Whether it's Turkey Day or Christmas, we feel the need to thank the greatest figures in video game history for their contributions that made gaming as fun as it is today. For decades, we've seen creative minds emerge and bring forward games that amaze the world, but they don't get much recognition. But now, we have enough time to list down some of the greatest geniuses behind phenomenal landmarks like Mario, Wolfenstein 3D, and even The Sims.

Geoff Keighley, host of Gametrailers' special feature Bonus Round, is back as Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter and Japanese games importer Pink Godzilla co-owner Nathan Paine discuss what's hot in Japan, and why American games have never been big in the land of the rising sun. You'll find a lot of interesting bits, much Nintendo love, and the secret of Japanese developers in making games that explode worldwide.

Pachter believes western developers, American or European, know how to please their respective audiences, and there's no reason to snatch an idea or two from Japanese game creators. Publishers in the west follow effective formulas to sell, he said.

He went on, saying only odd or Americanized Japanese games will sell outside Japan. Another worth noting is how, according to Pachter, gamers think of Sony and Microsoft when talking about games, and Nintendo is just an afterthought.

Paine, however, expressed his confidence in Japanese games right off the bat. He doesn't think there'll be any gaming industry in the U.S. today if it wasn't for Japan, particularly Nintendo which revitalized gaming after the 1983 crash. With the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) synonymous to fun back in the day, and Mario being the first widely popular superstar from a video game, it's difficult not to agree.

Paine mentioned other Japanese game franchises that have been successful worldwide, like Metal Gear, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy, and the likes. After naming Square Enix, Konami, and Capcom as the big three developers and publishers, he pointed at the three F's that make their titles hit: fun, fantasy, and freedom. By freedom, he meant how Japanese developers are able to be creative and are not obligated to make movie tie-ins or yearly football games.

For the U.S., the three R's come into play: rockets, realism, and rights. Realism is all about how Americans love their games oozing with detail in eye-bleeding graphics, while rights concern acquiring copyrights or licenses.

Rockets symbolize the hunger of American gamers to shoot things and cause big explosions, something that the Japanese don't like. Simply put, as Paine learned from Nintendo's Koji Kondo, gamers in Japan don't like mindless violence. Metal Gear Solid games, for example, pits players in the shoes of a super agent involved in political affairs. Good and evil forces battling each other like in Gundam games are also more attractive to Japanese gamers than murdering the covenant en masse.

To find out more, check out the Bonus Round by clicking on the Read link below.

Aside from actually seeing the latest technological innovations and trying the latest and upcoming video game titles, another cool thing about attending game conferences is that you get to meet and hear from the industry's big shots. We have some bad news for Koji Kondo fans, though...

Yesterday, we had a report on GO3 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Australia, which currently boasts of a commanding list of speakers. Quite unfortunately though, Nintendo's resident composer and musician Koji Kondo said that he couldn't make it to the said event. Aside from missing GO3, his cancelled trip to Australia will also be affecting his publicity drive for "PLAY! A Video Game Symphony," which is set to be performed in Sydney's Opera House this June.

"Koji Kondo was looking forward to speaking and attending the conference. Unfortunately it is with much regret that due to an unforeseen clash of work commitments, Koji Kondo will no longer be able to make it to the GO3 conference," announced a spokeswoman from PLAY! in behalf of the music maestro.

Koji Kondo is mostly known for his work on the Super Mario Bros. series as well as the The Legend of Zelda series, dating back to as early as 1984. GO3 for this year will be focusing on the following topics:

• Problems facing the industry
• Future direction of the industry
• Latest technologies
• Licensing
• Publishing
• Game development
• Mobile gaming

Live remakes of gaming music aren't entirely new. From the professionals like Video Games Live to high school bands just having fun, seeing videos of these kinds of stuff are always a treat, especially for a Nintendo geekoid (me included). Over at Kotaku, Andrew (the guy in the Mario suit) sent in a video of his high school percussion band doing a retro medley of NES songs. Their repertoire: Zelda (Intro and Labyrinth), Double Dragon (Riot - Industrial Area), Super Mario Bros. (Underworld, Overworld, Invincibility, and Game Over).

