In 1980, Nintendo of America (NOA) released Radar Scope, an arcade game they hoped would kickstart a long reign of success. It flopped, leaving Nintendo stuck with 2,000 unsold Radar Scope units. To stay afloat, NOA desperately needed a smash-hit game—and fast. Hiroshi Yamauchi, the president and CEO of Nintendo Co., Ltd. at the time, asked staff artist Shigeru Miyamoto to design a new game based on his own ideas. The result was a game entitled Donkey Kong, starring "Jumpman," a portly carpenter clad in red and blue. "Jumpman" did not have his name for very long, however. NOA had to prepare the game for American release, which included naming the characters. As the story goes, they were mulling over what to name Jumpman when the landlord, Mario Segale, arrived at the warehouse, demanding the overdue rent payment. When he left, the staff had a new name for Jumpman: "Mario."
all info from http://www.gamecubicle.com/features-mario-nintendo_shining_star.htm
In designing the game's hero, Miyamoto sought to create a silly character with whom gamers could connect. He designed a pudgy carpenter with a rounded nose and wide eyes. The low resolution of video game displays at the time, in addition to hardware limitations of the Radarscope sets on which Donkey Kong would run, required Miyamoto to make a few adjustments so that gamers could discern the character's features. To make the carpenter easily visible, Miyamoto outfitted him with colorful overalls and shirt. A mustache was drawn in to distinguish the his large nose. Finally, a red cap was added because programmers found it difficult to create the hair movement that would occur when the character jumped. In the end, Miyamoto settled on the name Jumpman for the carpenter and Donkey Kong for his pet gorilla, believing that 'donkey' translated into stubborn or silly in English.
The SNES-CD was to be announced at the June 1991 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). However, when Hiroshi Yamauchi read the original 1988 contract between Sony and Nintendo, he realized that the earlier agreement essentially handed Sony complete control over any and all titles written on the SNES CD-ROM format. Yamauchi decided that the contract was totally unacceptable and he secretly canceled all plans for the joint Nintendo-Sony SNES CD attachment. Instead of announcing a partnership between Sony and Nintendo, at 9 a.m. the day of the CES, Nintendo chairman Howard Lincoln stepped onto the stage and revealed that Nintendo was now allied with Philips, and Nintendo was planning on abandoning all the previous work Nintendo and Sony had accomplished. Lincoln and Minoru Arakawa had, unbeknown to Sony, flown to Philips headquarters in Europe and formed an alliance of a decidedly different nature—one that would give Nintendo total control over its licenses on Philips machines.
Nintendo helps spawns its rival.
All info from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation
After the collapse of the joint project, Sony considered halting their research, but ultimately the company decided to use what they had developed so far and make it into a complete, stand alone console. As a result, Nintendo filed a lawsuit claiming breach of contract and attempted, in U.S. federal court, to obtain an injunction against the release of the PlayStation, on the grounds that Nintendo owned the name. The federal judge presiding over the case denied the injunction and, in October 1991, the first incarnation of the new Sony PlayStation was revealed. However, it is theorized that only 200 or so of these machines were ever produced.
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