Nintendo's Radar Scope failed — so Miyamoto made Donkey Kong. The rest is history

In 1980, Nintendo released the arcade game Radar Scope in Japan and the US. The game was a moderate success in Japan but a financial failure overseas. Nintendo of America was stuck with thousands of unsold Radar Scope cabinets and facing a crisis. The company had invested heavily in its American subsidiary, and the failure of Radar Scope put the entire US operation at risk.

Hiroshi Yamauchi, Nintendo's president, made a bold decision. Instead of writing off the unsold cabinets, he ordered a new game to be designed specifically to be installed in the existing Radar Scope hardware. He assigned the task to Shigeru Miyamoto, a young artist who had joined Nintendo in 1977 and had never designed a game before. Miyamoto was given complete creative freedom.

Miyamoto created Donkey Kong, a game about a carpenter (later renamed Mario) trying to rescue a damsel from a giant ape. The game introduced the concept of jumping over obstacles — a revolutionary mechanic. It was released in July 1981 and became a massive hit. The unsold Radar Scope cabinets were converted into Donkey Kong machines, and Nintendo's US business was saved.

Donkey Kong went on to sell over 60,000 arcade units in the US alone. It introduced Mario, who became the most famous video game character in history. The game that was created to salvage a failed product launched Nintendo's video game empire. If Radar Scope had succeeded, Miyamoto might never have designed Donkey Kong, and Mario might never have been born.