Punch-Out!! (1987)

Boxing has a way of capturing the eternal struggle all humans face in life. The sport is a delicate dance between success and failure, a win or a loss... the idea that one punch can change the course of one fighter’s destiny. From the ancient arenas of the Romans, to the modern stadiums of today, single combat has enticed and hypnotised even the most-civilised of us with its primordial dance that calls to our base instincts. The fight... it’s everything. The will of the spectators urging their champion to defeat their rival, its an age-old tale of will vs skill, and one unlikely to end any time soon. But how did one of the most controversial sports end up the subject of family-friendly Nintendo?

Punch-Out was never intended to become the console favourite that it evolved to be, in fact its beginnings were humble and far from the game we came to know and love today. Believe it or not, the series owes its very existence to another Nintendo star that also started his path to glory in the arcade machines of Japan. You might have heard of him - Donkey Kong! Before Little Mac ever laced on a boxing glove, there was everyone’s favourite barrel-tossing gorilla that had a major issue with a rival known as Jump Man, who would later go on to become the world’s most-famous plumber.

You see, Nintendo had gotten carried away and purchased too many monitors for their arcade systems, estimating the demand to be higher than it was. Sure, video games were popular, but the company could only make so many at a time, and so Nintendo decreed that a game should be made that made use of two monitors. And that decree ended up in the lap of game designer Genyo Takeda. Takeda-san isn’t known amongst gaming enthusiasts as a games designer, nor would he claim to want to be remembered as such. Takeda-san’s main interest was in hardware, the very engines the games Nintendo made ran on, he’s most famous for the design of the Wii, and making the gamble that graphics aren’t everything. That’s right, if you’ve ever wondered why Nintendo refuse to keep pace with the graphical arms race other consoles are obsessed with, you have Takeda-san’s vision that not all gamers care about flashy graphics. Only, back in 1983, he was an engineer with a problem to solve... how do you make a game that uses two monitors from surplus stock for each cabinet?

Takeda wasn’t alone in his mission to bring Punch-Out to life. He had a cornerman in Shigeru Miyamoto, the father of most of Nintendo’s most popular franchises. The duo were under pressure to produce a laserdisc-based game for the new arcade machine, but the worry of the high maintenance costs of the machine led them to turn their thoughts to the humble semiconductor instead. The problem with using microchips, and the cutting edge the duo was pushing, was that microchips only allowed for zooming or rotating an image, but not at the same time. As Miyamoto explained in an interview with Satoru Iwata “Then Takeda-san said, "If we can only use one image, how about making it a person?" That's how the theme became boxing: we could have just one opponent. But one monitor would be enough for a boxing game, right?“

With the need for two monitors now redundant, the pair had a decision to make, what do you do if you no longer need to use both monitors? You improvise, that’s what. Miyamoto-san and Takeda-san both noted that boxing is notorious for glitz and glamour, and they could use the second monitor to throw up banners and headlines for each match. They also used the display to show highly detailed images of each fighter, knowing that users would remember that image, and not the pixelated action screen of the lower monitor.

Every game needs a controller, the input device that allows a human to interact with the game onscreen, and Punch-Out was no different. Takeda-san wanted to use an actual glove controller to interact with the game, but Miyamoto-san was hesitant. Even though it would make sense for a boxing game to use a gloved controller, Miyamoto-san was wary of gimmick input devices and cautioned the designer against using such a device for the new game. He reasoned that as a gamer himself, he didn’t like controllers that were ambiguous, so it was decided to use a standard joystick and buttons to control the game to make the game as accessible as possible to a wide audience. Takeda-san didn’t need much convincing to deviate away from his controller idea, he was already focusing on the smaller details of the game - namely the opponents for the player to face.

The reason behind Takeda-san’s focus on the interface and specific characters, is he was eyeing the American market for the game. Knowing boxing was a very popular sport in the United States, he was aiming to make the game very appealing to the market across the Pacific. Takeda-san wanted to make the opponents larger than life, with each one’s moniker representing an aspect of their personality. Characters such as Glass Joe, called as such because of his glass jaw, and Pizza Pasta, an Italian boxer known for clinging on, would make the roster. The others would include Kid Quick, Piston Hurricance, Bald Bull, and champion Mr. Sandman. Although he wasn’t a designer, Takeda-san requested Miyamoto-san to design the characters for him, and that’s exactly what the Nintendo legend did. However, he was hesitant with his own skills in art, and took the designs to Takao Kozai’s Studio Junio in Tokyo. Kozai was an animator by trade, and he converted Miyamoto-san’s drawings into beautiful cell art. When the game was released in 1984, it won numerous awards, including Game of the Year by Computer and Video Games Magazine, who called it ‘very addictive and fun to play.’ Punch-Out was a knockout success. But it wasn’t done there... not for one second.

