Here’s one from the history books: Donkey Kong almost didn’t exist. In fact, he and Mario himself may only be here today thanks to good old fashioned licensing difficulties. This is all old news to some Nintendo fans, but newer faces may not know how lucky we are to have one of gaming’s most famous mascots.
We know about Donkey Kong and Popeye’s close link thanks to an old Iwata Asks, a series of interviews named after the late president of Nintendo Satoru Iwata. In the interview, Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto explains how “[he] sketched out a few ideas for games using Popeye”, but as Nintendo were unable to get the licence, things changed, and the original Donkey Kong game became what it is today.
“At that point, [Gunpei] Yokoi-san was good enough to bring these ideas to the President’s attention, and in the end, one of the ideas received official approval”, Myamoto further explained, “Yokoi-san thought that designers would become necessary members of development teams in order to make games in the future. And that’s how Donkey Kong came about.”
