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or you can get all of History Daily plus other fantastic history podcasts at IntoHistory.com. It's December 1983 at the Nintendo Testing Laboratory in Kyoto, Japan.

40-year-old Masayuki Umiura walks briskly past rows-long gray tables.

Dozens of technicians are busy dismantling small, red, and white machines.

There's a strained atmosphere in the lab.

The product that they're taking apart was supposed to launch Nintendo to new heights,

but instead it's proving a disaster.

Six months ago, Nintendo launched its most ambitious video game console yet, the family computer,

better known as the Famicom.

But over the past few weeks, hundreds of consoles have been returned to Nintendo with the same mysterious malfunction.

And as the Famicomist lead designer, Masayuki is under intense pressure to find the problem and fast.

In a corner of the lab, Masayuki is met by a technician in a blue lab coat and white helmet.

The technician bows, then directs Masayuki to a Famicom hooked up to a television.

The console has just come off the production line, and it's been checked for errors,

so it should work perfectly.

Masoyuki smiles as he recognizes Nintendo's most famous game Donkey Kong. A tower of pixelated platforms and ladders fills the screen,

and at the top, a gorilla hurls barrels at a small red and blue character named Mario waiting below.

Masayuki picks up the controller and moves Mario across the first platform.

He jumps and scrambles up a purple ladder.

But when he reaches the platform above, the screen freezes.

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