To cap things off, the percussionists are fully choreographed (all of them, including the guys up front and the marching band at the back), with matching video game cosplay to boot. Try to see if you can recognize them. We'll leave that up to you to decipher. If anything, their repertoire of songs should give you a clue as to their individual costumes. *wink wink*

All the effort sure paid off. They won first place in their Everglades High School Winter Percussion band competition. We're not surprised. They deserve it. Way to go guys! Send us any word if Koji Kondo and Nobou Uematsu contact you guys or something. They might want to take you guys under their wing.

We all know by now that Hideo Kojima, the brains behind Metal Gear Solid, will be at Australia's GO3 Electronic Entertainment Expo 2007. Now, GO3 organizers have revealed that renowned composer, Koji Kondo, has been confirmed as a guest speaker at GO3. Now, we wonder if a Video Game Live concert isn't far in the organizers' plans...

Unless you've been living under a rock for like forever and you don't know who Koji Kondo is, he is a composer of some of the most recognizable themes and soundtracks of Nintendo games. Other speakers for the said event are Tetsuya Mizuguchi, Epic Games producer Rod Fergusson, and Masaya Matsuura (creator of Parappa the Rapper).

We'll be giving more updates about the upcoming G03 Expo as more info comes our way.

Considering that Koji Kondo, the Japanese composer responsible for most Nintendo soundtracks, is a man of few words, Wired was lucky enough to have talked to him. Charles Martinet, the voice of Mario, and Tommy Tallarico of Video Games Live only have good words to say about Kondo, especially after his great performance at the GDC.

Kondo was born in Nagoya, studied at Osaka University of Arts. As a college student he was fond of playing arcade games like Space Invaders and the Donkey Kong series. He also liked to listen to hard rock, jazz and fusion, to musicians like Deep Purple, Cassiopeia, Chick Corea, and Herbie Hancock. He dreamed "only a little" of being a keyboard player.

Nintendo was where he found his first job, and he has been working with the games giant ever since. Kondo says that his goal for making the Super Mario sound track was to create something that had never been heard before. An interesting fact is that Kondo made the underwater music for Mario first before anything else, because it was the easiest to imagine.

Kondo admits that he does submit his ideas to the game directors, that in a sense, he's just like any of the game designers. But he's never played any of the new games nowadays, complaining that "it's too hard for me". We'll just have to excuse that complaint for now, knowing as how Koji is one of those people who oversee the whole project of Wii Music.

Game Informer Magazine has three images of the Video Games Live (VGL) concert that closed the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2007 at San Fransisco. VGL is a concert tour that features music from video games, and each concert is a treat: the music is combined with video presentations, light and laser effects, and other special effects.

Having a VGL concert at the GDC made perfect sense, and the GDC concert was a star-studded one (we earlier published a list of all the composers and artists at the GDC VGL).

VGL: a multimedia concert. Like any Video Games Live concert, the music was amazing. There was an orchestra and a 16-member choir conducted by game composer Jack Wall (Myst, Splinter Cell, Jade Empire). There was a screen that showed synchronized video footage. Audience members were brought up to play Space Invaders and Frogger on the big screen - the orchestra provided live music (complete with tempo changes!).

As usual, during the Metal Gear Solid portion of the program, an actor dressed as a guard walked onto the stage - and the infamous alert exclamation mark (!) appeared over his head - much to the amusement of the audience (the poor guard didn't notice a large box sneaking past him). (An earlier QJ.NET article on VGL concert dates has a video of a similar scene from another concert.)

Other musical highlights included "Baba Yetu" from Civilization IV, the explosive "Liberi Fatali" from Final Fantasy VIII, and the World of Warcraft suite - all three masterpieces got huge reactions from the audience.

