Nintendo Becomes Mainstream (1988)

The rise in video games not only happened in arcades and casinos, but also alongside the rise in early home computers and early home video technology (like VCRs and VHS tapes) that enabled the use of video game consoles in people’s living rooms, like the Magnavox Odyssey and the Atari 2600. The late 1970s and early 1980s saw the home video industry make huge gains, with earnings peaking at $3 billion in 1983. By 1985, however, sales dropped to only $100 million. That same year, the Japanese company Nintendo — which had sold home consoles in Japan since the late 1970s — brought its Nintendo Entertainment System to the United States for the first time. The NES became so popular that industry experts, like the ones interviewed in this clip, credit it with re-energizing the industry. This excerpt from a 1988 episode of The News Hour with Jim Lehrer outlines the basic innovations of Nintendo at the time, and discusses reasons why it helped overcome the dip in video game sales.

The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour | NewsHour Productions: Washington D.C. | December 30, 1988 This video clip and associated transcript appear from 48:28 - 57:24 in the full record.