MEGATON: The story behind the meme

What is this?

Thanks Blake,

I enjoy Nintendo's products (as well as those of their competitors so back off flamers) and I was always curious where this verbage originated but never really pursued it.

This is a perfect example of why blogs rule. (even ones with as many troubles as this one has had lately with its management) This isn't really news but its informative and poignant.

I've never even fricking heard it before...popular in *your* kneck of the woods, maybe :P.

If I remember correctly when the Megaton thing hit someone blurred some pictures of Mario, Sonic and Megaman claiming they were going to be in one game.

I wonder if Sony's MEGATON announcement will fare for them the same way that it did for Nintendo back in 2002.

Like the MEGATON that was the Wii's chips being in production?

(sorry, couldn't resist the jab. you're still my favorite game news site)

MEGATON was used in the SomthingAwful gaming forums back then. There were heated nerdy arguments and, of course, Gord was all up in the middle of it. Was it only four years ago? Man, how time flies.

Mega-what? The hell are you talking about?

You people obviously do not read Nintendo blogs like 4CR, where Megaton comes up all the time...

http://www.4colorrebellion.com/archives/2006/09/13/japanese-wii-megaton-event-chat-it-up/

I thought it started when Sega had a huge announcement to make, (Joining Nintendo? Making new hardware??) and it turned out to be The Matrix Online.

WTF is Megaton? Can you guys write articles that the general gamer can understand? Thanks.

No, SquashedYoshi, you're referring to the "SEGATON", a derivative of the original "MEGATON". And, how can people not have heard that term before. IGN has used it. Joystiq has used it before. Every videogame site I read has used it at least once. The Jump Magazine story -is- the origin of the MEGATON, but it has been used to refer to about a million things since then. Anyone remember the THURSDAYTON that was the interview with Reggie like...2 or 3 E3s ago?

Yoshi, that's where I thought it came from too. The Segaton. But I guess that could have been a spin off of Nintendo's original Megaton announcement.

I'm surprised this many people don't recognize Megaton. I mean, freaking IGN used it in their big Wii news headline, and they're pretty damn mainstream. I don't really consider myself a hardcore gamer but I've seen it plenty of times here and on other gaming sites. I never knew where it came from till now, though.

MEGATON refers to two things, and two things only when it comes to a definition. first, the roots is from the MEGATON HAMMER from ocarina of time (yes the hammer appeared in other zelda titles, but was never called megaton). then it was used as a description of the magnitude of the announcement from nintendo. jeez, am i the only nintendo fanboy here?

Wow. And I thought everyone had heard of Megaton.

I thought it was a style of music characterized by shouty latinos rapping over coarse beats.

I remember the original Megaton announcement era pretty well when there was a lot of speculation on what it would be. Did the Megaton end up being the five Capcom games that were supposed to be exclusive to the Gamecube? If I remember right I think they were Resident Evil 4, PN0.3, a legendary wings remake looking game that was cancelled, Killer 7, and one more that I can't remember.

.....and one more that I can't remember......

Viewtiful Joe.

The infamous Capcom Five was:

Resident Evil 4
Viewtiful Joe
P.N.03
Killer7
Dead Phoenix

All five were supposed to remain exclusive to the Cube. In the end, it really turned into the Capcom 2.5ish because RE got ported, Killer 7 got ported, Viewtiful Joe got ported eventually, PN03 was...less than stellar, and Dead Phoenix got cancelled.

I thought Megaton was a reference to a Kirby minigame called Megaton Punch where you attempt to split a planet in two.

Wow, I just checked where it originated and i don't remember that at all.

The word certainly does deserve to pop up a lot.

I remember that. Good times good times.

I was working in finance at the time and I remember telling our Japanese shares trader to get long nintendo - one of the rumors I read was that due to its involvement with Sony in '91-'92 making a CD-ROM drive for the SNES, it was going to be announced that Nintendo had rights to the Playstation name and was due royalties from Sony on that name and all software sold for that platform. It was a pretty ridiculous rumor, but the sort of thing that gets your pulse going until you realise that Sony would never, ever be that stupid...apart from that immersion rumble thing.

Meh, I thought it was spawned from Ocarina of Time.

Guys... We all know that Apple is god at this thing and since Nintendo went pearl (apple) white with their system, do you think it was contagious? Well, companies these days over hype things all the time like how the PS3 were to have god of all graphics but ended up being degraded a few times, or microsoft ummm... uh.... well I will think of something that they did later...

My point is, every company does it (sadly) and I do agree that it was a Megaton... A microphone add-on in the controller would have been nice... WAIT!

Didn't Nintendo claim that there were much more secret s within the controller? Or was it all about the memory that is inside? ...lame...

Wow, some interesting comments here on why the term "Megaton" was used and whether it came from a Nintendo game (Kirby, Zelda, etc). A megaton (as in mega and ton... literally a million tons of TNT) is a measurement used to describe the potency of a bomb. Just as "blockbuster" was originally used for bombs, so is "megaton". The usage didn't originate from any Nintendo game. It's just that the people who originally used the term to describe big news (megaton... huge, powerful, explosive) used it for the same reason the Nintendo games used it. It's a freaking adjective.