Console Wars (2015)
PART FIVE
THE TORTOISE
AND THE HARE
63.
KILLER INSTINCT
In a sharp gray suit, boyishly combed graying hair, and an uncharacteristically cheeky smile, Howard Lincoln stepped in front of a blue podium. “Thank you, and good afternoon everyone,” he said, greeting an audience of industry players at the historic Los Angeles Theater.
The smile grew larger. “Welcome to Tinseltown. The city of hopes and dreams, the place where telling the difference between the real world and make-believe is always a challenge. And consequently there couldn’t be a better venue for an industry facing the same kind of challenge: separating dreams from reality, the contenders from the pretenders, not only for this coming Christmas but for an entire new generation of videogame play.”
As Lincoln switched gears, Tom Kalinske, still stinging from the shortest speech he’d ever heard, took a seat in one of the back rows. Kalinske knew that coming to see Nintendo’s presentation was unlikely to improve his mood, but for some reason it felt important for him to be there. For the next ninety minutes he would put down the sword, suppress any sarcastic thoughts, and just observe the men who had once resurrected the industry that everyone was celebrating today. A moment of admiration, a tip of the cap, and then back to wholeheartedly despising Nintendo before the end of the afternoon.
“Now, everyone knows that the videogame world is changing,” Lincoln said. “But it takes a little investigation to figure out exactly how. So here are the headlines . . .”
There was something about Howard Lincoln, his stately but affable demeanor perhaps, that made almost anything he said sound like a State of the Union address. For this reason, he was the perfect guy to give a rundown of where the industry stood ten years after it had been resurrected by Nintendo.
He began by acknowledging the downturn of the industry. Since Christmas 1993, the industry had slowed, but it had been slowing faster for some than for others. “The sector is off by 26 percent through the first three months of the year,” he said, “but by far the biggest part of that hit is being taken by Nintendo.”
At this, the audience rippled with laughter—and, surprisingly, so did Kalinske. It was true, and of the hundreds of so-called insiders packing the room, he felt like he was the only one who actually knew why. And the fact that the biggest threat to Sega was actually Sega itself, and not just in some metaphorical sense but in the most pathetically literal way possible, was enough to make him laugh as well. Over the past year, Nintendo’s 16-bit sales were actually up 2 percent, while Sega’s had plummeted 43 percent, falling for nine straight months in a row.
“Yet despite that downturn, Donkey Kong Country remains one of the biggest-selling games of all time, with worldwide sales now in excess of 7.5 million cartridges. So in one sense, I suppose nothing really has changed at all. Great software still sells great.”
What was so amazing about Nintendo’s newest blockbuster title went beyond the game itself. Despite all the technobabble about next-generation hardware, polygons, and CPUs, Donkey Kong Country was a reminder that there were always breakthroughs to be made with what existed already. It was a concept that perfectly mirrored Nintendo’s recent renaissance: old dog, new tricks. Tony Harman was already scouring the globe for new old things, Gail Tilden was gradually bringing Nintendo Power into the Internet era, and Shigeru Miyamoto was patiently making new worlds in 64 bits. All of these benefits pointed to the primary advantage that Donkey Kong Country gave Nintendo: more time.
“And there’s one last headline that’s definitely making news,” Lincoln explained. “The revised release date of Nintendo Ultra 64. From the start, we targeted a fall 1995 launch, but the world’s only true 64-bit platform will now hit North American and European shelves in April 1996, for reasons that we’ll elaborate on in just a minute.”
Nintendo was never a company to take its foot off the pedal, but this runaway hit gave them the ability to continue moving at their own pace. With the Super NES making a comeback like no other and Sega seemingly more interested in the next than the now, Nintendo felt no need to rush the Ultra 64 system. “This concept,” Lincoln explained, “that the name of the game is the game, that it’s about hits and not bits, is certainly nothing new to these Nintendo meetings, but we don’t just say it. We base our whole business on it. And that is exactly why we’re delaying our launch of Ultra 64 in North America and Europe until next April.”
More time. Time was the most valuable commodity possible in the fast-moving videogame world. More time to have software available at launch, more time to implement marketing plans, and more time to let Sony come into the market and start feasting on Sega. In the long run, Sony’s entry wouldn’t be a good thing for Nintendo, but with similar demographic targets, Sony would inadvertently help Nintendo win the last years of the 16-bit battles.
After a video presentation that featured software publishers gushing about the power and possibilities of Ultra 64, Howard Lincoln prepared to hand the afternoon over to Peter Main. But before stepping aside, he left the audience with one final message, which in a way felt like it had been plucked from Kalinske’s ill-fated conversation with Nakayama. “First to market doesn’t mean much,” Lincoln started. “It’s what you do, not when you do it. And most of you know the long-term viability of Genesis in America was not related to the time when that platform was launched; it was related to far more important factors. . . .”
If Lincoln had known Kalinske was there, locking eyes with his competitor likely would have made for the perfect final punctuation mark to the history the two had been writing over these past several years. Unfortunately, the moment was not meant to be, and the two would need to find another way to attach an image to whatever this had been all about. And on a positive note of past, present, and future, Nintendo of America’s chairman left the stage to Peter Main.
“Howard, you’re absolutely right,” Main began, moving around the stage with an ease that contrasted with Lincoln’s placid stiffness. “I can tell you as I stand here that even without Ultra 64 in this year’s holiday picture, there are going to be a lot of happy gamers buying Nintendo products for the balance of this year—and I’m sure that’s going to make a lot of folks in this room extremely happy.”
Even when Main and Lincoln said the same thing, it always sounded different. They were members of the same family but had different ways of relating. One spoke like a lead-by-example father, the other like everyone’s favorite uncle. Main ran through the usual gamut of topics (sales, merchandising, promotions, etc.) but also had the honor of unveiling a game that seemed to complete Nintendo’s transformation. “Fasten your seat belts, folks, because our commitment to millions of Nintendo players is about to broadside the competition. Strap yourselves in for an assault that’s going to nail the 16-bit title for Nintendo this year. Are you ready? Let’s rumble.”
Sirens blared, obnoxiously loud, but that discomfort was soothed by what appeared on the screen next: images and gameplay from Rare’s new game Killer Instinct, the first fighting game that Nintendo had ever developed. It was like Mortal Kombat, but slightly less grisly, and it made good on Nintendo’s pledge from one year earlier to stop giving advantages to the competition. The days of being squeaky clean and keeping to themselves were over, but what had replaced them was not necessarily what anyone would have expected. Nintendo was still Nintendo; they hadn’t sold out or traded integrity for a quick buck. Rather, they had found a way to do what most iconic companies and characters do so poorly: evolve.
But out from the trenches Nintendo had come, stronger now than they had ever been, even when they’d had 90 percent of the market. Survivors, all of them, refocused and recommitted and reinvigorated. Arakawa’s long-term philosophy had been vindicated, Main’s alchemy of old and new had proved to be the magic elixir Nintendo needed, and Lincoln’s gamble twenty years ago to leave his career at a law firm for a roller-coaster ride unlike any other had paid off. These three, and all the others who were responsible for slowly but surely propelling Nintendo forward, had warped down a pipe together and come out the other end stronger than before. They were still the same ragtag squad that had beaten impossible odds with a launch in New York; they just happened to look a little different now. Armed with a killer instinct, they stood tall beside Mario and Luigi, ready to fight whoever and whatever might confront them next.