Editing Radar Scope (section)

==Development and release==
[[File:Nintendo Radar Scope - May 15th 1981 Play Meter advert - page 02.jpg|thumb|Print ad for ''Radar Scope'' from ''[[Play Meter|Play Meter's]]'' May 15, 1981 issue]]
In the late 1970s, [[Nintendo Co., Ltd.]] began shifting its focus away from toys and playing cards into the arcade market. This followed the [[1973 oil crisis]] having increased the cost of manufacturing toys, and the widespread success of [[Taito]]'s ''[[Space Invaders]]'' in 1978.<ref name="USGamer"/> Nintendo had briefly experimented with [[Arcade game#Electro-mechanical games|electro-mechanical arcade]] gun games such as ''[[Wild Gunman]]'' and the ''[[Laser Clay Shooting System]]'', followed by [[arcade video game]]s such as ''EVR-Race'', ''[[Sheriff (video game)|Sheriff]]'', ''[[Space Fever]]'', and the [[Color TV-Game]] line of dedicated home consoles.<ref name="Ultimate History">{{cite book|last=Kent |first=Steven L. |author-link=Steven L. Kent |title=The Ultimate History of Video Games: The Story Behind the Craze that Touched our Lives and Changed the World |date=2002 |publisher=Random House International |location=New York |isbn=978-0-7615-3643-7 |oclc=59416169 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PTrcTeAqeaEC |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160624183529/https://books.google.com/books?id=PTrcTeAqeaEC&printsec=frontcover |archive-date=June 24, 2016 }}</ref>

''Radar Scope'' was created by Nintendo Research & Development 2 (R&D2). Masayuki Uemura led the development of the game, while [[Hirokazu Tanaka]] programmed the audio and composed the music. [[Shigeru Miyamoto]] assisted in the game's art production as one of his first video game projects; however, his role in development is often debated, with some claiming he designed the onscreen graphics, and others saying he simply created the arcade cabinet artwork.<ref name="USGamer"/> David Scheff's book ''[[Game Over (Sheff book)|Game Over]]'' claims that Miyamoto found the game "simplistic and banal" after it was completed.<ref name="USGamer"/><ref name="Game Over">{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/0966961706 |title=Game Over: How Nintendo conquered the world|last=Sheff|first=David|date=1994|publisher=Vintage Books|isbn=9780307800749|edition=1st Vintage books|location=New York|oclc=780180879 | access-date=27 July 2019}}</ref>

The arcade hardware for ''Radar Scope'' was co-developed with [[Ikegami Tsushinki]]. It is based on [[Namco]]'s ''[[Galaxian]]'' (1979), with technology such as high-speed [[emitter-coupled logic]] (ECL) [[integrated circuit]] (IC) chips and [[Computer memory|memory]] on a 50 MHz [[printed circuit board]]. ''Galaxian'', in turn, was based on ''Space Invaders'' hardware, replacing the more intensive [[bitmap]] rendering system with a hardware [[Sprite (computer graphics)|sprite]] rendering system that animates sprites over a [[scrolling]] background, allowing more detailed graphics, faster gameplay, and a scrolling animated starfield background.<ref name="Nikkei6">{{cite magazine |title=【任天堂「ファミコン」はこうして生まれた】 第6回：業務用ゲーム機の挫折をバネにファミコンの実現に挑む |trans-title=How the Famicom Was Born – Part 6: Making the Famicom a Reality |magazine=Nikkei Electronics |date=September 12, 1994 |publisher=[[Nikkei Business Publications]] |lang=ja |url=http://trendy.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/special/20081001/1019315/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081006082447/http://trendy.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/special/20081001/1019315/ |archive-date=October 6, 2008 |access-date=13 April 2021}}
*{{cite web |date=March 28, 2012 |title=Making the Famicom a Reality |website=GlitterBerri's Game Translations |url=https://www.glitterberri.com/developer-interviews/how-the-famicom-was-born/making-the-famicom-a-reality/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120505103737/https://www.glitterberri.com/developer-interviews/how-the-famicom-was-born/making-the-famicom-a-reality/ |archive-date=2012-05-05}}</ref>

''Radar Scope'' was released in Japan on October 8, 1980.<ref name="USCO">{{cite web |title=Radar scope (Registration Number PA0000096933) |url=https://cocatalog.loc.gov |website=[[United States Copyright Office]] |access-date=25 May 2021}}</ref> That year, [[Minoru Arakawa]] established the subsidiary [[Nintendo of America]] in New York City. Based on favorable tests at arcades in Seattle, he wagered most of the company's modest corporate budget on ordering 3,000 ''Radar Scope'' units from Nintendo Co., Ltd.<ref name="Game Over"/>{{rp|103–105}}<ref name="History of SMB at IGN"/> Shipping the units into New York by boat took four months, by which time the market lost interest.<ref name="USGamer"/> A total of 1,000 ''Radar Scope'' units were sold to an underwhelming reception, and the remaining 2,000 sat in Nintendo's warehouse. This expensive failure put Nintendo of America into a financial crisis.

Arakawa moved the distressed startup to the Seattle area to cut shipping time. He asked his father in-law and Nintendo CEO [[Hiroshi Yamauchi]] to develop a new game that could be retrofitted into the unsold ''Radar Scope'' cabinets.<ref name="Game Over"/>{{rp|103–105}}<ref name="History of SMB at IGN"/> Yamauchi polled the company's entire talent pool for fresh game design concepts that could satisfy Nintendo of America's needs. The result was Shigeru Miyamoto's debut as lead game designer with ''[[Donkey Kong (1981 video game)|Donkey Kong]]'', starring [[Mario]] and released in 1981.<ref name="Game Over"/>{{rp|106}}<ref name="History of SMB at IGN"/><ref name="Ultimate History"/> The ''Donkey Kong'' conversion kits consisting of [[ROM chip]]s and cabinet marquee graphics were shipped to Nintendo of America and installed on more than 2,000 ''Radar Scope'' machines by a small team including Arakawa and his wife.<ref name="History of SMB at IGN"/><ref name="Game Over"/>{{rp|109}}