Super Mario Bros. 2 may be the most well-known story on this list, but it must be closely rivaled by what is undoubtedly the most influential. It's no secret that Nintendo of America gambled and lost on an arcade game called Radar Scope, ordering more units of the game than it could ever hope to sell, especially when Space Invaders-like games weren't quite as popular outside of Japan. Nintendo of America head Minoru Arakawa reported back to his father-in-law, Nintendo Co. Ltd. head Hiroshi Yamauchi with the bad news, and he put head engineer Gunpei Yokoi and young industrial designer Shigeru Miyamoto about creating a replacement that could still use the Radar Scope cabinets. They set about creating the new game, and hopes were that Nintendo could secure the rights to Popeye the Sailor Man from King Features for the title. "I sketched out a few ideas for games using Popeye," Miyamoto recalled in an Iwata Asks interview. "But while I can't recall exactly why it was, we were unable to use Popeye in that title. It really felt like the ladder had been pulled out from under us, so to speak." "At the time we were at a loss as to how to proceed. Then we thought: 'Why not come up with our own original character?'" Why not, indeed? So going back to the drawing board, Miyamoto made a monkey - or rather, a gorilla - out of Bluto, while Olive Oyl took on a more Fay Wray style as the damsel Pauline. And instead of Popeye the Sailor as the hero, Miyamoto created a short carpenter (who would later take up plumbing, among many other occupations) named... Mr. Video. At least, before taking on the name Jumpman and ultimately Mario. "If he had been called 'Mr. Video,' he might have disappeared off the face of the earth," Miyamoto said, laughing. Of course, Donkey Kong became a hit, and basically put Nintendo on the map as a major player in the video game business. Without King Features pulling the ladder out from underneath Nintendo and forcing them to create their own wholly-owned franchise characters, who can say where they - or video gaming on the whole - would be today? But that's not the end of the story. Call it luck, call it fate, irony, or happenstance, but eventually Nintendo did in fact get the license to do a Popeye video game. Rather than a reskin of Donkey Kong, though, Shigeru Miyamoto and Genyo Takeda set about creating a whole new experience which involved Popeye catching hearts while dodging the advancing Bluto and the Sea Hag, and it hit arcades in 1982. In the end, Nintendo got to have their spinach and eat it, too. --- So there you have it: Ten of the most famous video games which started out as something else entirely, undergoing changes big and small to become the classics we know and love today. But of course, there are surely more than just this humble assortment, so feel free to slap on your favorite gaming trivia hat and share some we didn't include in the comments below.
Former Nintendo Power writer, current Nintendo Force writer. Wrote the book on Mega Man (The Robot Master Field Guide). Was once fired by Vince McMahon. Dabbles in video games, comic books, toys, and fast food curiosities. Once had a new species of exotic bird named after him. It died.
You can find more of his writings, musings, and other such things on his websites at Nyteworks.net.
