Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Author Topic: Gacchiri Kaimasho - an old Japanese GS  (Read 2550 times)

DoorNumberFour

  • Member
  • Posts: 1934
  • ChristianCarrion.com
Gacchiri Kaimasho - an old Japanese GS
« on: February 02, 2011, 08:26:17 PM »
Nintendo recently published a sort of roundtable discussion between the original developers of 1985's Super Mario Bros. for the Famicom/NES. In their discussion, they talked about how much memory they had to work with when programming a game back in the day, and that when they saw they had a few bytes of memory left, they'd add little trinkets here and there to bring it right up to the limit. They then compared this to an old Japanese TV show called Gacchiri Kaimasho, which, according to the footnote in the article, was a Japanese game show that ran from 1963 to 1975. Here's the excerpt:

Quote
Miyamoto
Way back when, there was a TV show called Gacchiri Kaimasho.

Iwata
Yeah, that's right. (laughs) A shopping game show.

Nakago
For example, there'd be a 100,000-yen course, and all kinds of products like refrigerators and televisions without prices on them would be placed around the studio.

Miyamoto
You had to shop within 100,000 yen, and the contestants would start by choosing the more expensive items and throw them in the shopping cart. If you went one yen over, you were out.

Nakago
At the very end, they'd throw in some instant curries.

Miyamoto
Right, right. You could adjust about 100 yen with the curry. (laughs)

Nakago
Three curries add up to 300 yen, so...

Miyamoto
They'd be like, "I bet this'll come out perfect!"

Everyone
(laughs)

Miyamoto
We were just like that! But we knew the prices. (laughs)

And here's the full article--it's a very interesting read if you're an old-school gamer like me. http://us.wii.com/iwata_asks/mario25th/vol5_page1.jsp

Sounds like it would have been a fun show! It's probably a long shot, but does anyone know anything else about it?
« Last Edit: February 02, 2011, 08:27:10 PM by DoorNumberFour »
Digital Media Producer, National Archives of Game Show History
"Tell Us About Yourself: Conversations with Game Show Contestants" available on all streaming services
christian@christiancarrion.com

tpirfan28

  • Member
  • Posts: 2770
Gacchiri Kaimasho - an old Japanese GS
« Reply #1 on: February 02, 2011, 08:55:53 PM »
Kind of an expanded version of the UK Price "Supermarket".

Personally I think a game like that would work well on US Price - selection of small items, 20 seconds to get up to 4 items that total between a set range, maybe a couple of chances.
When you're at the grocery game and you hear the beep, think of all the fun you could have at "Crazy Rachel's Checkout Counter!"

TLEberle

  • Member
  • Posts: 15887
  • Rules Constable
Gacchiri Kaimasho - an old Japanese GS
« Reply #2 on: February 02, 2011, 09:01:48 PM »
Sounds like Say When! to me.

SHOP NOW! SHOP SHOP SHOP!

(hm, doesn't have the same ring as Banzai, does it.)
If you didn’t create it, it isn’t your content.

WarioBarker

  • Member
  • Posts: 1916
  • Mind Wanderer
Gacchiri Kaimasho - an old Japanese GS
« Reply #3 on: February 03, 2011, 01:24:48 AM »
That sounds a lot like Spend It Fast to me.
The Game Show Forum: beating the **** out of the competition since 2003.

I'm just a mind wanderer, walking in eternity...