The story takes place in the United States, but it begins in the Soviet Union.
Tetris Story
Alexey Pajitnov was born in the Soviet Union in 1955. His father was an art critic and his mother was a journalist who wrote for newspapers and film magazines. Pagitnov accompanied his mother to film screenings since childhood and had a deep passion for movies. He is also extremely talented in mathematics and likes to solve mathematical problems.
In 1967, Pecgitnov's parents divorced, and he and his mother lived in a state-owned apartment. By the time Pagitnov was 17 years old, his mother's career had progressed. The two moved into a private apartment at 49 Gersten Street, and Pagitnov was later admitted to the Moscow Aeronautical Institute for Applied Mathematics.
In 1975, Pagitnov was a summer intern at the USSR Academy of Sciences. When he graduated in 1979, the USSR Academy of Sciences invited him to study speech recognition at the Computing Center of the Academy of Sciences. When the computing center receives a new device, the institute writes a small program for it to test its computing power. According to Pecgitov, the small programs written "became an excuse to make games."
Looking for inspiration to make the game, Pagitnov recalls a game he played the same year: Pentominoes, a 5th-order domino.
The picture shows the play of Pentominoes, each tile is a 5-order diagram, and the scattered dominoes need to be placed back into the square box.
Pagitnov recalled the difficulty of putting these dominoes into square boxes, so he built a game based on them. There was an Electronika 60 in the computing center, and he spent 2 weeks building the first prototype. After repeated testing, on June 6, 1984, the game was completed. There are no levels and no scoring system. The game is often used by Pagitov to test new devices, and of course repeatedly on old ones. Keep testing and can't stop.
His colleague Dmitry Pavlovsky, noticing Pagitnov's anomalies, helped Pagitnov find Vadim Gerasimov, another 16-year-old intern at the Usstroika Academy of Sciences. The Gerasimov was a computer genius who spent just 3 weeks working on the PC version of the game on an IBM computer. With Pavlovsky's assistance, Pagitnov spent another month adding sound effects and scoring functions.
Tetris game complete.
International two-way dealer Stein
Paggtenov wanted to push Tetris abroad, but he knew nothing about the business world. After all, the Soviet Academy of Sciences is not Tencent, and it does not want its research team to develop games without doing its job. Intellectual property rights also did not exist in the Soviet Union, and Soviet researchers naturally could not sell games. Pagitnov found his supervisor, Victor Brjabrin, who had seen the world. Bujabrin was naturally happy to ask of Pagitnov, for he could get some reward in it.
In 1986, Bujabrin sent a copy of tetris to the Hungarian game publisher: Novotrade, and Tetris began to spread from Hungary to Poland.
In June 1986, Robert Stein, an international software salesman at Andromeda Software, traveled to Hungary to see Tetris. He became intrigued and faxed Paigetnov and Bujabrin to obtain permission. The two expressed interest in reaching a deal with Stein, but what they didn't know was that fax content could be considered legal in the West. Stein, on the other hand, believed that the fax content constituted the actual authorization, and he began to look for a partner.
In 1987, Stein reached out to game publishers at the CES show. Gary Carlston, co-founder of Broderbund, an American game publishing company, received a copy of the Tetris game and brought it to California. Despite the enthusiasm of the staff, Broderbund remained skeptical of the Soviet game. Decades of confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union have made Americans very wary of everything in the Soviet Union. Like Broderbund, Martin Alper, co-founder of Mastertronic, a British game distribution company, declared that "no Soviet product could work in the Western world."
Nevertheless, Stein signed two partners: Mirrorsoft (a British game publisher) and Spectrum HoloByte (Spectrum HoloByte, a game company), one licensed in Europe and one licensed in the United States. Spectrum HoloByte President saw Tetris during a visit to Mirrorsoft, and he played with them for 2 hours.
Stein licensed Tetris to both companies on £3,000 plus a royalty of 7.5-15%. In November 1987, Mirrorsoft's Tetris landed on IBM's PC. In January 1988, Spectrum HoloByte also logged into the IBM PC. (IBM PC is the hardware platform originally released by Tetris))
Soon, Tetris was ported to computer platforms including Amiga, Atari ST, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, and Amstrad CPC. It does not mention The Pakitnov in the game, but collectively refers to it as: "Designed Abroad, Made in the USA". At the Software Publishers Association Excellence Awards ceremony in March 1988, Tetris won best entertainment software, best original game, best strategic plan, and best consumer software.
The only information that Stein could prove that he had a legal authorization for Tetris was a fax document, although it was not clear that there was a legal effect to authorize it. Stein contacted Gitenov again, hoping to sign a formal licensing contract. The two sides began to negotiate by fax on the condition that Stein be paid 75 percent of the income earned in the mandate. The Soviet company ELORG, which monopolized the import and export of Soviet computer hardware and software, considered it unreasonable and demanded 80 percent of licensing revenue. Stein traveled several times to Moscow to negotiate with ELORG, and finally reached an agreement with ELORG on February 24, 1988, and on May 10, signed a ten-year worldwide tetris license for all current and future computer systems.
