I remember playing Donkey Kong in arcades, most likely on a cross-Channel ferry in that magical point when the ship moved outside the three-mile limit and all laws were suspended [1]. This would be around 1981, the same time the Nintendo Game & Watch became the must-have birthday present at my school; although, at £20 they were too expensive as far as my mum and dad were concerned. I wouldn't have known at the time that the two were made by the same company.
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| COMPUTER & VIDEOGAMES December 1981 page 89 |
A company called CGL, Computer Games Ltd, imported Game & Watch machines into the UK and rebranded them for sale. As far as I can tell, CGL were distributing these all the way up to 1984 before disappearing some time in the mid-eighties. I never did track down CGL House, see the CGL article for more information.
CGL ran an advert for Mario Bros. in the January 1984 issue of C&VG which showed their alternative take on the appearance of Mario and Luigi.
(Warp Zone, Ocean Software
In 1987 Ocean released officially licenced versions of the 1983 arcade game Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong, from 1981, for the Amstrad, Spectrum, and Commodore 64. The releases were unusual because Nintendo games are usually exclusive to their own machines. However, both titles had previously been licenced to other consoles, like the Atari 2600, so maybe Nintendo didn't consider them to be that exclusive anymore. Neither game set the world on fire. Mario Bros. got the more positive reviews. The response to Donkey Kong tended to be, "why is Ocean releasing this old, old game?")
Mattel UK Ltd, Meridian West, Leicester, LE3 2WT
Nintendo released the Famicom in Japan on July 15, 1983. It was another three years until the American launch, rebranded as the Nintendo Entertainment System, on September 27, 1986. The NES wouldn't get to the UK until 1987 when distribution was handled by American toy manufacturer Mattel. Some of the publicity they drummed up included getting Judith Hann to play with the Nintendo robot R.O.B on Tomorrow's World, February 12 1987.
Mattel were based on an industrial estate to the south-west of Leicester, by junction 21 of the M1. Their address doesn't give enough information to track the place down accurately. There are ten warehouses on Meridian West and Mattel's could be any one of them. The one clue I've got is this 1999 aerial photo; when Mattel were still there. The big warehouse at the front has a logo facing the M1. It could be the Mattel logo but its too grainy to be sure and I need something more solid before I take a trip across to Leicester.
HiTech Electronic Services Ltd, Unit 2B, 200 Rickmansworth Road, Watford WD1 7JS
For me, and most UK computer magazine readers, our introduction to the NES came in 1987 like this:
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| CRASH August 1987 page 26 |
Now down the bottom of that advert is yet another address in Rickmansworth and it isn't for Mattel. What's that all about? I think it is related to the warranty scheme because Hi-Tech is listed as the NES Service Department and also as the place for warranty registration and a prize draw. This is all speculation, maybe Mattel handled the UK distribution and marketing but relied on a third party for customer service and enquiries. It kind of doesn't matter because today 200 Rickmansworth Road, also known as Tinsley House, is long gone. Replaced around 2014 by a giant Ford dealership. However, if you sneak round the back in 2011 you can get a glimpse of Tinsley House, although it looks more like a metal shed with a corrugated asbestos roof.
The UK launch of the NES caught the attention of CRASH. They reviewed the console in July 1987 with comments that covered the waterfront of opinion: "The Nintendo machine is a box of the hottest potential in years", raved Paul Sumner. "Ugly and childish, and the standard of currently available software is pretty dismal," was Ciarán Brennan's less enthusiastic reaction. I was never interested in getting a NES or Master System. I don't know if my reaction was one I came up with myself or led by the more negative aspects of CRASH's review but my feeling was, there was less potential in a box you could only use to play games compared to a home computer. The fact I was never going to use my Spectrum for anything more than playing games didn't cross my mind.
The simple version is down to £99.99 from £129.99, and the Deluxe (which features a light gun, a robot and two games) to £155 £199.99.
The move follows trade criticism of the high original price but Mattel warns that shops can still set their own prices for the console.
The Master System also went on sale in 1987 and only cost £99.95 bundled with two controllers and Hang-On. You can see why Mattel quickly came under pressure to drop the base price of the NES. It didn't help. Sales were low compared to the Master System and in October 1988 THE GAMES MACHINE ran an article called Whatever Happened To The Nintendo?
