Blog - Back to work! (01/03/22 - 01/07/22) (Patreon)

Hello Patrons and welcome to 2022! I'm finally back at work and diving into the Super Mario World video again. Let's do it!

Monday, January 3rd - Notes and a podcast

Generally, when I find a source, I'll take bullet point notes from it to just grab the important information I need for my research. I noticed in my Zotero app I had about 20 sources with no notes. So I spent a good chunk of my day going through those sources. Some interesting finds...

- The earliest date we have for the Super Nintendo hitting store shelves is Wednesday, August 21st, 1991. This is two days prior to Nintendo's officially stated release date of August 23rd, 1991, which is earlier than the initial launch date of September 9th, 1991. 

- Sega and Nintendo were about 50-50 in sales during the 1991 holiday season. Sega would have sold more if they had more Genesis supply. 

 - Sonic the Hedgehog retailed for just $25! Sega was definitely the more budget-friendly system.

In the afternoon, I was a guest on the Video Game History Hour podcast, talking about my light gun video. Frank, Kelsey & I had a great time talking about all the different guns and trying to come up with new ways to cheat with the Zapper. 

Tuesday, January 4th - Wrapping up translations

For the Super Mario World video, I had my good friend Brian Clark translate dozens of Japanese articles on the Super Famicom, Super Mario World, and more. Today, we wrapped up those translations and I finalized my notes for everything. This process usually takes a while just because of the work to get everything translated. 

We did learn a few things though! 

- The Super Famicom initially only had 8KB of RAM but was increased to 128KB before launch. For comparison, the NES has 2KB of RAM. The Genesis has 64KB of RAM.

- Many sites report Nintendo's first "Shoshinkai" event was in the summer of 1989. My understanding was that Shoshinkai was like a trade show for Nintendo, similar to E3.  "Shoshinkai" was actually the name of an organization of wholesalers that distributed Nintendo's products. Nintendo held exclusive press events for them to share news and try new products. In fact, Hiroshi Yamauchi mentions a Shoshinkai event back in 1988. I'm not sure how far this organization goes back, but I did find that interesting! Eventually, Shoshinkai turned into the Nintendo Space World shows.

- The Super Famicom was delayed for over a year. It was initially going to launch in July of 1989 but was pushed all the way to November 21st, 1990 - exactly 2 years after Nintendo officially announced the console. 

Wednesday, January 5th - Organizing and technical specs

I had a doctor's appointment today, just an annual check-up. I'm happy to report that I'm doing just fine!

I'll be honest, today I got sucked into videos on organizing research. I discovered some new ways I could organize all my sources, and I'm going to try a few things for future videos. I think it will make the writing process MUCH easier. But I'll save it for another time. I've already got 150+ sources for this video, so I really don't want to go back and fix all of them.

I also researched the technical specifications of the NES & SNES. I really just wanted to get a sense of how much more powerful the Super Nintendo was than the Nintendo. 

I stumbled on a really great video that explains how the audio channels work on the NES. Check it out! 

Thursday, January 6th - Nintendo leaks

Back in 2020, a bunch of Nintendo leaks made their way onto the internet.  A good chunk of those leaks contained information on Super Mario World! 

I combed through everything that involved Super Mario World. My favorite was looking at all the various versions of Yoshi (see above). Which one is your favorite? I personally like the last one. He seems chill. 

I also found NES sales numbers by year. I wanted to see the trend of console sales as the Super Nintendo came out in 1991. Believe it or not, this information is not easily available online! So I made a little line graph with my findings.

This chart really highlights the urgency to release a 16-bit machine!

Friday, January 7th - TikTok ya don't stop

As I mentioned in a previous post, one of my goals this year is to launch a TikTok with little 1-minute history videos. I've decided to make Friday my "business day." I ship out Patreon rewards and orders, I answer e-mails, I do the social media stuff, boring tax stuff, etc. But in addition, I'm also making Friday the day I work on TikTok videos.

I planned out a month of videos and wrote the script for my first TikTok that will go live January 31st - Final Fantasy VII! It's the 25th anniversary of the Japanese release. 

If you have any suggestions for topics that would make a great 1-minute video, I'd love to hear them!

That's it from me this week. Have a great weekend!

- Norm