Introduction
Nintendo is a Japanese multinational consumer electronics and video game company located in Kyoto, Japan. Supplying over a million different consoles, Nintendo’s mission is to place a smile on the faces to the people they touch through their electronics. Video Game users have an endless amount of console options they can choose from. Dating back from the 1980’s all the way to 2019, Nintendo has a console that can offer enjoyment to anyone. As a result of the current pandemic, this has positively impacted Nintendo’s sales to increase. Being quarantined, people, including myself were forced to be home. The COVID-19 pandemic forced me to get back into hobbies that I normally used to do as a child. Reminding me of the joy it brought me when I was a kid. People worked from home, socialized from home, and as a result we were involuntarily finding new ways of entertainment.
Inspiration
In the beginning of the pandemic I was lost, and not sure what to do with myself. I began to dabble more into my hobbies that consisted of photography, drawing, and video games. Growing up my first video game was a Gameboy Advance, and during my time at home being quarantined I felt nostalgic. I picked up my Nintendo Switch and Gameboy Advance, and felt the joy of video games again.
When thinking of a topic for my timeline I wanted it to be something personal and informative. I thought, why not make a timeline on video game consoles. This timeline shows the beginning of Nintendo’s console journey, the retail pricing, and the relevant games that were associated with these releases.
Materials/Producers
In order to organize the findings on Nintendo consoles Timeline JS was used. Timeline JS is a free online tool used for creating timelines. Beginners can find step by step instructions on what they need to do, in order to generate a timeline making this site user friendly. A Google spreadsheet is given to users when they’re ready to enter timeline information. The sheet allows you to enter dates, captions, media, headlines, and texts.
Google was my go to website for finding information, when I gathered all the information I needed I simply organized it according to the appropriate date. The google spreadsheet already had the appropriate labels which I needed to follow, guiding me to where I needed to enter the correct information. Once the information was looked over it then needed to be published. On the google spreadsheet webpage, top left hand corner I was directed to click File. From the file, next to click was “Publish to the Web” a tab pops up. Under the link you’ll see a drop down menu reading “Entire Document” that gets clicked and you now can change it to the appropriate label “od1” then click “Publish”. The link in the toolbar can now be copied and pasted into Step 3 on Timeline JS where you can now generate your timeline.
Results
Analyzing my resources on Nintendo Consoles helped me see and understand patterns that the company uses. For example one thing that works for nintendo was every release of a console along came the release for a game that makes users gravitate to that console, to where they end up purchasing the console to play that game. A great way to keep your consumers on their toes! Another thing that I wanted to highlight in my research was Virtual Boy, a console that I haven’t heard of. It was interesting to me to see that Nintendo already had the idea of VR and sales not doing too well. This can told me as the researcher that Nintendo was ahead of its time and the world wasn’t ready for VR, compared to now with the advancement of technology Virtual Boy is something that a lot of game users would be willing to experience. I wouldn’t be surprised if Nintendo did a relaunching of VirtualBoy with modern technology implemented.
Reflection
It felt good to seek information on a company that I use to invest so much time in their products. I’ve gained information about past consoles that I may want to invest in one day. I was able to also spark up some personal questions that I wanted answers to such as “Which Nintendo did the best in sales?”, “What were the reasons why Virtual Boy did poorly on sales?” “Which console profits went up more since the beginning of the Pandemic and why?” Being an IXD student I’m learning/seeing the importance of the human experience, why things happen the way they happen and through that information be able to better design based off of data and experiences that people go through.
These questions that sparked my interest can help me as a budding designer get to the root of problems and explore them. This lab also showed me the importance of organization and how one mistake can affect your data/data expression.
Sources
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-02-24-a-complete-history-of-nintendo-console-launches