, which sadly became a failure. After that Hiroshi opened a "Love Hotel", with rooms rented by the hour. (interesting fact, Hiroshi himself was a huge costumer, even though he was a married man. Oh, and his wife knew about it, and ignored it completely.) Another of Hiroshi's projects was "Daiya", a taxi company which went well, but after having to negotiate with far too powerful taxi driver unions wanting higher salaries, benefits, etc, he closed the business. Eventually he closed the hotel too, which I'm sure would be the most hop'n cosplay whore house in little Tokyo.



Now that I've bored you with some Nintendo history, let's go back to the American thing, sitting on your ass and watching some videos.

The first two are French prankster Rémi Gaillard doing some live action Pac Man and Mario Kart. This inevitably made him an instant personal hero. I would say don't try this at home, but, I won't. I will say this though, don't try this unless you have a good amount of cash in the bank for bail.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIrvpn3k9A4

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MytfhzcSF-Y




And this, which is just fun to watch, whether you are high on life, or high on narcotics.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkYVazguJCY



And remember kids,