Handheld video games console, 'Game and Watch Multi Screen', with in-built Zeldagame; Nintendo, Japan, 1989

Handheld video game, made from green-coloured ABS plastic. It has a clamshell-style opening on a hinge along its spine, it closes with an integral clasp. Its top is printed with an image of Link holding a sword and shield, facing three monsters. On the reverse is moulded product information, and on the right is a small compartment for the batteries. When it is opened there are revealed two rectangular LCD screens, each printed with castle scenery, such as stones, wall-mounted torches and round-headed windows. On the left of the bottom screen is printed a logo of two crossed swords, then a red plastic D-pad below, the down arrow is marked 'WATER OF LIFE'. On the right of the screen are six buttons, and a blue gargoyle. The buttons are marked 'GAME', 'CONTINUE', 'TIME', 'ALARM', 'ACL' and 'ATTACK'.

Given by Alex Malloy

This object belonged to the donor Alex Malloy (b. 1980) and his younger brother when they were children. He later recalled 'I was a happy and very spoilt child. When I was very young I didn't have many friends and didn't like to play outside, so my parents and grandparents bought me LOTS of toys. As I got older my attention turned to computer games, particularly Nintendo... When my little brother came along he was even more spoilt than I was, so the toys and games really started to accumulate at that time.'

It was given to the Museum in 2016 [2017/119].

Nintendo is among the world’s largest video games companies, originally founded in 1889 in Kyoto, Japan, as a manufacturer of hanafuda playing cards. Nintendo entered the electronic toy industry in 1966, producing a series of early light gun games, but not to great success. In 1974, they were able to secure the contract to distribute the Magnavox Odyssey home video games console in Japan, which marked their first entry into this market. Nintendo began to produce arcade games from 1975, although the company’s fortune was truly made in 1981 with the release of the Donkey Kong in 1981, the title character being designed by Shigeru Miyamoto, who also designed Nintendo’s signature character Mario (an early version of whom appeared in Donkey Kong as ‘Jumpman’).

The previous year, 1980, had seen the release of Nintendo’s first Game & Watch handheld console. The idea of simple handheld game supposedly sprung from Nintendo’s Gunpei Yokoi’s observation of a commuter fiddling with an LCD calculator whilst on a train. The Game & Watch series spanned several versions throughout the 1980s, until superseded in 1989 by the Game Boy. Many titles were released across the different versions, although the games were not interchangeable between them: each had a single, inbuilt game.

B.606-2016