Radar Scope
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| Radar Scope | |
| Missing image Radarscope.png Radar Scope screenshot | |
| Developer: | Nintendo |
| Publisher: | Nintendo |
| Release date: | 1980 |
| Genre: | Retro/Fixed Shooter |
| Game modes: | Up to 2 players, alternating turns |
| Cabinet: | Standard |
| Controls: | Joystick, 1 button |
| Monitor | |
| Orientation: | Vertical |
| Type: | Raster, standard resolution (Used: 224 x 256) |
| Notes | |
| Nintendo's first arcade game; Radar Scopes lack of success made Donkey Kong's success possible. | |
Radar Scope is an arcade game published by Nintendo in 1980.
The game was quite popular in Japan, so the president of newly-founded Nintendo of America Minoru Arakawa chose it as the first arcade game Nintendo would distribute in North America. However, American arcade operators were unimpressed, and NOA was stuck with thousands of unsold units sitting in the warehouse. Arakawa faced certain disaster, so he pleaded with his father-in-law (Nintendo CEO Hiroshi Yamauchi) to allow him to return the unsold inventory to Japan. Instead, Yamauchi assigned inexperienced designer Shigeru Miyamoto the task of "fixing" the game so it would appeal to Americans. Rather than tweak a game he did not create for a consumer he did not know, Miyamoto designed an entirely new game, Donkey Kong, using the Radar Scope hardware. Conversion kits for the new game were then shipped to North America, where Donkey Kong went on to become a huge success. As a result, Nintendo was firmly established as a powerhouse in the North American video game market.
External links
- KLOV entry for Radar Scope (http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=&game_id=9238)
- Arcade History Database (http://www.arcade-history.com/history_database.php?page=detail&id=2155)