Q 01/05

Before the Famicom turned it into a video game giant, Nintendo had spent most of a century making what?

A) Pocket calculators

B) Playing cards

C) Model trains

D) Bicycles

Answer · why

B) Playing cards

Playing cards. Its hanafuda, Japanese flower cards, led a market that kept shrinking, the Famicom's designer recalled, which is why Nintendo turned fi...

Q 02/05

Where did the NES first go on sale as a US test market in October 1985?

A) Los Angeles

B) New York

C) Chicago

D) Seattle

Answer · why

B) New York

New York. American shops were so wary after the 1983 crash that Nintendo began with a single city, selling the console as an 'entertainment system' wi...

Q 03/05

Masayuki Uemura, who designed the Famicom, first came to Nintendo as a salesman for which electronics company?

A) Sony

B) Sharp

C) Casio

D) Panasonic

Answer · why

B) Sharp

Sharp. He was selling its light-sensing solar cells, which went into Nintendo's toy light guns, and as he later joked, 'I ended up selling myself to N...

Q 04/05

Which Nintendo president demanded a simple, cheap console that ran arcade games?

A) Hiroshi Yamauchi

B) Satoru Iwata

C) Fusajiro Yamauchi

D) Tatsumi Kimishima

Answer · why

A) Hiroshi Yamauchi

Hiroshi Yamauchi. When early units began crashing a few months after launch, his staff suggested replacing only the faulty ones; he ordered every cons...

Q 05/05

The Famicom's hardware was based on that of which Nintendo arcade game?

A) Sheriff

B) Mario Bros.

C) Space Fever

D) Donkey Kong

Answer · why

D) Donkey Kong

Donkey Kong. The engineers wanted the arcade hit to play at home just as it did in the arcade, so they took the machine itself to their chip maker to ...