Donkey Kong
Blue plywood. The machine that started Nintendo's arcade legend, and most collections worth the name.
Before Nintendo was a household name in America it was a Japanese company with a warehouse of unsold cabinets and one last idea. Donkey Kong was that idea: a carpenter, a barrel-throwing ape, and a girl on a girder. It rescued the company, it introduced the character who would carry it for the next forty years, and it did both by being a genuinely brilliant game rather than a lucky one.
This one is blue plywood — the construction collectors look for. It sits between the VS. UniSystem and the Mario Bros. widebody, marquee lit, on free play. It also has a trick: a switcher fitted with an original Donkey Kong Jr. board, so the same cabinet plays both games. Nintendo's own sequel, in the cabinet it belongs in, without swapping anything.
What it looks like running
Donkey Kong's monitor is mounted vertically, which is why the screen is taller than it is wide. That was a deliberate choice: the whole game is about climbing, and a portrait screen gives you more girders to climb. Almost every arcade conversion of the era got this wrong; the original never did.
Work log
What has been done to it. Very little, by design — this one is close to how it left the factory.
- Riddled TV switcher fitted — Carrying an original Donkey Kong Jr. board, so the cabinet plays both games.
- Reproduction side art on one side — The other side is original.
Nintendo
Upright, blue plywood.
Donkey Kong
1981. Vertical monitor, single joystick, one button.
Free play
In the cabinet row, marquee lit.
More photos of Donkey Kong in the gallery →
Sources & further reading: Museum of the Game — Donkey Kong
Donkey Kong sits in the cabinet row alongside the VS. UniSystem, the Mario Bros. widebody and Big Blue. See the whole lineup →