This agreement had nothing to do with Pakitnov, everything belonged to the Soviet Union.
Eat Stein and Tianyuan hard
In 1988, the previously mentioned Genk Rogers, a handful of Western friends of Yamauchi, saw the Tetris game on display at CES in Las Vegas. After trying it out, he found himself hooked on the game. Rogers sought a Japanese distribution license for Tetris, and Spectrum HoloByte did not hesitate to license the rights to Tetris' computer games and arcade games.
The picture shows Yamauchi's friend, the key character of the Tetris game landing GB: Dutchman Henk Rogers.
At the same time, Mirrorsoft licensed its Japanese copyright to Tengen: Tengen, a subsidiary of Atari Games. Tianyuan Company appeared in the 10NES incident of stealing Nintendo's intellectual property and was a half-life enemy of Nintendo.
The picture shows the NES version of Tetris developed by Tianyuan Company after obtaining the authorization of Tetris, and Tianyuan is a third-party game developer of NES.
Tengen sold the tetris game Japanese arcade rights to Sega, the console rights to BPS (Game Card Production Company), and Stein retained the computer rights. Rogers sought the license of Tianyuan's handheld in order to bundle the Tetris game to GB, but Tianyuan disagreed.
In November 1988, Rogers approached Stein, who agreed to authorize it, explaining that it had to be given Elorg's consent. After many contacts, there was no result. Rogers began to suspect that Stein was a liar, and he decided to go to the Soviet Union in February 1989 to negotiate with Elorg.
At this time, there are still 2 months before the release of GB Japan.
When Rogers arrived in Moscow, he headed straight for Elorg's office, and Stein and Mirrorsoft's manager, Kevin Maxwell, also came to Elorg that day. During the discussion, Rogers said that he wanted to get authorization for Tetris for GB, but unexpectedly, the head of Elorg, Nikolai Belikov, directly agreed. Rogers pulled out tetris game cards, and Belikov was surprised because they thought that Stein had signed a contract that contained only computer systems.
Belikov refers to the illegal publication of the responsible heavens, but Rogers affirms that it is the copyright acquired by Tianyuan, who has signed a licensing agreement with Stein. Belikov immediately realized that they needed to reformulate better commercial agreements. At this point, the tetris licensors were a mess: Rogers, Stein, Mirrorsoft, Spectrum HoloByte, and Tianyuan were all complaining about their rights.
While in Moscow, Rogers met the inventor of Tetris: Pagitov, during a Game of Go. Rogers soon gained The Trust of Pagitno, and the support of the inventor was important. Belikov told Rogers that the Stein license should be revoked so that the licenses for Mirrorsoft and Spectrum HoloByte, as well as Tengen, would be illegal, so that Elorg could license the Russian Brick Home Console and Handheld Edition to Nintendo.
Rogers contacted Nintendo U.S. President Shigeru Arakawa to suggest tetris as the premiere game for GB. Arakawa didn't call him, saying that R&D1 was already planning to launch Super Mario Continent, a game that my father-in-law personally determined. You say change it to Tetris, how is that possible? Rogers said: Super Mario Continent is really good, it can help Nintendo sell GB to young people, but Tetris, it can help Nintendo sell GB to everyone.
Arakawa reported the results of Rogers' negotiations to Yamauchi, and in view of the good performance of the Tengen NES version of Tetris, Yamauchi promised Elorg's signing conditions: the authorized price was $500,000, and the commission was $0.5 for every game cassette sold.
To pit Stein, Elorg sent Stein an updated contract. The new contract includes a clause that a computer is defined as a machine with a screen and keyboard, which laterally cancels all of Stein's licenses in non-computer systems, such as arcades, handhelds, and game consoles. Stein did not pay attention to this provision, thinking that he still retained the full authorization. It wasn't until later that Stein discovered that the updated payment part was a "smoke bomb" that deceived him.
Elorg is really a hemp, not a hemp, but a pit man.
Nintendo Tetris authorized
In March 1989, Nintendo issued a notice to Tianyuan to stop producing the NES version of Tetris. At this time, Tianyuan is still fighting another lawsuit with Nintendo, that is, 10NES. Tian Yuan contacted Mirror soft and asked what was going on? Mirrorsoft says that licensing is all right. But Nintendo didn't think so, and they continued to appeal to the court.
Kevin Maxwell's father, robert Maxwell, a prominent congressman, spy suspect and big liar, was furious and called Gorbachev directly to demand that the contract between Elorg and Nintendo be canceled. The reformist Gorbachev was also powerless on the matter, and Belikov was tough, after all, Elorg's contract with Nintendo had a strong financial advantage.
In 1997, the villain in the movie "007: Empire of Tomorrow" played by Pierce Brosnan was based on Robert Maxwell.
On June 16, 1989, Nintendo and Tengen confronted each other again. Tengen said that NES is a computer, and its Japanese name is also called Family Computer. Therefore, Tianyuan has the right to make Russian bricks on computer systems. Its argument is that the Nintendo NES was designed to be scalable to a computer.
