Say Hello To What Could Be The Most Obscure Piece Of Nintendo Hardware Ever Made
Say Hello To What Could Be The Most Obscure Piece Of Nintendo Hardware Ever Made Nintendo Life Copy me do by Share: There's been a lot of chatter lately about obscure gaming hardware, mainly inspired by the discovery of the . However, if you want a truly off-the-wall slice of Nintendo history, then you need look no further than the Copilas. Produced in 1971 way before Nintendo had begun experimenting with video games, the Copilas was pretty low on entertainment value, unless the thought of copying documents gets you all hot under the collar. Sold for ¥9800, it was intended as a cheap way to create copies of office documents and its low price meant that the Japanese government bought many units and installed them in schools up and down the country. According to the late, great Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi, these machines were designed so they would break often and require a Nintendo engineer to fix them - thereby generating additional profits for the company in the long run. That might sound sneaky, but Yamauchi was famed for being quite calculating and wily, so it's not hard to believe. You might assume that as these machines were supplied in large numbers to schools, they wouldn't be collectable today. However, that isn't the case - like so many office machines, the Copilas was disposed of when it was no longer useful, and as a result it's quite tricky to find one in good condition. The owner of the recently purchased a boxed unit - that's the one you see in these photos - and considers it to be the "Holy Grail" of his Nintendo collection. [source ] Share: About Damien has over a decade of professional writing experience under his belt, as well as a repulsively hairy belly. Rumours that he turned down a role in The Hobbit to work on Nintendo Life are, to the best of our knowledge, completely and utterly unfounded. Comments ) Well, that's a dark corner. I despise companies which build weak components into electronics on purpose (many TV's have that nowadays), and it's pretty pathetic to find out Nintendo did the same at one point. While it's fun to learn about another obscure part of Nintendo history, I'm not glad to learn that Nintendo once took the Philips path. Shame on you! E3 2016 prediction: Copilas Federation Force Yamauchi kept on with those kinds of practices way into video games too, and then Minoru Arakawa ended up doing the same to please/emulate him. They came up with Nintendo Power as they couldn't guarantee their games would be the best out there, but with their own magazine they could promote theirs as being the best AND get paid monthly for it. The Nintendo helplines would keep kids talking for longer to earn more money off each call, and would extend them by doing on the spot market research. These days people freak out about companies like google storing data on your interests but Nintendo were doing it 30 years ago! That's before you get into all the bullying of publishers. You don't get to be as big as they were in the 80s by being nice. All big companies have shady areas of their past, and with Nintendo this was a period of "transformation" as Reggie would say where they were desperately looking for that next big thing that would keep them from going under. Copilas 3ds printer incoming! Man, Yamauchi was a jerk... But sadly, his era was when Nintendo reigned. At least Satoru "Please Understand" Iwata seems nice enough. Glad they didn't design their gaming hardware to break down regularly "Copy me do" Hmmm... Is that a cheeky Biffo reference? The 1970s was a much different time period, especially as the Japanese economy was in a sort of boom period whilst the U.S. was experiencing terrible and great times after so many events of the previous decade with the war in Vietnam, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and man walking on the moon, and suddenly people were talking about their horrible experiences with the fluctuation of gas prices. Regardless of Nintendo's shady pratises at the time, there still ought to be a museum dedicated to the pre-video game and toy manufacturing history of the company, filled with all the Hanafuda cards they published over the years, as well as relics from their failed taxi cab and... er... love hotel ventures. "...these machines were designed so they would break often and require a Nintendo engineer to fix them - thereby generating additional profits for the company in the long run." Sounds like what the market is today for most companies, just without the engineer.
Past only? I stand corrected - many still do have shady areas of practise. What's with the printer business.... Even now, most would sell the machines at close to cost , and reaps $$$ with inks. Nintendo, just have a different idea, but along the same formula... It's kind of funny how just a decade or two later they started designing products that wouldn't break if you threw them into a volcano. At least it's not like the auto industry, always try to learn from a mechanic friend of mine when he comes to fix up my car and most questions are on the lines of why is this plastic or why isn't this metal and the answers are more often than naught, simply so they breakdown faster. You may be surprised how often this ploy is in effect in many industries. That all depends on what products we're talking about: TV's and mobile phones certainly haven't gotten any sturdier compared to their 70's and 80's counterparts... This is disgusting. I'm ashamed of Nintendo for practicing such an act. The only thing I can think of to redeem this is Satoru Iwata - when he personally stated to his tech guys that the Nintendo DS must be able to drop from a certain height without breaking - otherwise don't bother making it. I'm not even sure I'd want to collect this. Outside of games & hardware the only Nintendo stuff I collect is memorabilia & swag. Not really sure where a copy machine fits into those categories. Cool stuff! Just for the record if you follow up on the guys blog he doesn't source the interview, I find printers and scanner generally unreliable but I would never expect a company man to be so honest about such a thing. From copy machines that breaks if hit with a dime to a working Gameboy in Nintendo World Store that survive a bombing and time during the Gulf War. Nintendo come a long way in quality control. "Why am I shooting toner at an ice beast? This isn't the copier I wanted!" I don't wanna fight but I'm sceptical when something isn't properly sourced. That may very well be the electronic fly swatter... Wow, I didn't know about this! It's pretty cool to still learn new things about Ninty once in a while. Seems like Nintendo is no stranger to QoL it seems... let's just hope the QoL coming doesn't use breakable parts Hmm. Well I'm sure there's plenty of profit involved in asking for $140 to fix my 3DS. The GCN adapter for the Wii U lol. "And this device was only ever used for one game!" It kinda looks like a Wii. I'm surprised no one has