It's nearly year since TGM started covering Nintendo games, but there simply haven't been any new UK titles - the total collection stands at about 30. Compared with 100 in the US.
Nintendo themselves recently stated that this strange disappearing act is part of their long-term plans, rather than a failure to capture the UK market.
Yet the Sega Master System seems to be doing well enough - software house Mastertronic, who are handling its UK sales, say there are approximately 40,000 Segas in Britain. And they claim to be pulling in $5 million a year from the console...
De Gale Marketing, a new company backed by top coin-op distributor Electrocoin, has also been roped in to improve British sales...
That's Luther De Gale, the boss of De Gale Marketing. THE GAMES MACHINE gave him page 27 of the October 1988 issue to talk about the NES. There's one very farsighted comment in his article:
They hope to avoid last year's fiasco, when a £300,000 TV ad campaign produced by toy giant Mattel apparently failed to produce even 100,000 sales...
Nintendo hope to finally get it right with a £2.2 million TV ad campaign. Their console has been passed from one firm to another in search of success - first to Mattel, then to US Gold's offshoot GO!, and now to their own subsidiary Nintendo Entertainment System International (NESI).
Suddenly NES marketing and distribution involved four other companies. I'll look at them in order.
Suddenly NES marketing and distribution involved four other companies. I'll look at them in order.
De Gale Marketing
81 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1A 1EY
81 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1A 1EY
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| THE GAMES MACHINE October 1988 page 11 |
That's Luther De Gale, the boss of De Gale Marketing. THE GAMES MACHINE gave him page 27 of the October 1988 issue to talk about the NES. There's one very farsighted comment in his article:
I foresee a distinct split between the games and computer areas, where most homes have a games machine but some also have a computer
I lean back in the chair in front of my PC so I can see the PlayStation sitting under the big telly. He was right you know, but in 1988 the idea of a home having a computer and a console seemed like an impossible luxury known only to Captain Kirk or the oil millionaires on Dallas.
Luther De Gale used to work for Konami and would go on to work for Solution PR, promoting Ikari Warriors on behalf of SNK; YOUR SINCLAIR February 1989. I get the impression De Gale Marketing was marketing in the sense of selling stuff, rather than promoting it. This ZZAP!64 preview of the 1988 Personal Computer Show notes:
De Gale’s stand promises to be packed with boxes of the Nintendo Entertainment System, as well as the Electrocoin joysticks they sell.
There's also this advert in the August 1990 ACE which promotes De Gale as a place to get hardware, games, and peripherals via mail order. The advert helpfully gives an address.
Electrocoin
181 Park Avenue, London, NW10 7XH
ZZAP's comment about De Gale's PC Show stand selling Electrocoin joysticks suggests the company was the link between Nintendo and Electrocoin. Electrocoin describe themselves as:
A supplier of arcade games, FEC games and gaming machines founded in 1976 by John Stergides and John Collinson
I had to look up FEC. It stands for Family Entertainment Centre. Looking down the list of Electrocoin partners , I can see some familiar names; Bandai Namco, Konami, SEGA Amusements, and Taito. I wonder if that's what Electocoin brought to the table in 1988. Luther De Gale's article talks about the increasing value of arcade licences to software companies and maybe it was hoped Electrocoin could bridge the gap between the arcade companies and UK software companies who wanted to develop more accurate conversions of arcade games for the NES.
I don't currently have a photo of 181 Park Avenue due to strikes on the London Underground. Keep watching this channel.
GO!
Unit 2/3 Holford Way, Holford, Birmingham, B6
I was surprised to see the US Gold/Centresoft label GO! named in THE GAMES MACHINE. Their article Whatever Happened To The Nintendo? suggests GO! were given distribution rights after Mattel, which is possible but odd because US Gold were a major partner with SEGA, and the intensive rivalry between SEGA and Nintendo often meant a deal with one made it impossible to deal with the other. There's nothing about GO! handing the NES in THE STORY OF US GOLD by Chris Wilkins and Roger M. Kean so did THE GAMES MACHINE just get confused? At the time GO! were based at US Gold/Centresoft's offices on Holford way to the north of Birmingham. Here's a picture. Just in case.
(Warp Zone, C&VG Badges
In May 1988 C&VG magazine gave away free badges to readers. Unfortunately the Super Mario Bros. badge used artwork copyright to Nintendo. Two issues later they printed an apology for not acknowledging Nintendo's copyright or trademarks.)
