R.O.B.
R.O.B. is a toy robot accessory for the Nintendo Entertainment System. He was key to the NES's launch in October 1985, as a redesign of the which had been launched in July 1985 in Japan for Famicom and was available as part of the Deluxe Set until 1988. During his short lifespan, only two games in the Robot Series were released: Gyromite and Stack-Up.
Following the North American video game crash of 1983, Nintendo courted a fearful retail market by rebranding its Japanese Famicom video game console as the Nintendo Entertainment System—a new platform focused on R.O.B. to further reclassify the system as a uniquely sophisticated toy experience instead of simply as a video game console. Computer Entertainer called R.O.B. "the world's only interactive robot".
The NES's extensive marketing plan immediately and successfully centered on R.O.B., with the October 1985 test market launch in Manhattan, New York. This was Nintendo's debut in the North American video game console market, which eventually revitalized the entire video game industry. R.O.B. was quietly discontinued a few years later, and became remembered as a successful Trojan Horse of marketing. He is a cameo or playable character in many Nintendo games such as the Super Smash Bros. series.
History
Development
The new Nintendo of America subsidiary, having already successfully bet its own launch upon its conversion of its failed Radar Scope arcade game cabinets into the successful new Donkey Kong arcade game, wanted to debut in the home video game console market using the Japanese parent company's successful Famicom system. But the entire American video game industry, which had been devastated by the video game crash of 1983, first needed a relaunch.Following the crash, many retailers had lost confidence in the Atari-led video game market even while the toy market was strong. With a high volume of low quality products and dead-inventory shovelware, some retailers and industry critics considered video gaming to be a passing fad altogether. Therefore, Nintendo spent much of 1984 re-conceiving its Family Computer platform from Japan to be portrayed in America not as a traditional video game console, but as a new kind of sophisticated entertainment experience.
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 was poorly received at the January 1985 Winter Consumer Electronics Show, so that was redesigned into a cost-reduced toy motif. The Famicom's whimsical appearance was again rebranded with a serious naming and industrial design language similar to the AVS, called the Nintendo Entertainment System. The NES is based on the Control Deck game console, which is shaped like high-tech videophile equipment with a front-loaded and door-enclosed cartridge port in the style of the modern VCR instead of a typically top-loaded "video game console".
The Family Computer Robot, a recent niche entry in the Famicom's aftermarket accessory lineup in Japan on July 26, 1985, is a mechanized toy robot with working arms and crude eyesight, resembling "a cross between E.T. and R2-D2". It was designed and patented by veteran Nintendo designer Gunpei Yokoi. Used as a functional companion for playing select video games within a custom playset, it was recolored for the NES and was thrust forth as essential to the NES's new identity as a futuristic, robot-powered experience. The Milwaukee Journal said, "The key to the NES is the interactive robot... You no longer have to fight only the aliens on the screen; you have a robot to contend with as well." Computer Entertainer called it "the world's only interactive robot", because no other video game system or home computer package ever had one, greatly distinguishing the NES to retailers and consumers alike.
Nintendo of America staff received the first R.O.B. shipment from Japan, initially thrilled with anticipation while unboxing and using the robot. Howard Phillips remembered, "The technology was so cool! like voodoo magic But then his actual motion was just hysterically slow." Nintendo marketing executive Gail Tilden recalled, "That thing was definitely like watching grass grow. It was so slow, and to try and stand there and sales-pitch it in person and try to make it exciting; you had to have the eyes lined up just right or it wouldn't receive the flashes. It was kind of a challenge." Product designer Don James laughed, " was hard as hell! So you really had to think two or three moves ahead to allow him to do what he was going to do. But it's cool to look at, right? It was a really neat, unusual little device. And it was fun to play! But again, like Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots, I wouldn't want to do it for 40 hours." Tasked with all of the NES's naming and branding, the sole marketing staff member Gail Tilden said the name was "originally going to be OTTO, which was a play on the word 'auto'", but she settled on Robotic Operating Buddy, or R.O.B.
As the centerpiece of the new NES platform, R.O.B. was revealed at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago in June 1985. Nintendo's brochure for attracting distributors shows a prototypical hybrid between AVS and NES with R.O.B., saying, "The future of home entertainment is staring you in the face. Our new video robot is the first of a long line of winners to come from Nintendo." and that R.O.B. is the "star of a new Entertainment System that's programmed to make you rich". The robotic persona reportedly "worked like a charm" to drive intrigued visitors to Nintendo's booth, but nobody signed up to be a distributor of the upcoming NES.
IGN reflected that " might have been the key to getting the system into players' hands, and once they had players, Nintendo was convinced the rest would be easy."
Release
Nintendo anticipated that R.O.B.'s flair for futurism, personality, and physicality was so crucial to the success of the NES, that the toy was featured prominently in much of the advertising media of the system and its game library, even more than any particular game and even with only one robot game. The robot was portrayed as a bridge between the player and the game. The retail floor displays were each topped with a huge R.O.B. head model, and the launch party centered on a colossal robot replica with many small silver-plated robot models. The toy robot is the highlighted accessory within the first and most premium NES consumer product offering, the Deluxe Set boxed bundle of Control Deck, R.O.B., Zapper light gun, Gyromite, and Duck Hunt.The NES was launched as the Deluxe Set, in the October 1985 test market of New York City, then in further test markets including Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco, and finally nationwide. The NES's design language with R.O.B. and the Zapper, recategorized the retailers' perception of the NES from a video game to a toy. This bypassed the crashed video game stigma and launched it more safely from the toy sections of retail stores next to established hit robot toys like Transformers, Voltron, Go-Bots, Teddy Ruxpin, and Lazer Tag.
Soon in 1985 came the second and final entry in the Robot Series, Stack-Up, packaged separately along with its own physical game pieces. The NES was soon sold much more popularly in the form of only the Control Deck and Super Mario Bros. — without R.O.B. Optionally, Gyromite was repackaged separately, and R.O.B. was repackaged separately for. In the following few years, R.O.B. and the two-game Robot Series were quietly discontinued.