While Nintendo is now a pillar of the video game industry worldwide, there was once a time where the company's fortunes seemed much less assured. No North American retailers wanted to touch video games after the US gaming market crashed in 1983, so Nintendo had to be very careful about how it marketed its first console in the region. That famously included a complete visual redesign of the Famicom into the Nintendo Entertainment System, but it even meant a cautious approach to things like the name of the light gun that came packed in with the system.
The NES light gun would eventually be known as the Zapper, but early on, Nintendo of America was simply calling it what it was: a light gun. It might seem like the most obvious thing in the world to pack in a toy firearm when you're trying to sell a gaming console in the US, but at the time concerns about giving kids toys that look like guns were quite widespread.