Nintendo's explanation is that the NES is not a home computer, it is a family game console in terms of use and audience. Crucially, it doesn't have a screen and keyboard. The latest contract Stein signed stated that the computer must have a screen and keyboard, which is the hardware that Stein is authorized to do.
Pagitnov stressed that the original licensing contract only involved computers, not all hardware. Nintendo asked Elorg Belikov to testify, and Belikov did not even buy Gorbachev's account, naturally standing at Nintendo. Moreover, there was the agreement signed by Stein himself.
The end result was the judge's announcement: Mirrorsoft and Spectrum HoloByte were not explicitly authorized to make products on consoles. On June 21, 1989, the judge ruled that a group of companies were prohibited from making Tetris games on game consoles. The next day, Tianyuan removed the NES version of Tetris, and there were still thousands of game cards in the warehouse that were not sold.
Sega's original plan to release the Mega Drive version of Tetris on April 15, 19894, was terminated.
It is said that the NES version of Tetris made by Tianyuan is much more fun than the later Nintendo production. This also led to the Tetris cassette of Tianyuan NES, and the price rose all the way, which was a solution to the inventory problem of Tianyuan.
Tetris follows
As the inventor of tetris, Pagitnov sold millions of copies of his games, but he still made no profit. He has no words for this.
In January 1990, Pakitnov was invited by Spectrum HoloByte to CES. He made stops in Las Vegas, San Francisco, New York, and Boston, and met many important people in the game industry. In 1991, he and Gerasimov moved to Seattle, USA. In 1996, as agreed, tetris copyright was returned to Pagitnov, who formed a new company with Rogers: The Tetris Company, Tetris Company, which collects royalties from companies that use Tetris worldwide. In 2002, Paggitnov and Rogers acquired the remaining power from Elorg.
Pagitnov and Gerasimov also created a 3D software technology company: AnimaTek, which developed the game screensaver El-Fish.
Pictured here is the inventor of the Tetris game: Pagitnov.
Game Boy released
With everything in place, the Game Boy is just one step away from launch.
First launched in Japan on April 21, 1989, Game Boy includes four games: Super Mario Land, Alleyway, Baseball, and Yakuman, Super Mario Continental, Alley Brick, Baseball, and Full Mahjong (not released outside of Japan).
On July 31, 1989, the Game Boy was released in North America. A total of 5 games, increase Tetris and tennis, cancel the full mahjong.
After the GB was released, 1 million units were sold in the United States within a few weeks. Among them, the GB edition of Super Mario Continent sold 18 million copies worldwide, and the killer app Tetris on GB began to dominate the list after it was launched on July 31, 1989. By 1997, 29.72 million copies of the Tetris GB edition had been sold, and by June 2009, Tetris had sold 35 million copies worldwide.
Tetris and Super Mario hold on to GB's best-selling game series, and how many games have been released on GB? According to the complete statistics, excluding the cancelled game items, there are a total of 1048 games in GB.
The picture shows the GB version of super Mario Continental's game card.
As of March 31, 2005, game boy and game boy color combined had more than 118 million units sold worldwide.
Game Boy's competitors
In September 1989, Atari Corporation, note, is not Atari Games or Zetianyuan, but Atari Corporation. Atari released the Atari Lynx handheld, the first handheld console with a color LCD screen. Atari hopes to compete with Nintendo's Game Boy through its advanced graphic display technology and dexterous layout.
The Atari Lynx was a success in the early days, selling 50,000 units in its first year as the world's first handheld with a color LCD screen. For Nintendo, this number is very small, but for Atari who has been fighting the street for several years, he still dares to use the name Atari, which is already valuable. By the end of 1991, the Atari Lynx had sold more than 800,000 units. By 1995, it had sold 7 million units in its lifetime.
The problem with it is that the game library is too small, and the endurance is only 3-4 hours.
On October 6, 1990, Sega released the handheld Game Gea in Japan. In April 1991, Game Gea was released in North America. Game Gea It is a full-color backlit screen in landscape format and is also more advanced than GB. The only highlight of Game Gea is the screen, in addition to which the chips are short, the quality is unreliable, and the quality of the game is poor, all of which are hard wounds. But at that time, Sega's Mega Drive was just in the middle of the day, pulling and selling 11 million units.
Pictured is Sega Game Gea.
In addition to the two old rivals of Atari and Sega, NEC also launched a handheld machine. It's called PC Engine GT in Japan and TurboExpress in the United States. It's more technologically advanced, can be used universal TurboGrafx-16 game cards, and has a matrix color LCD screen, which can also be used to watch TV.
Its sales were even worse, with only 1.5 million units, failing to spark a ripple in the handheld market.
The picture shows TurboExpress.
When these three companies released the handheld, they did not forget to mock GB. With advanced color rendering screens, better processors, and general-purpose technology, they all failed.
Adopting the proven technology of GB, GB once again defeated the enemy through a richer game experience, through reliable product quality and endurance. Yokoi's lateral thinking of the withered technique once again verifies its correctness.
The question is, where does these opponents have the confidence to fight Nintendo?
The reason is simple: Famicom is no longer working.
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