In 1986 The Legend of Zelda appeared on the NES, selling 6.6 million copies, but it was not the first hit of the game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, who two years earlier had released his first game, Donkey Kong, which was a hit in Japan. Another interesting fact about this game is that Nintendo managed to win a court case against Universal MCA, which decided that the name of Donkey Kong was consonant with the name King Kong, the rights to which were held by the studio. The lawyer Howard Lincoln, hired by Nintendo, would play a role in the success of Nintendo of America many times before being appointed to the position of Chairman of NOA. That's also when the first game in the Metroid series by Gumpei Yokoi was released, Castlevania and other titles that allowed the company to cement its reputation as a game maker with an outstanding bar of quality. To avoid plunging the gaming industry into another crisis, the company continued its strict policy of working with licensees and controlling supplies, making the NES the most sought-after and coveted Christmas gift in 1987.
By the early 1990s, one in three U.S. homes had a console from Nintendo, and the market grew from a hundred million to two billion dollars. At the same time, the success of The Legend of Zelda initiated the publication of Nintendo Power magazine, in which the company published walkthrough secrets and novelties about video games. Miyamoto originally had the idea of making the game fun to explore, to find new secrets, and for players to share their playthrough methods with each other. Each box of the game was accompanied by a card inviting you to join the Fun Club, whose members first received a free subscription to Nintendo Fun Club News, and later Nintendo game master Howard Phillips, who later became the public face of the company, and marketing expert Gale Tilden developed a feedback system that no one had ever done before on this scale. Phillips set up a steady customer support service by phone where the service center staff answered questions about playthroughs, gave tips on secrets and the addresses of nearby stores, and Tilden became responsible for the Nintendo Power magazine. Its first issue in 1989 focused on Super Mario Bros. 2, a game that ended up selling seven million copies overall and, by the end of the magazine's first year, a million and a half people had taken advantage of its $15 annual subscription, making it the largest children's magazine in America.