Nintendo makes sequels because they have new ideas to introduce in them. Smash Brothers (has Hyper Spider even played the game he wishes death to?) is a widely praised example of merging genres. Anyone who doubts Hiroshi Yamauchi's ability to discern great games has no goddamn clue what they are talking about, and should be made to read David Sheff's "Game Over" until their eyes bleed.

Excuse my hyperbole, but Hiroshi Yamauchi is the *sole* reason there is such a gaming industry today. Let me set the stage: Atari, with nearly 95% market share, was sold to Warner (of future Time-Warner fame). Warner had never managed a game business before, and summarily ran Atari into the ground, taking every store, licensee, and distributor who was gaming associated down with it. Millions of games were destroyed, those that weren't were sold at 1/10 of retail. The gaming industry shrunk from $3+ billion to less than $50 million dollars in 2 years. Everyone was left holding the bag. "Video games" were such a dreaded phrase in retail circles that the NES was marketed as an "Entertainment System" to not be immediately dismissed (which it was anyway).

Enter Yamauchi. When the first test group of players hated Super Mario Bros., he ignored them. When Nintendo needed a hit arcade game to save a bankrupt US operation, Yamauchi pushed a young engineer named Shigeru Miyamoto, over objections from just about everyone involved. Yamauchi is famed in the industry for a sixth sense about games that will succeed. Sure, Nintendo has had some failed ventures, but just how many flop games have they had?

Zero.

I couldn't hope to tell everyone in a letter about the grit and pure steel balls of Yamauchi, Arakawa, Lincoln, Main, and the others who single-handedly rebuilt an industry that no one in this country would *touch* after Warner's idiocy destroyed it. The lawsuits they fended off, the preconceptions they fought through, the 18 hour days and night spent fighting for every last store display. It is easy for us to think that Nintendo simply stumbled upon a gold mine with Super Mario Bros. It isn't like I appreciated Nintendo's stunning work ethic and incredible achievements until I began to read about them. There would be no PlayStation without Nintendo, there would be no Enix. No Square. No Capcom. No Konami. Virtually every gaming company in the world was built around the Nintendo's success.

This may be a bit much for someone bitching about Nintendo making sequels, but so many people who play games think they know everything about the industry, when they have no clue why things are how they are. And this is relevant history. I just finished a massive Mario Party session in my dorm (no other social games built around this one... nuh uh... never..), and the central ideas remain the same: fun over flash, substance over style, gameplay over everything. It's why FF1 sold more copies in the US than FFVII did, and why Nintendo makes so many sequels. These aren't carbon copy TR or Crash sequels, they define quality for the genre (F-Zero X), start new genres (Mario 64), or revolutionize gaming (Zelda: OoT).

This rationale even fits snugly into the FF series debate. Companies may make decisions based solely on what sells, and while justifiable to some degree, that doesn't evolve the industry one single bit. If all decisions are made based on the bottom line, like it was said in this column that the FF series would be, then Miyamoto never is given the chance to create Mario. This industry is taken over by the likes of Apple. Consoles or sequels as we know they may not even exist. We may have not "needed" another Mario Kart, but Mario Kart 64 did far outsell FFVII.

Visionaries like Yamauchi make history. You'll have the occasional Sony, the company that walks into a prime situation and reaps the benefits, but you'd never have them without the Nintendos, companies that single-handedly create those markets in the first place.

Ed McGlothlin