Nintendo Entertainment System International (NESI)
Queens House, Queens Road, Coventry, CV1 3EG
CGL, Mattel, De Gale Marketing, Electrocoin. Finally a company called Nintendo enter the picture. NESI UK Ltd was founded on 10 November 1987. Mattel were dropped as distributer after barely a year in the role. ACE covered the news in the March 1988 issue:
Mattel's departure leaves the field open to NESI UK, a new company set up to promote the Nintendo with heavy TV advertising campaigns. It's run by the same people who took the machine to the top of the pile in America and will concentrate exclusively on supporting the system.
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| EVENING STANDARD 22 September 1988 page 49 |
Over on Linkd In there's an entertaining article about the rival Nintendo and SEGA buses that toured the UK to drum up interest in the consoles. My eye was drawn to a comment by Bruce Lowry who was quite important in the success of the NES in America. Bruce wrote:
I moved to the UK in 1988 and established NESI (UK) LTD and took the distribution away from Mattel. Within the first year I was in England, we had product placement in every retailer in the UK including Toys "R" Us, Dixons, Boots, Harrods and more.
(Warp Zone, The Great Giana Sisters
Why NESI were based in Coventry rather than London is anyone's guess. Queen's House is gone, as with so many of the buildings featured in Nintendo's early years. You can see it when you rewind Streetview to 2017. Whatever NESI did, they didn't do it for long because 1989 the NES was being distributed by another company. When Nick Alexander spoke to timeextexnsion.com he noted this as something which helped SEGA in their early years in the UK:
"The Japanese market was something like 85 percent Nintendo, 15 percent Sega. In North America, the story was largely the same as Japan, with the NES enjoying almost complete control of the 8-bit market. But in Europe things were totally different; from the get-go, we were the market leader. We were helped enormously by Nintendo changing their distribution arrangements in the UK pretty much every year because they hadn't got it right and kept trying to do something else."
(Warp Zone, The Great Giana Sisters
In the summer of 1988, GO! released The Great Giana Sisters. A game by West German software house Rainbow Arts and inspired by Super Mario Bros. Unfortunately Nintendo felt the game took too much inspiration from Super Mario Bros. and took legal action. The Commodore 64 version definitely made it to the shops, briefly, as did the versions for the Amiga, Atari ST, and Amstrad. The ZX Spectrum version didn't.)
San Serif Print Promotions Limited, Hadleigh Road, Ipswich, IP2 0EE
1989 was the year the NES finally began to get established. Nintendo appointed San Serif Print Promotions, normally abbreviated to Serif, to distribute the NES and games. Serif was a board games company who held the rights to distribute Trivial Pursuit and Pictionary everywhere except in the US and Canada. Luckily for me, this is also the point where some decent sources start to appear, including a couple of interviews with Mike Hayes who worked for Serif and would go on to be CEO of SEGA. When he spoke to arcadeattack.co.uk he recalled:
Mattel had launched it in 1987 as a toy and virtually the only distribution was Toys R Us and Boots! We had piles of cash so we took on the UK and Irish sales and distribution. Our big debut was bundling NES with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – the Mutant Machine. Sales increased 20x overnight.
There's a really interesting article over at fatnickindustries.com which looks at the sales war between Nintendo and SEGA. It quotes an internal EA document which researched the total number of installed consoles and computers in the UK on a year by year basis. The numbers for the NES and Master System are as follows
| Year | NES |
Master System |
SNES | Mega Drive |
| 1988 | 30,000 | 50,000 | ||
| 1989 | 150,000 | 200,000 | ||
| 1990 | 300,000 | 400,000 | ||
| 1991 | 800,000 | 700,000 | 200,000 | |
| 1992 | 1,200,000 | 1,200,000 | 300,000 | 1,300,000 |
| 1993 | 1,500,000 | 1,500,000 | 800,000 | 2,400,000 |
| 1994 | 1,500,000 | 1,500,000 | 1,300,000 | 3,100,000 |
Serif does great work clawing back lost ground across 1989 and 1990 but by September 1990 SEGA had launched the Mega Drive in the UK while the SNES, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, wouldn't arrive until April 1992. Overall, Nintendo kept slipping further and further behind even as sales of the Master System and NES equalised.
