Thread by @frankcifaldi

Ooh what is it? What's in this exciting package I've been waiting for? And am I really going to live tweet things about it? Yer damn right I am.

Is that a SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH of Fun Club President Howard Phillips on the front? What mysteries lie inside?

So what we've got here are 2-3 media kits from Nintendo of America. At a glance these are from 1989 and *1987*, which basically pre-dates any video game magazines actually existing to cover this stuff. There might be things in here we never knew about! You're discovering with me.

Oh and the "signature" is a stamp, lame.

First thing in the kit is an obscenely rare six-page "advertorial" article that Nintendo ran in trade magazines. My guess is that this is from either Playthings or Consumer Electronics, based on page size. Oh and look at the edges...NOA literally de-bound these out of magazines!

There are actually other clippings in here too, spanning 1987-1988, including the only print ad ever run for Mike Tyson's Punch-Out. This is making me think they weren't included in a media kit...that someone clipped these and stuffed them in their folder. Internal PR clippings?

Correct, they only did paid advertising in TRADE magazines, not consumer, and as far as I've seen they did it starting in 1986.

https://twitter.com/GameSack/status/1230574447834234880

Having spent some time puzzling this together, I now believe this to be one long 14-page advertorial. There's a big focus on Advantage, my thinking is mid-1987. I'd have to check my previous research to see when this ran, I'm pretty sure I saw it in Playthings at @museumofplay

@museumofplay NOA pushed Howard into the spotlight early on as its public face, going as far as to include his life milestones. The idea of a man who "plays video games for a living" was one of their first big national PR push. The dates on this make me think the kit's from Summer CES 1987.

Yup, see what I mean? "Playing games for a living."

Is it sinking in yet? He plays GAMES. For his JOB. They pushed this story really hard. We know at least one local news station picked up the story, here's a news broadcast I'm really thankful someone taped and saved

In 1987, we still weren't sure yet if video games post-crash were going to become viable again, if they would "rise from the ashes" like "the fabled Phoenix." This kit has *8 PAGES* on why the crash happened and how Nintendo's licensing program will make sure it never does again.

Moving on: I'm excited to dig into this red folder, this Squoon flyer tells me we're in extremely early third-party game territory

This Sqoon flyer RULES. These really early pieces of ephemera are now crazy rare, I only know of one other copy of this one.

Okay, the press releases in the red folder confirm Summer CES 1987, the E3 of its time. Nintendo's line-up that show was wild:

Kid Icarus
Metroid
Zelda II
Punch-Out!!
Rad Racer

No, and it's not crazy to say this might be the last surviving copy of it. I can't stress how rare it is for something this early to surface.

https://twitter.com/mdoerty/status/1230580609204072448?s=19

NOA showed off what appears to be a US version of the Famicom 3D glasses, which never materialized. I thought this was also the show where they had the knitting machine, but maybe that was Winter CES in January...

Very cool, a pristine example of the brochure you could have gotten at a shop during the 1986 launch. You don't see these too often (we didn't have one before now, and we focus a lot on Nintendo paper since so many people research the company)

Okay here's the fun stuff: UNRELEASED GAMES. The highlight here is Irem's 1987 version of Kung-Fu II, a home version of the arcade Kung-Fu Master II...which ALSO was never released.

Don't confuse this with the also-unreleased 1991 version of Kung-Fu II, a totally different game!

Two VERY early Sunsoft flyers I've never seen before. The Sky Kid art is from the arcade game and I love it.

This might be the first 3rd party directory for NES, which became a staple in every media kit at every show. Unreleased games:

Makai Island (Capcom, dumped)
Speed Rumbler (Capcom, lost)
Side Arms (Capcom, lost)
Kung-Fu II (Irem, lost)
Psycho Soldier (SNK, lost)

That's about it for 1987, other than corporate info and sales figures and stuff. Moving on to 1989, which looks to be mostly photos and fact sheets.

Lots of product photos with fact sheets in here, mostly just for the NES and Game Boy systems. The one obscurity here is the Hands-Free Controller, a really cool early example of a game company taking accessibility seriously.

So this kit is also from Summer CES, this time 89. So what was Nintendo's line-up at "E3" 21 years ago? Kind of an odd year, as internal dev was moving on to Super Famicom:

Dragon Warrior
Tetris
Short Order/Eggsplode
Barker Bill
Faxanadu
Play Action Football
To the Earth

Corporate headshots, including rare appearances from Bruce Donaldson and Bill White

Two years later Nintendo was still pushing "plays games for a living!" in its PR, but was now spotlighting the newly formed Gameplay Counselor group instead of Phillips as a solo act.

Okay! That's it from me, the rest is just pages and pages of corporate number-gloating.

If you liked this thread and the idea of material like this being study-able by historians, maybe consider tossing a donation (or Patreon sub!) to @GameHistoryOrg, the non-profit I run.

@GameHistoryOrg For those asking if Kung-Fu II was actually based on Vigilante...maybe? Here's a comparison, I think his color scheme more closely matches the Kung-Fu Master II prototype in the center