[ Retro Scan of the Week ] 1995 Nintendo.com Promo
January 25th, 2016 by Benj Edwards
Crap. I spilled toxic waste on my keyboard again.
I’ve always wondered who made these in-house Nintendo promos/ads for Nintendo Power magazine. Most of them were fairly well done over the years. This vivid promo, featuring Nintendo’s early website in 1995, is probably one of my favorites. It also mentions AOL (keyword “NOA”), of course, which was still a big online player at the time.
By the way, anyone who can convincingly explain (with in-world fiction, not marketing) the presence of a poison/toxic waste barrel on this kid’s desk wins 10 cocoa points. Even Diddy Kong sitting there makes more sense.
[Update: 02/01/2016 – It turns out that the toxic waste barrel is actually a boss character named Dumb Drum from Donkey Kong Country. Special thanks to etranist for pointing that out in the comments. ]
Discussion Topic of the Week: What’s the first video game website you ever looked at online?
January 25th, 2016 at 4:31 pm
I believe my earliest online gaming memory was the aforementioned “NOA” aol section, where the landing page with standard menu nav had a picture of Diddy Kong. His hat was clickable that took you to a “secret” Diddy Kong’s Treehouse with some bits of info and a message board.
I only remember the message board being full of people complaining about a recent change to AOL that caused the hotspots in images to change the cursor icon, making the hat much more discoverable by a mouseover instead of requiring a blind click. Stalwarts were complaining that too many people were coming in and ruining the area (which probably got up to HUNDREDS at the time).
January 25th, 2016 at 7:04 pm
This got me curious what it looked like. I used the way back machine and the earliest is 1996. Fun to go through the site.
N64 was the rage.
January 26th, 2016 at 12:15 am
I remember being so jealous of the kids who had AOL back then. Nintendo Power made it sound like the AOL exclusive page sound amazing. I seem to remember there was some kind of Zelda RPG community there where people wrote stories taking place in the shared universe and submitted them to the forum there. It sounded awesome to me back then.
January 26th, 2016 at 7:46 am
“By the way, anyone who can convincingly explain (with in-world fiction, not marketing) the presence of a poison/toxic waste barrel on this kid’s desk wins 10 cocoa points.”
I think it’s actually a toy. Much like He-Man “slime” or Ninja Turtles “ooze”, it is some brand of disgusting green glop sold to children at an obscene markup.
Unlike those two products, however, this one is sold in bulk quantities, which kinda kills the profitability.
January 26th, 2016 at 10:22 am
The poison/toxic waste barrel is a dumb drum, a type of enemy from Donkey Kong Country on the SNES.
January 27th, 2016 at 1:22 pm
n64hq.com and when that shut down, ign64.com.
January 27th, 2016 at 9:49 pm
Gamefaqs.com in 1998 is the only thing I can think of. At the time, it was like discovering the Holy Grail. No more paying top dollar for codebooks to give me the cheat codes, Game Genie codes, and passwords for all my old
January 27th, 2016 at 9:59 pm
Sorry. it seems my comment was cut off somehow.
No more paying top dollar for codebooks to give me the cheat codes, Game Genie codes, and passwords for all my old NES, SNES, and Sega Genesis games. So I donated all my old codebooks to the Goodwill, and then years later I repurchased Conquering Sega Genesis Games by Jeff Rovin solely for all the fond memories. It felt like welcoming back an old friend.
January 29th, 2016 at 7:49 am
1996, Gamespot. I actually entered a contest to win an autographed copy of Quake – and won. Still sitting on my game shelf… of course the autographs were silkscreened witht the rest of the CD artwork. But hey…
February 1st, 2016 at 3:50 pm
Thanks for clearing that up, etranist. I was never a die-hard Donkey Kong Country fan. I got the original when it came out, but found it difficult, and I never bought the two SNES sequels.