You might be looking at the Hadleigh Road address for Serif and thinking it's a bit vague. It is. Hadleigh Road is really long. The postcode is still valid and points to the London Road end of Hadleigh Road, close to the River Gipping. The postcode area only covers about five buildings and four of them are houses. The one business address is a two story flat-roofed building which was refurbished around 2020. Before the refurbishment it is a very sixties looking structure called London House, as you can see on this gloomy day in May 2009. Was London House once the home of San Serif? It seems likely but I ain't going to Ipswich on a hunch.
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| DAILY TELEGRAPH 27 September 1990 page 27 |
Despite their success, Serif couldn't hold on to the Nintendo rights. They "had to accept termination of the agreement," with Nintendo at the end of August 1990 because they didn't have the capital to keep sales going. This is the same sort of situation Mastertronic found itself in when it needed cash to pay for Letters of Credit for its Master System orders in 1987. Once again, Nintendo needed a new distribution partner for the UK. They didn't waste any time, Christmas was coming and the sales momentum needed to be kept going.
(Warp Zone,
Daniel of Windsor, 120-125 Peascod Street, Windsor SL4 1DP
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| WINDSOR AND EAST BERKS OBSERVER 20 July 1990 page 15 |
Mario dropped in to department store Daniel of Windsor in July 1990 to host a contest in the toy section. Prizes were offered for a high score on Duck Hunt with the winner, James Lewis, getting a deluxe Nintendo set including the robot, a zapper gun, and two games. The quality of prizes dropped off sharply. Second place winner Stuart Kelly got a Nintendo sweatshirt. and the third placed Alex Jessey and Wayne Missen only got a baseball cap; each, hopefully.
I mention this mainly because I like the photo and the odd coincidence that Nintendo ended up in Windsor. Daniel of Windsor is still there, on Peascod Street. Did I wander in, in the hope of being able to spot where this photo was taken? Of course I did.)
Bandai UK,
Unit E1, Fareham Heights, Standard Way Fareham, PO16 8XT
Parham Drive, Eastleigh, Hampshire, SO50 4NU
Meanwhile, Nintendo, or more likely Bandai, got to grips with their advertising and produced something which looked much cooler and more contemporary for the Game Boy.
The line went live in January 1991 and grew and grew until it was taking up to 2000 calls a day. For the first couple of years, the helpline was based at Bandai's registered office in Fareham which is just off the M27 between Southampton and Portsmouth, closer to Portsmouth. This is it now.
SEGA was winning the sales war and also the advertising war. They tended to do a much better job of trolling Nintendo but I have to praise whichever Nintendo ad man booked this double-page spread in the very first issue of MEAN MACHINES SEGA. Well played sir, well played.)
Nintendo stayed in Slough from 2001 to 2007. It was a time of mixed fortune. The Gamecube wasn't a success. It sold just over 1 million units in the UK, about the same amount as the NES and SNES. The next couple of consoles did much better. The Nintendo DS and Wii were huge hits. The DS is currently the best-selling console in the UK with sales of 12,300,000 units. The Wii also did very well and went on to sell 8,400,000 consoles. It is currently the fourth best-selling UK console, just behind the same generation PlayStation 2 (10,000,000 units) and the XBox 360 (9,030,000 units).
Parham Drive, Eastleigh, Hampshire, SO50 4NU
If you want a month when consoles really begin to go mainstream in the UK then September 1990 is a good one to choose. The Mega Drive is on sale and so is the Game Boy. More importantly the UK console market finally becomes big enough to support a magazine. October 1990 saw the launch of MEAN MACHINES. The first console only UK magazine.
SEGA (Virgin Mastertronic) and Nintendo (Bandai UK) both advertise in the first issue of MEAN MACHINES. SEGA has four pages of adverts, Nintendo has one. SEGA's adverts are brash, colourful, and exciting. Here are the two, single-page adverts that bookend the issue on the inside front and inside back covers.
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| MEAN MACHINES October 1990 inside front and back covers |
Granted, SEGA has the advantage of being able to advertise the exciting all-new Mega Drive, but that's no excuse for Nintendo to produce this wall of text.