Nintendo’s home console system, the Famicom in Japan, and released as the Nintendo Entertainment System to the rest of the world, had been released on an unsuspecting world, and was making waves wherever it went. Of course, Nintendo wanted to capitalise on the popularity of the games they had released in the arcades, wanting to port some of their most-popular titles to their new home entertainment system. So, Genyo Takeda was charged with converting his arcade game into a version for the home console. There was only one problem, the game in the arcades was already ahead of its time, and they wanted to put a version on a console that lacked half the power of a dedicated arcade unit. The challenge had been laid down to bring Punch-Out to the home market. The arcade system had handled the player as a wireframe model the player could see through when fighting their opponents. There was no way that would be possible on the NES, so the team compromised and made the player smaller, nicknaming this character Little Mac, a play on the name for McDonald’s popular hamburger, the Big Mac, the player would control Little Mac on his quest for glory. This version also introduced the ability to duck, and added Mario as a guest referee for the game. That’s right, Mario sidelined as a boxing referee, it’s strange I know, to think of everyone’s favourite plumber making such an unlikely cameo, but it happened. One of the new additions to the home version of the game would be an increased roster, and a very special appearance by a would-be champion.

Punch-Out had dealt with a real world champion once before. When publicising the release of the arcade game in 1983, Nintendo had hired current world heavyweight champion, Larry Holmes, to make an appearance at a games exhibition to promote their upcoming game. Holmes was on hand to demo the game, and give away signed boxing gloves. But it wouldn’t be Larry Holmes who would be appearing in the home version of the game, it would be a rising star in the heavyweight boxing scene.

Nintendo of America president Minoru Arakawa saw boxing prospect Mike Tyson compete in the ring and was so impressed with the young boxer, he insisted on Tyson being put into the new Punch Out game coming to the NES system. Even though Tyson was not yet heavyweight champion, Arakawa-san was so impressed with the boxer he knew this was the man to become the final boss in the game. Mike Tyson signed an exclusive time-limited deal for usage of his image within the game, and even appearing in the TV commercial for the title. The promotion worked perfectly. Tyson went on to win the heavyweight title, and Punch-Out went on to win accolade after accolade for its home debut. Tyson was rumoured to have netted $50,000 for his involvement in the game, with a three-year deal in place. However, once that deal had expired, Nintendo sought a new champion for its title.

Nintendo released a gold cartridge version of the game for the winners of the Gold U.S. Course Famicom Tournament, a golf tournament, with the cover featuring Bald Bull. The game was an earlier build of the Tyson version of the game, and featured Super Macho Man, instead of Tyson, as the world champion. The console run was limited, but became extremely sought after, and so Nintendo started selling retail versions of this gold cartridge, With 10,000 being released for sale in the United States. The game sold out, and Nintendo realised they needed to keep the fight going to make Punch Out a continued success.

In February 1990, Mike Tyson lost his crown in a shock loss to Buster Douglas, in of all places, Tokyo. The loss meant Nintendo no longer sought Tyson for use of his image, and instead they created a new champion dubbed Mr. Dream. The game was identical to the Tyson version, with just the new champion being present instead of Mike. In fact, Mr. Dream was just a recolour of the original Tyson sprite, with a replacement of Tyson’s head with the new character’s. All other aspects of the opponent remained the same, and it’s this version that most fans of the NES version of Punch-Out are familiar with. with its addictive gameplay, colourful characters, and increasing difficulty levels, Punch-Out would be dubbed one of the greatest Nintendo games of all-time, achieving the sixth place for the greatest NES games created. The Tyson versions of the game became a rare collector’s item, going for hundreds of pounds on sites such as eBay, with the gold cartridge version of the game fetching even more. Little Mac joined the roster of Nintendo’s most-beloved characters, becoming instantly recognisable for his green gloves and trunks with black singlet. However, Punch-Out wasn’t done with just appearing on the NES.

The Punch-Out series would have releases on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System with Super Punch-Out, and the Nintendo Wii Punch-Out, although this version received the gimmick controls Miyamoto-san warned against using the console’s signature motion control system, and in the UK, featuring the endorsement of world champion boxer Joe Calzaghe upon its release. Either way, Punch-Out had retained its title as Nintendo’s boxing champion title for over thirty years, with Little Mac even spinning off to appear in the Super Smash Bros series. The original arcade game would be released on the Nintendo Switch, with the Mr. Dream version of Punch-Out seeing a release on the Nintendo Entertainment System Online release of games for the Switch.

Although the game would see additional sequels, it’s always the original NES game that fans remember so fondly, and its that game that gave us all so much joy over the years... and likely for many more years to come.