Games - Nintendo Seal of Quality

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	Games - Nintendo Seal of Quality

The Nintendo Seal of Quality is a gold seal that Nintendo of America places on any game licensed for use on one of its video game consoles, denoting that the game has been properly licensed by Nintendo (and in theory, been checked for quality). It is a golden starburst seal that says inside "Original Nintendo Seal of Quality" or just "Official Nintendo Seal" in the more recent version. The starburst is circular in PAL regions such as Europe and Australia, and was originally circular in the United States as well, but fairly early in the lifetime of the NES, the US seal was changed to an ellipse.

One of the major reasons for the Video Game Crash of 1983 was customer dissatisfaction with a large portion of the introduced games. They were considered technically poor, tasteless or both – a particularly notorious example is Custer's Revenge, an Atari 2600 title that featured a pixellated white man having sex with - or (as many critics of the game suggested) - raping a Native American woman tied to a post. Many games were simply commercial tie-ins, little more than ads. The 2600, the biggest console on the market, had no lockout, so anyone who could get programming tools could make and market a game for it. Games were rushed to market, resulting in poor titles and low consumer credibility.

Gamers understandably were wary of game makers when the Nintendo Entertainment System came out. The 10NES lockout solved the problem of controlling access to the console (somewhat), but there was the issue of customer confidence – the market had been burned, and was wary of being burned again. So Nintendo introduced the Seal Of Quality to show gamers that the games had met quality control standards. Of course, it was mainly marketing but marketing worked – consumers were reassured, and the NES became a great success. Publishers were encouraged to create high-quality titles in other ways as well. Each publisher was only allowed five releases per year, so effort was put into making those few titles successful.

Unofficial companies like Australian Home Entertainment Suppliers Pty. Ltd. to combat the Nintendo Seal of Quality introduced their own seal, and printed them as stickers so new and old stock could be sold with the newly fashioned logos.

The Nintendo Seal of Quality is still used today, with all Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, and Nintendo GameCube games bearing it on their packaging. However, it has recently been changed to read simply "Official Nintendo Seal" rather than "Official Nintendo Seal of Quality."

When the Official Nintendo Seal of Quality was used, the meaning of the seal is explained as follows: "This official seal is your assurance that Nintendo has approved the quality of this product. Always look for this seal when buying games and accessories to ensure complete compatibility with your ."

The current Official Nintendo Seal is explained as follows: "The official seal is your assurance that this product is licensed or manufactured by Nintendo. Always look for this seal when buying video game systems, accessories, games, and related products."

Aside from being more general in its description, the Official Nintendo Seal does not vouch for the quality of the game (or hardware) like the old Official Nintendo Seal of Quality did. This change may have been done so Nintendo can distance itself from any negativity/liability a third party game (or hardware) may incur because of its content, defects (i.e. bugs), or being terrible/unentertaining (e.g. Superman 64).

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Nintendo Seal of Quality ]

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