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| MEAN MACHINES October 1990 page 7 |
It's hard not to feel Nintendo still doesn't get it. Just about the only thing the advert does right is put the Turtles in the middle of it. Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles [2] were the hot craze of 1990. Fortunately for Nintendo [3]. The cartoon debuted on BBC1 in January. The Partners in Kryme single Turtle Power was Number One for four weeks across July and August. The film (rated PG) was on a UK wide release from 30 November. And from September 1990 Nintendo had the NES Mutant Machine pack on sale, which included a copy of the game. It did tremendous business and turned the tide of the NES/Master System battle in Nintendo's favour.
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| Cool Box Art, Twitter |
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| MEAN MACHINES December 1990 page 45 |
Christmas 1990 saw the debut of the Official Nintendo Hotline. It was a telephone helpline but unlike the one I manned for Virgin Interactive Entertainment it focused on offering hints and tips rather than technical support. There's a lovely article about it over on nintendolife.com which also quotes Mike Hayes who had moved on from Serif to be Managing Director of Nintendo UK:
The UK Hotline was established after it had been a great success in the US. Nintendo believed that having a direct relationship with its users was key – and it was something that SEGA did not have. To be honest, there was no choice. Serif and then Bandai had the distribution rights for Nintendo in the UK, and we were obliged to set the Hotline up as part of the distribution agreement.
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| SOUTHERN DAILY ECHO 04 October 1990 page 70 |
The line went live in January 1991 and grew and grew until it was taking up to 2000 calls a day. For the first couple of years, the helpline was based at Bandai's registered office in Fareham which is just off the M27 between Southampton and Portsmouth, closer to Portsmouth. This is it now.
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| June 2026 |
(Warp Zone, adverts
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| MEAN MACHINES SEGA October 1992 page 74 |
Bandai remained in Fareham and opened a warehouse in Eastleigh. Everything was going great until Nintendo decided it was time to have another go at changing horses in mid-stream. February 1993 saw them announce the distribution rights would be taken in house again. They registered a company called Nintendo U.K. Entertainment Ltd with Companies House in September 1992 as part of a Europe-wide reorganisation. There was a period of uncertainty for Bandai's employees until it became clear Nintendo was planning to take over their operations and keep the staff and buildings. Somewhere in this period the helpline relocated to Eastleigh.
I really struggled to track down the Eastleigh address. I had a photo of it, thanks to the nintendolife.com article, but I didn't know where it was. Then I found a SNES manual online which included the address of the Nintendo Service Centre. I had the address and a photo but no building number. Parham Drive runs in a big loop so it could be any of them. I turned to Streetview but none of the buildings looked like the one in the Nintendo Life article. I crossed my fingers, set Streetview to 2008, and... found this. The metal frame has been painted SEGA blue, instead of Nintendo red, but apart from that it is clearly the right place. And here is how the building looks today.
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| June 2026 |
Nintendo U.K. Entertainment Ltd took over distribution in the UK in 1993. The company had been established in September 1992, so bringing the rights back from Bandai had clearly been under consideration for several months. Unfortunately, Nintendo immediately hit another lean period. The problem was Nintendo could never get ahead of SEGA. Look at those sales figures up the page. Nintendo always trailed behind no matter what they tried. The Megadrive was outselling the SNES three to one. Even Rik Mayall couldn't help.
(Warp Zone, more adverts
The Rik Mayal adverts were part of an attempt by Nintendo to boost their market share for Christmas 1993. SEGA also saw an opportunity and ran an advert for Aladdin in which "viewers" shared their wishes with one of the wish voiceovers being someone doing a Rik Mayall impression and saying: "This is R-R-Rik. I wish I had SEGA's Aladdin."
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| DAILY MIRROR 10 December 1993 |
Nintendo didn't see the funny side and complained to the Independent Television Commission who ruled the advert breached their guidelines. In response, SEGA changed the advert so a comedy nerd voice said: "This is Mike from Hampshire, I wish I had SEGA's Aladdin." There was no comment from Director of Marketing Mike Hayes, based in Fareham in Hampshire. You can see the modified advert here.)
Despite last year's massive success with Donkey Kong Country, Nintendo has closed its UK office. In its place will be a small management team, closely tied into Nintendo of America, and a distribution deal with John Menzies' aggressive THE subsidiary. Meanwhile, in Japan Virtual Boy has flopped badly and now seems unlikely to be sold overseas.
