Howard Phillips (born January 23, 1958) is an American video game consultant and producer who was an early employee of and spokesman for Nintendo of America in the 1980s.
Initially a boat painter, Phillips started his video game career as manager of Nintendo of America's first Tukwila warehouse in 1981.
He managed relations with the retail sites of the 1985 test launch of the Nintendo Entertainment System, gaining insight into which games were popular.
"[5] But after you play a bunch of [novelty Atari 2600] stick figure baseball games with your buddies, you realize well, OK, we kind of exhausted ourselves pretty quick on that.
[7]: 107–108 Phillips didn't apply for the job, instead being invited by former college friend and current Nintendo employee of one month, Don James.
[8]: 10:00 [3][9] This began his video game career in 1981 at age 22[8]: 17:25 as the fifth employee of Nintendo of America by managing its first warehouse in Tukwila, Washington.
[5][10][11] Already an avid gamer, as manager of the 60,000 foot warehouse he eagerly took a privileged first look at each new product from Nintendo's headquarters in Japan, in a receiving and testing process which he considered "a little bit like Christmas".
He was personally involved in receiving from Japan and delivering to American arcades the 60,000 cabinet machines (4,000 per month) of Donkey Kong alone that made the first fortune of Nintendo of America, totaling $180 million in the game's first year.
[2] He managed the test sites of each arcade launch, so along the way, he took the liberty of gathering owner feedback and observing the gameplay of audiences, especially children.
[8]: 10:00 [9] I plugged [the Famicom] in, and all of a sudden there were the arcade games we had been playing in these big 250-pound boxes, and putting in quarters every time.
At his warehouse, Phillips excitedly discovered the Japanese import of Nintendo's new arcade-capable Famicom home video game console in mid-1983.
As part of the 12-person "Nintendo SWAT team" who moved to New York City in late 1985, he worked "every waking hour ... at the crack of dawn ... seven days a week".
He chose the game library for the NES's launch, gave live product demonstrations, interacted with thousands of players, set up retail store displays designed by Don James and Gail Tilden,[3][2][6] and managed relations with the retail test launch sites.
[15] Because the Nintendo of America subsidiary was such a small company, where "everybody does everything" and "everybody worked together", Phillips was still the warehouse manager even with all these additional roles and regular flights to Japan.
[15]Phillips was executive producer of all second-party games from Nintendo's partners such as Rare,[17] where he and developers Tim and Chris Stamper yielded Slalom (1987), R.C.
[3] He advised them on the renaming of characters, and adjusting the difficulty of game progression and the amount and type of in-game help.
"[17][3][4] Phillips in the mid 90s had been in discussions with Sega of America's CEO Tom Kalinske about joining former employer Nintendo's longtime rival as their new spokesperson.
[5] Kotaku called Howard Phillips "one of the company's most high-profile and best-loved employees, his trademark red hair and bowtie making him as much a mascot of Nintendo's early success as any plumber or kid in a green tunic".
Phillips remains an industry luminary—making event appearances, interviews, and showcasing his extensive vintage collections of Nintendo memorabilia.
He has pledged to donate part to the Video Game History Foundation, to which he recruits and facilitates other major collectors from his decades of substantial industry contacts.
[8]: 10:00 Some of the collection such as Nintendo brochures, advertisements, and internal memorandums, are photographed on his own Facebook display and in media articles,[12][18][19][32] and some have been sold.