Stuff You Should Know – 12 Days of Christmas Toys: How the Nintendo Entertainment System Changed Gaming Forever (December 12, 2025)

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In this festive "12 Days of Christmas… Toys" episode, hosts Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant take listeners on a nostalgic and deeply informative journey through the story of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). They explore how the NES arrived during the “dark ages” of the U.S. video game industry, revolutionized home gaming, drove pop culture, and laid the groundwork for everything from “gamer” culture to the basic design of modern controllers. The episode is a blend of personal reminiscence, fun facts, and keen historical insight—perfect for Gen Xers and anyone curious about why the NES changed everything.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Hosts' Personal Connections (03:07–06:43)

• Josh and Chuck open by comparing their childhood connections to gaming and to the NES:
  • Josh: "I was a little bit old for Nintendo… it really boomed in popularity right when I was sort of, like, 15, 16 and starting to sort of drive and get out in the world." (03:13)
  • Chuck: "Nintendo came out and I was 10, 11 years old, not driving yet, and I owned one too, so it was definitely in my wheelhouse." (04:05)
  • Both reminisce about moving on to other consoles (PlayStation, N64) and about the ‘addictive’ quality of games like Tetris: "I was thinking about how to play games while I was not playing games… I made a decision… that I was going to give up video games because I was too addicted to them." – Chuck (04:50)

The Video Game Crash & Nintendo’s Timing (07:40–13:39)

• The North American Video Game Crash of 1983:
  • “Nintendo came along at a time when the video game market in North America had so totally bottomed out… People looked at it, it crashed so hard that it was a fad that was never coming back.” – Chuck (07:40)
  • Atari’s swift rise and fall: revenue at $2 billion (1982) to a loss of $536 million (1983).
  • PCs started eating into home gaming, reinforcing the belief that consoles were obsolete.
  • Japan’s market did not crash; arcades thrived, and Nintendo saw opportunity abroad.

The Birth of Famicom and Controller Innovation (13:39–15:58)

• Nintendo's Japanese Launch:

  • "They released what’s called the Famicom or the Family Computer, which was essentially the direct predecessor of the Nintendo Entertainment System." – Chuck (13:33)
  • Key innovation: The D-pad (directional pad). “No one knew at the time, but that would kind of revolutionize the gaming world… that’s still the bones of what a controller is.” – Josh (14:16)

• Controller design: “It was like they invented the airplane and got it right fully out of the gate, like tray tables and everything… what they did with that controller design.” – Chuck (14:52)

Nintendo’s Entry into North America & the Trojan Horse (20:38–27:33)

• The First Attempt:

  • “Their first crack at that was something called the AVS, the Advanced Video System… they tried to make it look like a computer.” – Josh (20:44)
  • CES 1985: “No one cared at all about it. They didn’t even get people coming over to play…” – Chuck (22:32)

• Genius Pivot – The ROB (Robotic Operating Buddy):

  • “What they invented was the ROB. The Robotic Operating Buddy, which is a very sweet name… it was all part of the same system. And that's how it worked. They managed to get the little Trojan Horse robot through the door…” – Josh (24:23)
  • The robot was slow and only had a couple of games, but it got the NES into toy stores and homes by marketing it as a toy rather than a video game console.

The Crucial North American Launch & Early Days (27:33–34:09)

• Designing for American Taste:

  • Lance Barr re-designed the system in an hour after the CES flop to resemble a VCR—less like a “game console”; this design became the NES as we know it.

• The New York Test Launch:

  • “They decided, all right, let's go to New York City… New York retailers said, ‘I got a warehouse full of Ataris over here that I can't even give away…’” – Josh (29:35)
  • Nintendo took all the risk, offering to take back unsold inventory, set up displays, and staff demo kiosks.

• Results:

  • They sold about half of their NY test shipment (“50,000 units”), enough to convince Nintendo to roll out nationwide for the holidays.

Super Mario Bros. and Cultural Domination (34:09–39:33)

• The NES Control Deck & Mario Magic:

  • Nintendo started bundling the more affordable NES Control Deck with Super Mario Bros.: “That was $99… And they sold those things as fast as they could make them for the holidays that year.” – Chuck (33:42)
  • “You really can’t overstate the importance of Super Mario Brothers. That was a game that came along… It was the first game that you could play and have fun playing forever.” – Josh (34:09)

• Game design revolution:

  • “There were so many discoveries and places to go in Super Mario… they created sort of a new way of gaming, which was like, hey, how would you like to be little Josh Clark? Put your cigarette down. How would you like to play a video game, the same one, for the next seven hours?” – Josh (34:41)

• Smart Marketing:

  • $20 million in advertising, a call center for stuck gamers, Nintendo Power Magazine, and even the first gaming championships (later known as eSports).