3DO MAGAZINE, October 1995 page 5
If you are worried this article has nearly gone four paragraphs without Nintendo deciding to totally reorganise their UK distribution, don't panic. It happened again in July 1995. Nintendo U.K. Entertainment Ltd announced it was handing distribution and marketing to a division of John Menzies called Total Home Entertainment (THE). At first it looked like the offices in Hampshire would be closed and all 147 staff would be made redundant but I'm pretty sure THE carried on using the Eastleigh building. A Legal Notice was printed in the SOUTHERN DAILY ECHO (15 August 1998 page 29) when THE were seeking permission to use Parham Drive as an operating centre for three vehicles and one trailer. These vehicles were probably the Nintendo Challenger trucks; as seen here.
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| READING EVENING POST 13 June 1997 page 9 |
And Nintendo U.K. Entertainment Ltd? I'm not really sure. Contemporary reports suggested Nintendo planned to move its headquarters back to London. I don't think that happened because Companies House records show Nintendo UK Ltd was wound up on 22 August 1996.
Back in May 1995 Nintendo had announced their next console, then called the Ultra 64, would be delayed until 1996. Here comes some speculation. Was the shift to THE due partially to the delayed arrival of the Ultra 64? Were Nintendo looking to pre-emptively shift responsibility for underwhelming sales figures to a third party? Who knows. Still one of the first things THE did was run an odd advertising campaign for the Ultra 64 based on its unavailability. The advert crops up in a couple of places, including issue three of MAXIMUM which probably [4] had a publication date of December 1995 or January 1996 which means it pre-dated a similar campaign in America,
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| 3DO MAGAZINE August 1996 page 09 |
Anyone waiting for the Ultra 64 would have to be patient. The console wouldn't see a European release until 01 March 1997. THE Games handled Nintendo distribution in the UK from 1996 to 2001, which basically covers the life of the Nintendo 64 console, the Game Boy Colour, and the launch of Pokemon.
December 2000 saw Nintendo announce it would once again take over control of distribution and marketing in the UK and THE Games closed as a result.
Nintendo of Europe GMBH
Nintendo Center, 63762 Großostheim, Germany.
The new company would be called Nintendo of Europe SE and was listed with Companies House as a branch of Nintendo of Europe GMBH. They had been established back in June 1990, and at the time were based in a town called Grossostheim, just south east of Frankfurt in Germany but this is Where Were They Now? not Wo Waren Sie Jetzt?
In a coincidence of timing ,Nintendo's announcement followed one from SEGA that they were withdrawing from the console market. It was most likely the forthcoming launch of the Gamecube which encouraged Nintendo of Europe to take back control of distribution and marketing in the UK. However, news broke around the same time the ancient enemy said it was ending support for the Dreamcast and Nintendo of Europe SE ended up being registered with Companies House on 31 January 2001 the very same day SEGA announced the Dreamcast would be discontinued from 31st March.
Nintendo UK
3000 Hillswood Drive, Chertsey, Surrey KT16 0RS
3000 Hillswood Drive, Chertsey, Surrey KT16 0RS
I was last here in March 2023 to photograph 2000 Hillswood Drive which housed EA from 2000-2008. For a brief time EA and Nintendo were neighbours because despite the American style street numbers, there are only four buildings on the Hillswood Business Park. It is stupidly posh. I drove on to the business park passed the sign warning me to watch out for horse riders, and slowly motored through the landscaped grassland. It was a drizzly Sunday evening so it was just me and the Canada Geese who were all taking their goslings for a walk.
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| May 2026 |
EA got the better building. 2000 Hillswood Drive is all glass and steel. 3000 Hillswood Drive is a bland pair of L-shaped wings joined in the middle by a glass atrium. The weird shape makes it awkward to photograph. I stayed just long enough to pull into the car park and snap a couple of photos. Nintendo didn't stick around either by 28 December 2001 they had moved. Maybe they didn't like the neighbours.
Mansour House, 188 Bath Road, Slough, SL1 3GA
I don't like Slough. I was quite miserable there from 2000 to 2002. If I'd known Nintendo was up the road I might have gone and asked for a job. I'm not going to name the company I was working for but it remains the only time I resigned without having another job to go to. Still I have a long term masterplan. Like the bloke in the film The Medusa Touch I am in the process of demolishing their office building using the power of my mind. It has taken 25 years, so far, but I can wait. I can be very patient.