mentioned the ZIF connector on the NES; or R and L buttons on GBA/DS/3DS; or the disk drive on the FDS; or, most of all, the joystick on the N64. Maybe not international, but all very prone to failure. Reminds me of a certain amiibo practice... The lack of voice chat concerns me. Plus it's not even running at 1080p 60fps ah yeah I remember reading about gis in beforemario.com interesting. and to all the crybabies: yamauchi may had some questionable actions but Nintendo was much better with him than under Miyamoto's influence like now. Was Paper Mario pre-loaded on those? A-hem... All I want is a standard controller and the ability to play the Witcher or Batman. No gimmicks. Meh. ... No online. Haha, nice. Julian (the guy behind Toarcade) is actually a friend of mine, and he's pretty proud that several websites have picked up the story. He's even linked to this article on his fb profile. Tricky to find one is good condition? From the sounds of that admission, finding one in working condition would be a difficult task. pretty neat find. As for the statement of them being built to fail, the same was said of Henry Ford because he would go to junk yards and find pieces of the Model T that hadn't completely failed on the wrecks there, and those parts were then redesigned with cheaper material to save on production cost. and I don't want that, not everybody is the same. if you want 3rd partys PC + Wii U is one of the best combos, if your wanting to do those on a TV without pc, get a PS4 or something. The Nintendo helpline cost no more than a long distance call. Nintendo didn't charge anything. I called well over a dozen times in the 80s & never had any marketing questions either. Where are your getting your info?! Nintendo did some things like purposely hold back game supply to make the appearance of demand seem great, but I called the phone line all the time, and what you say is not true. Hello. "According to the late, great Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi, these machines were designed so they would break often and require a Nintendo engineer to fix them - thereby generating additional profits for the company in the long run" Oh, that sounds evil. At least he fully did admit it, that's something! Leave A Comment Hold on there, you need to to post a comment...
Past only? I stand corrected - many still do have shady areas of practise. What's with the printer business.... Even now, most would sell the machines at close to cost , and reaps $$$ with inks. Nintendo, just have a different idea, but along the same formula... It's kind of funny how just a decade or two later they started designing products that wouldn't break if you threw them into a volcano. At least it's not like the auto industry, always try to learn from a mechanic friend of mine when he comes to fix up my car and most questions are on the lines of why is this plastic or why isn't this metal and the answers are more often than naught, simply so they breakdown faster. You may be surprised how often this ploy is in effect in many industries. That all depends on what products we're talking about: TV's and mobile phones certainly haven't gotten any sturdier compared to their 70's and 80's counterparts... This is disgusting. I'm ashamed of Nintendo for practicing such an act. The only thing I can think of to redeem this is Satoru Iwata - when he personally stated to his tech guys that the Nintendo DS must be able to drop from a certain height without breaking - otherwise don't bother making it. I'm not even sure I'd want to collect this. Outside of games & hardware the only Nintendo stuff I collect is memorabilia & swag. Not really sure where a copy machine fits into those categories. Cool stuff! Just for the record if you follow up on the guys blog he doesn't source the interview, I find printers and scanner generally unreliable but I would never expect a company man to be so honest about such a thing. From copy machines that breaks if hit with a dime to a working Gameboy in Nintendo World Store that survive a bombing and time during the Gulf War. Nintendo come a long way in quality control. "Why am I shooting toner at an ice beast? This isn't the copier I wanted!" I don't wanna fight but I'm sceptical when something isn't properly sourced. That may very well be the electronic fly swatter... Wow, I didn't know about this! It's pretty cool to still learn new things about Ninty once in a while. Seems like Nintendo is no stranger to QoL it seems... let's just hope the QoL coming doesn't use breakable parts Hmm. Well I'm sure there's plenty of profit involved in asking for $140 to fix my 3DS. The GCN adapter for the Wii U lol. "And this device was only ever used for one game!" It kinda looks like a Wii. I'm surprised no one has mentioned the ZIF connector on the NES; or R and L buttons on GBA/DS/3DS; or the disk drive on the FDS; or, most of all, the joystick on the N64. Maybe not international, but all very prone to failure. Reminds me of a certain amiibo practice... The lack of voice chat concerns me. Plus it's not even running at 1080p 60fps ah yeah I remember reading about gis in beforemario.com interesting. and to all the crybabies: yamauchi may had some questionable actions but Nintendo was much better with him than under Miyamoto's influence like now. Was Paper Mario pre-loaded on those? A-hem... All I want is a standard controller and the ability to play the Witcher or Batman. No gimmicks. Meh. ... No online. Haha, nice. Julian (the guy behind Toarcade) is actually a friend of mine, and he's pretty proud that several websites have picked up the story. He's even linked to this article on his fb profile. Tricky to find one is good condition? From the sounds of that admission, finding one in working condition would be a difficult task. pretty neat find. As for the statement of them being built to fail, the same was said of Henry Ford because he would go to junk yards and find pieces of the Model T that hadn't completely failed on the wrecks there, and those parts were then redesigned with cheaper material to save on production cost. and I don't want that, not everybody is the same. if you want 3rd partys PC + Wii U is one of the best combos, if your wanting to do those on a TV without pc, get a PS4 or something. The Nintendo helpline cost no more than a long distance call. Nintendo didn't charge anything. I called well over a dozen times in the 80s & never had any marketing questions either. Where are your getting your info?! Nintendo did some things like purposely hold back game supply to make the appearance of demand seem great, but I called the phone line all the time, and what you say is not true. Hello. "According to the late, great Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi, these machines were designed so they would break often and require a Nintendo engineer to fix them - thereby generating additional profits for the company in the long run" Oh, that sounds evil. At least he fully did admit it, that's something! Leave A Comment Hold on there, you need to to post a comment...