Famicom
Image: Damien McFerran / Time Extension

Update [Fri 13th Sep, 2024 13:30 BST]: Earlier this week, the author Florent Gorges announced the long-awaited release of The History Of Nintendo: the Story of the Family Computer and The History Of Nintendo: The Incredible Story of the Game Boy in English.

As mentioned below, both books had previously only ever been published in French or Spanish, despite including some of the most thorough investigations into the history of the iconic Nintendo machines. So it's great to see them finally get a proper translation here, even if it's taken many years to get to this point.

If you feel like picking up a copy, both books are now available to order directly from Amazon for $28 / £21.30 each. You can find the relevant links below:

As we previously detailed in the original article below, the Family Computer and Game Boy books actually represent parts 3 and 4 of a 4-part series. So you may be wondering why those first two books (on Nintendo's early history and the history of the Game & Watch) haven't been reissued here too. After all, those two actually received English translations more than a decade ago, so it should simply be a case of reprinting them, right?

Well, according to Gorges, it's basically down to the fact that the French edition of those books has since received "3 big updates", meaning that the original English books are now out of date and need to be retranslated. Gorges says there's a chance those books will eventually be made available again, but it all "depends on the sales" of the Famicom and Game Boy volumes.

Original Article [Mon 15th Apr, 2024 16:00 BST]: The video game researcher and author Florent Gorges recently revealed that the final two volumes of his "History of Nintendo" series are finally being translated into English.

The History of Nintendo — just in case you've never heard of it — is a collection of four well-researched books that set out to document Nintendo's journey from a playing card manufacturer to the world's leading video game company, with never-before-told anecdotes. These include The History of Nintendo #1 (1889-1980), The History of Nintendo #2 (1981-1991), The History of Nintendo #3 (1983-2016), and The History of Nintendo #4 (1989-1999).

The first two of these books focus predominantly on the company's time as a toy company as well as the development of the Game & Watch series of handhelds, and were translated into English in 2011 and 2012. Sadly, though, they're both now out of print and tend to be listed for some ridiculous amounts on sites like eBay and Amazon.

The others, meanwhile, take an in-depth look at the Nintendo Famicom and the Nintendo Game Boy, and have unfortunately only ever been made available in French or Spanish. This is now about to change, however, with the author claiming on Twitter that they are gearing up to release both missing volumes in English at the exact same time.

It's not exactly clear when this will be, but we'll keep an eye out for any information as it becomes available.

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[source twitter.com]