[game_preservation] Frank Cifaldi's preservation article on 1Up

[Martin Goldberg]

On Sun, Jan 10, 2010 at 2:46 PM, Frank Cifaldi <fcifaldi at gmail.com> wrote:

> Exception is of course made for the

> Nintendo launch (which I think was at FAO Schwarz),


It was numerous locations throughout the New York Area.  They spent
the days leading up to the Christmas season (day after Thanksgiving)
getting it in major toy stores like FAO, at general retailers, mall
kiosks, etc.

On a side note - unfortunately it didn't do that well, but they
decided to press on to the LA test market that February where it fared
better.  Interestingly I'm garnering press from the time period, and
up until the national launch in Fall of '86 it appears that the 7800
was actually doing better.  I've got one newspaper article here from
June '86 that 7800's flying off the shelf at Toys 'R Us and selling
out while they sold only 2 NES's at this one with the common question
of "Who is this Nintendo?"  That of course all changed after the
official national launch.

Interestingly, CES and other coverage had Atari Corp., Sega, and
Nintendo all on equal footing as of the Summer '86 CES, and all did
quite well that Fall/Winter.  It wasn't until in to '87 that Nintendo
really started pulling out and late '87 that Super Mario Bros. began
being bundled with the NES.


Marty


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