Last weekend I was out shopping and I thought I would visit my friend Hiro over at Famicom Dojo. I always enjoy visiting there. We talked for a while about the Wii and DS Lite sale,s and I brought up the fact that it is amazing that they are still sold out all over. Hiro looked at me and said this was nothing new for Nintendo. He told me a short but interesting story about the early days of console gaming. And if you click below, I will share it with you too.

Hiro’s shop opened in 1982 and was a toyshop run by his mother (who is still the owner and often makes me a cup of tea). When the Famicom launched, the store knew this was the next big thing and shifted focus to electronic games. They also changed their name to Famicom Dojo to reflect this change.

The Famicom was a cultural phenomenon when it was released, and Hiro tells me that it was constantly sold out for more than 3 years! He could keep a good stock of games, but the systems would fly out of the door the moment they arrived. Just imagine the Wii shortages in the U.S. with people waiting outside the store for new shipments to come in, and then imagine that going on for more than 3 years.

I had no idea that the supply of Famicoms was constrained for that long. It seems that the big cities got the bulk of the shipments, and the smaller stores in smaller towns had to beg Nintendo to send them more. Hiro said people would come into his store everyday asking, “Ya got any Famicoms today?” The answer was always “Sorry, sold out again”.

After a while Hiro was tired of sending people home empty handed, so he started selling a rival system that was in ample supply, the Epoch Super Cassette Vision. Customers would ask him, “What’s the difference?” and he could tell them it was the sub par graphics or the weird duel knob controls, but he gave them the correct answer: it was the games. And that was where the conversation would end. No Mario, no sale.

Now it is more than twenty years later, and Hiro still sells has Famicom systems and games at his store along with all the new hardware and software. Today he has more than enough Famicoms to go around, but he can never keep the Wii or DS lite in stock for more than a few hours. Just as I was talking to him, two different customers came in asking if he had any Wii systems. He said “Sorry, sold out again”. He has had a Playstation 3 behind the counter for the last 2 months and sometimes people ask about it. They ask, “What’s the difference” and while he could say Blu-ray or the SIXAXIS, he gives them a familiar answer. It’s the games.