Mansour House, in comparison to 3000 Hillswood Drive, is not a glamourous address or rather, was not. It's gone. It was photographed for Streetview in July 2025 and now it's an empty site.
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| May 2026 |
I took that picture from round the side in Galvin Road. From the front, on Bath Road, the view is blocked by boring grey hoardings. The only remaining proof of the existence of Mansour House is a yellow sign just inside the hoarding, which hasn't been removed. Yet.
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| May 2026 |
Nintendo stayed in Slough from 2001 to 2007. It was a time of mixed fortune. The Gamecube wasn't a success. It sold just over 1 million units in the UK, about the same amount as the NES and SNES. The next couple of consoles did much better. The Nintendo DS and Wii were huge hits. The DS is currently the best-selling console in the UK with sales of 12,300,000 units. The Wii also did very well and went on to sell 8,400,000 consoles. It is currently the fourth best-selling UK console, just behind the same generation PlayStation 2 (10,000,000 units) and the XBox 360 (9,030,000 units).
The Quadrant, 55-57 High Street, Windsor, Berks, SL4 1LP
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| May 2026 |
This is where Nintendo's story currently ends. A very nice office block in Windsor. It's very discrete. Nothing in any of the windows facing on to the High Street. You need to walk right up to the front door before you get any clues the company is based here.
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| May 2026 |
It's not until you turn around that you see the most obvious clue. This isn't visible at all from the High Street. Nintendo clearly value their privacy [5].
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| May 2026 |
I didn't realise how much Windsor Castle dominates the town centre. If you walk round the back of the Quadrant you can see the building butts right up against one side of it.
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| May 2026 |
Nintendo's office is also barely five minutes walk from those of Konami, who moved to the town in 2013, and Take Two Interactive. Who were based in the town from 2000-2008.
To bring us bang up to date Nintendo's latest console the Switch, which launched in 2016, is doing really well. It's sales are coming up fast on the Wii and currently stand at 7,250,000. This is well ahead of the PlayStation 5, 4,600,000, and the 2,570,000 units sold of whatever the latest XBox is called.
(Warp Zone, the Pokémon Company International
3rd Floor Building 10 Chiswick Business Park, London, 566 Chiswick High Road, W4 5XS
Nintendo part own The Pokémon Company International so obviously I'm going to mention them here. They are based on the Chiswick Business Park, which also happens to be the current home of SEGA. It's very nice. I only wish I'd remembered to grab some photos of the Pokémon building when I was there in March.
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| April 2026 |
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| April 2026 |
Using the privacy invading functions of my phone camera, I zoomed in to see if I could spot any clues through the third floor windows.
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| April 2026 |
Round the front, I could see this pair. I don't know what they are. The one on the right could be a Ponyta or Rapidash. Round the side, I found these two.
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| April 2025 |
The orange one could be a Magikarp. The blue and green one is definitely a Bulbasaur.)
Are you better at identifying Pokémon than me? Do you have a copy of the "this is R-R-Rik" advert? Please leave a comment or send an email to whereweretheynow@gmail.com. I am also on Bluesky @shammountebank.bsky.social
[1] On one particularly memorable Sealink ferry trip to Zeebrugge, a TV set suddenly cracked into life and started playing a tape of BBC comedy programmes. The two I remember are The Goodies episode The Stone Age and the Skyes episode End of the World. I have no idea how these ended up on a tape on a Sealink ferry around 1981.
[2] Ninjas were controversial in 1990. The UK was in the middle of one of its periodic moral panics and this time it was all about martial arts weapons. The BBC, ever wary of being accused of corrupting the morals of the youth of the nation got the name of the cartoon changed. The film stuck with the original title, probably to differentiate it from the series and make it clear it was aimed at an older audience.
[3] And Bandai, who made and distributed the toys in the UK.
[4] MAXIMUM was too trendy to put a boring old date on the cover like a square, grandad. It preferred to exist in an exiting constant never ending present, until issue 7 which was the last. The magazine also never put an on sale date in the Next Issue page which may go some way to explain why it didn't get beyond issue 7. However, issue one seems to have been on sale in October 1995 which means issue 3 must have been on the shelves around December, or January 1996 at the latest.
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