It wqs based on an older Nintendo game called Radar Scope , which did not do very well in the United States , so Hiroshi Yamauchi , the president of Nintendo , asked Miyamoto to make a game to replace Radar Scope . As of the beginning of , Nintendo 's efforts to sell in the North American video game market had failed , culminating with the flop Radar Scope in . To keep the company afloat , company president Hiroshi Yamauchi decided to convert unsold Radar Scope games into something new .