Controlling Quality—And the Market (37:42–41:32)

• Nintendo’s lockout chip:

  • To avoid "the Atari mistake" of a flood of bad games, Nintendo created a proprietary “lock chip” so only licensed, vetted games could run.
  • “Even to third parties, they said, you can only make two of these games a year. Like, don’t come at us with 200 games—make something really, really good…” – Josh (38:58)

• Heavy-handed licensing:

  • Game developers had to send detailed ideas for Nintendo’s approval; Nintendo could be nitpicky, but maintaining quality built trust.
  • The FTC investigated Nintendo for anti-competitive practices due to their market dominance.

Peripheral Oddities: Zapper, ROB, Power Glove, Power Pad (41:33–48:21)

• Zapper Gun (for Duck Hunt): Ingeniously a light sensor, not a real “laser gun” as kids believed.
  • “No kid who picked up the Zapper didn’t go, ‘pew, pew, pew.’” – Chuck (43:10)
• Power Pad & Power Glove: Attempts at innovation that were ahead of their time but clunky in practice; both ended up “in the closet with Rob.”
• Controller legacy: NES-style controllers set the template for all modern console design.
  • “What Nintendo had landed on with that controller was what Kim referenced as the language of console gaming…” – Josh (49:13)

Cheat Codes and Gaming Culture (51:11–52:39)

• Konami Code: Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Start.
  • “That’s called the Konami code… it worked for Gradius, but became much more famous with the game Contra.” – Chuck (51:51)

Blockbuster Games & Enduring Legacies (52:52–59:46)

• Total games: almost 700 for NES.
• Punch-Out!!! and pop culture: From “Vodka Drunkinsky” to “Soda Popinsky,” and gameplay secrets that “changed my life.” – Chuck (54:04)
• Metroid: Noted as the first truly “exploratory,” nonlinear game.
• Tetris: “I literally owe Tetris to my car packing skills today.” – Chuck (54:40)
• Zelda: First massive “open-world” console game, which some gamers devoted their lives to. Chuck’s take: “I never liked Zelda. It did something to my mind or my brain that was not comfortable.” (58:19)

Universal Ritual: Blowing Into Cartridges (59:51–62:03)

• “If your Nintendo cartridge didn’t work, you would… blow on it. Everyone blew on it and you put it back in and it would work. The thing is, it wasn’t doing anything when you blew on it… but you being a dumb 10-year-old, thought, well, I blew on it. So that fixed it." – Chuck (60:15)
• This ritual was debunked in 2012—blowing actually risks corroding the cartridge.

The NES’s Lasting Impact

• The hosts repeatedly emphasize: without Nintendo’s resurrection of the console market, gaming as we know it would not exist.
  • “Nintendo… if they hadn’t been successful, games as we know them today would definitely not exist.” – Chuck (32:32)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Nintendo walked into this burning city that was the video game industry and said, let’s give this another shot.” – Chuck (07:40)
• “They figured out what everyone thought the future was, what it contained, what it looked like, and they gave it to everybody. It was a really exuberant time. It was like the future had been brought to the present.” – Chuck (14:52)
• “What they invented was the ROB… it was a sneaky way to get these consoles in the door…” – Josh (24:23)
• “You really can’t overstate the importance of Super Mario Brothers…” – Josh (34:09)
• “Hot dog. That’s what I would have said.” – Chuck (35:09)
• "There is no kid who picked up the Zapper and didn’t go, 'pew, pew, pew.'" – Chuck (43:10)
• “That controller… laid the groundwork for all of the console controllers to come.” – Chuck (49:40)
• “If your Nintendo cartridge didn’t work, you would take it out… and you would blow on it. Everyone blew on it and you put it back in and it would work.” – Chuck (60:15)
• On Tetris: “I literally owe Tetris to my car packing skills today.” – Chuck (54:40)

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Topic | |-------------|---------------------------------------------------------------| | 03:07–06:43 | Hosts' personal NES histories and early gaming culture | | 07:40–15:58 | Video game market crash and NES’s controller revolution | | 20:38–27:33 | Nintendo’s "Trojan Horse" marketing with ROB and Zapper | | 29:35–34:09 | NES’s New York debut, expansion, and crucial Christmas sales | | 34:09–39:33 | Super Mario Bros.’s cultural and gameplay revolution | | 37:42–41:32 | Nintendo's lockout chip and quality control | | 41:33–48:21 | NES peripherals: Zapper, Power Glove, Power Pad | | 49:40–52:39 | Controller legacy & cheat codes: The Konami Code | | 52:52–59:46 | Legacy games (Punch-Out, Tetris, Metroid, Zelda) | | 59:51–62:03 | The myth of blowing in cartridges |

Conclusion & Tone

Josh and Chuck infuse the episode with easygoing banter, humor, and nostalgia, balancing personal recollections with smart research and historical context. The NES is celebrated not only as a machine but as a touchstone of American youth, a marketing masterclass, and the platform that redefined an entire industry. The episode closes on the ritual universal to all NES kids: blowing in cartridges—a fitting symbol for the “shared language” the NES gave a generation.

For anyone who ever picked up a controller (or still does), this episode offers a rich, funny, and insightful look at why the NES wasn’t just a toy—it was a revolution.