#uemurahiroyuki

[cpnpixel]

Being as today marks the 30th anniversary of the NES/Famicom's Japanese launch, I thought I would provide a little background information courtesy of an interview with Uemura Masayuki, formerly of Nintendo.

Uemura and Takeda Genyo (the father of battery backup saving no less!), were sent to the CES ('80 or '82?) under the auspices of a general technology sight-seeing mission. It was some time later, when Yamauchi ordered him, out of the blue, to begin development of a "machine that would play arcade games on a home TV", that he realised the CES was actually a research mission. Nintendo had already made its first foray into the home gaming market with the 1977 released Terebi Game or Color TV Game, as it was known in the West. However, it wasn't until the 1981 release of Donkey Kong that they would find real success, and this is likely what inspired Yamauchi's request to Uemura and it was this very game which would be their benchmark in developing the Famicom.

Developing a machine of that calibre for home use would require designing a chip set which was up to the job, and Nintendo being Nintendo, didn't want to follow the pack so Uemura needed to create a new chip set. His first thought, being a former Sharp employee, was to ask his old company, but Yamauchi forbade him (likely in order to keep Sharp focussed on the then successful Game & Watch line).

Unable to find another firm able to help out, Uemura was at a loss; could this be the end for the Famicom? Of course not! Fate came a knocking in the form of Ricoh, who had developed some "cutting edge tech you may want to see". Uemura made his way over to there only to be greeted by the team that built the Color TV Game; they had joined Ricoh from Systech or Mitsubishi (likely the former, as it went bankrupt part way through development of the CTV).

A year later and the epoch making creation of the CPU RP2A03 and PPU 2CO2 was realised and Donkey Kong could finally be played at home! The rest, as they say, is history.

As a side note, it seems that NDAs and corporate secrets were not quite the same in the Japan of the 80s and Uemura's son had told all his friends about what his Dad's job was (well, you would, wouldn't you?). This resulted in Uemura being called on to do house-calls to repair Famicoms in his neighbourhood. What a great bloke!