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9. 16-bit Censorship
Won’t someone think of the children? Nintendo definitely thinks of them. Nintendo thought about children and Western sensibilities so much that in the NES and SNES days, the company censored many aspects of Japanese games for an international release. Everything from removing references to religion and churches in Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy games to editing out blood and other gory content. While these changes seemed well-meaning, many seemed unnecessary.
With no formal rating video game rating system in place during video games’ infancy, Nintendo had an unnatural amount of control over the content of games allowed to be published on its systems. Didn’t like the censors? Well, you don’t get a Nintendo release. In a couple instances, these censors changed entire characters and stories, such as the removal of references to Nazis in Bionic Commando and Wolfenstein 3D.
By censoring games to make them child friendly, Nintendo started to cement itself and its systems as “being for kids” in the eyes of many. The most notable instance of this is the original console release of Mortal Kombat, in which all the blood was removed in the SNES version. As a result, the Sega Genesis version sold way better. In fact, during the 16-bit era, Sega advertised the Genesis as being the cooler and more grown up game system, compared to the childish Super Nintendo. While that was definitely not the case, Nintendo put itself into that category, and this is a stigma that Nintendo struggles with even today.
Now, is it just me, or does there appear to be no game actually inserted into Reggie’s 3DS?! If so, why is he smiling?!
Kyle, from what dark corner of the internet did you manage to find the image of that prototype Play Station? Man, that is awesome!
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-XCVbCgnagw