Nintendo saw the industry's overwhelming trend away from game consoles and toward home computers, but its prototype of a lavish Famicom-based home computer and multimedia package called Advanced Video System (AVS) was poorly received at the January 1985 Winter Consumer Electronics Show, so that system was canceled and redesigned into a cost-reduced toy motif. Therefore, Nintendo spent much of 1984 re-conceiving its Family Computer (Famicom) brand from Japan to be portrayed to America not as a traditional video game console, but as a new kind of sophisticated entertainment experience altogether.
: 213–214 With a high volume of low quality products and dead-inventory shovelware, : 213 some retailers and industry critics considered video gaming to be a passing fad altogether. But the entire video game industry, which had been virtually abandoned following the devastating video game crash of 1983, first needed a relaunch.įollowing the crash, many retailers had lost confidence in the Atari-led video game market even while the toy market was strong. The new Nintendo of America subsidiary, having already bet the company's own launch upon its conversion of its failed Radar Scope (1980) arcade game cabinets into the successful new Donkey Kong (1981) arcade game, wanted to debut in the home video game console market using the Japanese parent company's successful Famicom system. He is a cameo or playable character in many Nintendo games, especially the Super Smash Bros. was quietly discontinued a few years later, and is now remembered as a successful Trojan Horse of marketing. The launch was Nintendo's debut in the North American video game console market, which eventually revitalized the entire video game industry. The NES's extensive marketing plan, with its immediately successful centering on R.O.B., began with the October 1985 test market launch of the NES in Manhattan, New York. Computer Entertainer magazine in June 1985 called R.O.B. to further reclassify the system as a uniquely sophisticated toy experience instead of simply as a video game console.
Its short lifespan yielded only two games in the Robot Series: Gyromite and Stack-Up.įollowing the video game crash of 1983, Nintendo alleviated the fearful retail market by rebranding its Japanese Famicom video game console as the Nintendo Entertainment System-a new platform focused on R.O.B.
It was launched in July 1985 as the Family Computer Robot in Japan, and October 1985 as R.O.B. ( Robotic Operating Buddy) is a toy robot accessory for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).