The game debuts Mario, who became Nintendo's mascot and one of the world's most recognizable characters. The phenomenal success of Donkey Kong positioned the company for market dominance from 1981 through the late 1990s. Universal City Studios filed a lawsuit alleging Donkey Kong violated its trademark of King Kong, ultimately failing. Miyamoto's characters were mass marketed in multitudes of products, including breakfast cereal, toys, and television cartoons. Other companies cloned the game and avoided royalties altogether. It was ported to the Game & Watch, selling 8 million units, while Nintendo licensed the game to Coleco, a developer of arcade conversions for home consoles, selling 6 million cartridges the game's various ports sold more than 15 million units worldwide. They broke new ground by using graphics as a means of characterization, including cutscenes to advance the game's plot and integrating multiple stages into the gameplay.Īlthough Nintendo's American staff was initially apprehensive, Donkey Kong succeeded commercially and critically in Japan and North America, where it became the highest-grossing arcade game of 19, respectively. Drawing from a wide range of inspirations including Popeye, Beauty and the Beast, and King Kong, Miyamoto developed the scenario and designed the game alongside chief engineer Gunpei Yokoi. Hiroshi Yamauchi, Nintendo's president at the time, assigned the project to first-time video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. It is the first game in both the Donkey Kong and Mario franchises.ĭonkey Kong is the product of Nintendo's increasingly desperate efforts to develop a hit to rival Pac-Man (1980) and break into the North American market. Its gameplay maneuvers Mario across platforms to ascend a construction site and rescue Pauline from the giant gorilla named Donkey Kong, all while avoiding or jumping over obstacles.

Donkey Kong is a 1981 arcade platform video game released by Nintendo.

Dunkey 2017 game list