A night of video game music artists. As reported earlier, there were also performances by LucasArts composers Peter McConnell, Michael Land, and Clint Bajakian. "VertexGuy" powered the stirring electric guitar anthems of Contra and the Halo 3 grand finale. The "Video Game Pianist" was also there to play Dig Dug and Pac-Man music on the piano.

Super Mario and Zelda composer Koji Kondo (who received a lifetime achievement award at the GDC earlier in the week) played a piano solo of music from Super Mario Bros. (the audience went wild, taking out their Nintendo DS units and mobile phones to wave them in the air as lights).

Let the world know: video games are a legitimate art form. Having the VGL grace the GDC with its presence is a statement to the industry and to industry-watchers and critics. "I think what tonight helps prove is how legitimate video games have become as an art form," said Tommy Tallarico, a game composer and the co-creator of VGL.

  

Koji Kondo is a legend. He is Nintendo's very own Beethoven, composing the themes for games like Super Mario Bros and The Legend of Zelda. Those who attended this year's Game Developers Conference (GDC) certainly had a treat. At the closing ceremonies came Video Games Live, a concert performance featuring game music.

The talented composer played the Mario Theme live at the games expo and the audience was in awe. Hearing Koji Kondo playing the theme just made this writer zoom back to the days of the NES and into nostalgia. Here's the video of his performance, taken by GameVideos.

Enjoy!

Koji Kondo is Nintendo's game Beethoven. Much like how Shigeru Miyamoto is Nintendo's game Einstein. But he isn't just a composer. During his work on the timeless Nintendo classics Mario, Zelda and Star Fox, he brewed the whole package for music, from the sound engine, to the effects, and finally the music.

In his hour-long speech over at the Games Developer Conference, Kondo revealed the three pillars that define his work and their final result. From Super Mario Bros. to Twilight Princess, he has been using these three components to create what he defines as effective game music. The three components are rhythm, balance and interactivity.

For most games, music is an additional accompaniment to the game, either to set the game's mood or to bless games with a personality. Kondo believes that in order to make music effective to the game, it must conform to the "intrinsic rhythms" of the gameplay.

Now we all remember Super Mario Bros. Who doesn't? In fact, we know it so well, that we could even hear the level music for World 1-1 and Mario's jump sound effects in our minds. Did you notice how the jumping sound effects match the music? And notice the tempo of the music. Remember the speed at which Mario skirts the ground? It also seems appropriate. But perhaps the most interesting is when you're down to 99 seconds, when the game hikes up the music tempo to assert a feeling of urgency.

The full article awaits after the jump!

Whenever the name "Nintendo" is heard, it calls to mind such big-time names as Shigeru Miyamoto, Eiji Aonuma and Koji Kondo, Reggie Fils-Aime and Perrin Kaplan. But few even remember Gunpei Yokoi, who deserves as much reverence as the above named superstars.

The Escapist pays tribute to the achievements of Gunpei Yokoi outside of the myth that he is but a Nintendo creation. Gunpei Yokoi is credited for the invention of the D-Pad, Game and Watch, R.O.B., Game Boy, Virtual Boy, a dozen or so children's toys and the creation of Super Mario, Fire Emblem, Kid Icarus and Metroid franchises.

Yokoi's childhood remains untold. His discovery came in 1970 when, working as a janitor for Nintendo, Nintendo's president at that time noticed Yokoi's creation of an extending hand toy. The company marketed this device, which quickly sold more than a million units, saved the company and had Yokoi promoted as researcher.

Yokoi went on to produce other hits for the company, such as the Game and Watch, the Famicom Robot and, working with young Miyamoto at that time, Donkey Kong and Super Mario Brothers. In 1993, he developed Virtual Boy, a gadget which did not sell. Yokoi was personally crushed by the flop of Virtual Boy and finally resigned from Nintendo.

Yokoi did try to put up his own company and a fresh start for himself, but an accident in 1997 ended his life at the age of 56. The Escapist Magazine honors him ten years after the year of his death, saying:

Gunpei is nothing short of an inspiration. He is proof that the best legacy is not a name place in the history books, but rather the gift of joy, be it to one person or 100 million people around the world.