Super Mario: How Nintendo Conquered America

<p><b>The first princess Mario saved was Nintendo itself.</b><b>&nbsp;</b>In 1981, Nintendo of America was a one-year-old business already on the brink of failure. Its president, Mino Arakawa, was stuck with two thousand unsold arcade cabinets for a dud of a game (<i>Radar Scope</i>). So he hatched a plan.&nbsp;Back in Japan, a boyish, shaggy-haired staff artist named Shigeru Miyamoto designed a new game for the unsold cabinets featur­ing an angry gorilla and a small jumping man. <i>Donkey Kong</i> brought in $180 million in its first year alone and launched the career of a short, chubby plumber named Mario.&nbsp;Since then, Mario has starred in over two hundred games, gen­erating profits in the billions. He is more recognizable than Mickey Mouse, yet he’s little more than a mustache in bib overalls. How did a mere smear of pixels gain such huge popularity?<i>Super Mario</i> tells the story behind the Nintendo games millions of us grew up with, explaining how a Japanese trading card company rose to dominate the fiercely competitive video-game industry.</p>