History NintendoHard / GameShows

* ''Series/DealOrNoDeal'', at least in the US version, brought down scores of contestants who failed to win the top prize of $1,000,000. Many of them had children who needed college funding, and as soon as the banker slapped a tempting offer on the board, they were done. Other playthroughs saw contestants knock out all of top dollar amounts and leave with as little as ''five dollars''. Worse, contestants have picked the suitcase with the top prize, and even some cases where the top dollar amount was ''doubled'' or ''tripled'' because of a special event (Thanksgiving, season 2 premiere promotional event). But the worst failing of all was the total disappointment of a great big publicity stunt with a '''$6,000,000''' top prize that needed an ''armored car with a police escort'' to get the money in safely. The top dollar amount was promptly revealed really early, and viewers fled the channel in the wake of another mediocre playing of the show. The first time they put in multiple million-dollar cases, no one hit (In the last program of that particular run, contestant at least got a good deal out of it and bailed out just before revealing the last million case. His case? ''One cent!''). It took the second attempt and ''five'' million-dollar cases to get their first millionaire (she felt it worth the gamble since she was down to the last million and $200,000--either way she would walk away with major money). The second and ''last'' millionaire got lucky and ended the game early by knocking out all the non-million cases with ''three'' to spare. Yes, the show offered sextuple its top prize and struggled to give away the normal amount, with nobody taking away more than six figures even when there were even multiple seven-figure increments on the board. In the end, the series was demoted from a primetime show to a syndicated show and the top prize got slashed to $500,000 because it wasn't delivering results. That also stalled out and led to complete cancellation.

** To cite an individual game that's Nintendo Hard, look no further than the early game Bullseye (not to be confused with a much easier later game that shares the same name). The contestant had to use binary search ("higher... lower...") in order to zero in on the price of a car, similar to today's Clock Game. The only trouble was, rather than making as many guesses as they could within a given time limit (as is done with Clock Game), the contestant only had seven guesses period. ''To figure out the exact price of a four-digit car down to the dollar.'' The closest anyone ever came to winning was being off by ''one stinking dollar'' on their seventh guess. The game was played five times in two weeks, and was quickly retired.

** ''Hole in the Wall'' is another game that's pretty difficult to win, due to the fact that most of the time the holes are way too small for the average contestants to fit through properly and if the hole is destroyed, the contestant loses the round regardless of whether they were pushed off of the course or not. The difficulty was shot UpToEleven during the final round where the contestant was blindfolded and had to listen to their teammates instructions in order to get through the hole. Couple this with the fact that some of the later rounds had holes that were airborne in the MIDDLE of the wall, which required the contestant to [[LuckBasedMission blindly jump and get lucky enough to clear the hole]] and you can see ''why'' the success rate of the winners is so low.

** Notoriously difficult are the musical questions, requiring listeners to not only identify a song by ear, but make leaps of logic based on lyrics, performers, years of publication, or any other info about the song.
** Also difficult is the Connecting Wall, in which 16 words, phrases, and numbers are presented, and each team has to identify four groups of four that share commonalties. However, some are red herrings, and the members of each group are not interchangeable between them. Also, after 2 groups are identified successfully, the game goes to a three-strikes-and-you're-out system. Each team's attempts end after 3 minutes or 3 strikes, whichever happens first.

* 'Series/OnlyConnect' prides itself on its difficulty. Because the focus of the show is making logical connections, memorizing trivia only goes so far, and lateral thinking is required.

** All versions had more than their fair share of really challenging rebuses. Until the ''Classic'' era, there were cases where both contestants lost because they were stumped on a fully-exposed rebus.

** Early on in the show's career - producer Jay Wolpert's pricing game setups fell under this trope. For example, early on in 10 Chances' lifespan, it didn't have the zero rule at all. Lucky $even and Dice Game didn't even have the "no zeroes," and for the latter, zeroes and numbers higher than six could appear in the price.

* ''Series/DealOrNoDeal'', at least in the US version, brought down scores of contestants who failed to win the top prize of $1,000,000. Many of them had children who needed college funding, and as soon as the banker slapped a tempting offer on the board, they were done. Other playthroughs saw contestants knock out all of top dollar amounts and leave with as little as ''five dollars''. Worse, contestants have picked the suitcase with the top prize, and even some cases where the top dollar amount was ''doubled'' or ''tripled'' because of a special event (Thanksgiving, season 2 premiere promotional event). But the worst failing of all was the total disappointment of a great big publicity stunt with a '''$6,000,000''' top prize that needed an ''armored car with a police escort'' to get the money in safely. The top dollar amount was promptly revealed really early, and viewers fled the channel in the wake of another another mediocre playing of the show. The first time they put in multiple million-dollar cases, no one hit (In the last program of that particular run, contestant at least got a good deal out of it and bailed out just before revealing the last million case. His case? ''One cent!''). It took the second attempt and ''five'' million-dollar cases to get their first millionaire (she felt it worth the gamble since she was down to the last million and $200,000--either way she would walk away with major money). The second and ''last'' millionaire got lucky and ended the game early by knocking out all the non-million cases with ''three'' to spare. Yes, the show offered sextuple its top prize and struggled to give away the normal amount, with nobody taking away more than six figures even when there were even multiple seven-figure increments on the board. In the end, the series was demoted from a primetime show to a syndicated show and the top prize got slashed to $500,000 because it wasn't delivering results. That also stalled out and led to complete cancellation.

*** The most devastating obstacle of them all, by far, is the Cliffhanger. It's basically a hand-strength obstacle placed in the middle of the 3rd round, where upper-body strength is the means to victory. The first three versions were rather simple, with anyone with enough hand strength able to get through it handily. Then came the 4th version, which included a rise so that most competitors would have to JUMP across the gaps between bars 2 and 3 to proceed, which was bad enough considering most contestants are EXHAUSTED by that point. Then, after the Urushihara beat the course, came the [[http://sasukepedia.wikia.com/wiki/File:Ultimatecliffhanger.png Ultimate Cliffhanger]]...

** ''Hole in the Wall'' is another game that's pretty difficult to win, due to the fact that most of the time the holes are way too small for the average contestants to fit through properly and if the hole is destroyed, the contestant loses the round regardless of whether they were pushed off of the course or not. The difficulty was shot UpToEleven during the final round where the contestant was BLINDFOLDED and had to listen to their teammates instructions in order to get through the hole. Couple this with the fact that some of the later rounds had holes that were airborne in the MIDDLE of the wall, which required the contestant to [[LuckBasedMission blindly jump and get lucky enough to clear the hole]] and you can see ''why'' the success rate of the winners is so low.

* The Nickelodeon kids show ''Series/LegendsOfTheHiddenTemple'' had a really low success rate (less than 25%). The locked doors guaranteed that you would have to go all the way to the far end of the temple and double back to retrieve the artifact (making Olmec's slogan "The Choices are Yours and Yours Alone" BlatantLies), and you had to perform tasks and solve puzzles in up to 12 rooms before you found it (some were simple, like the Throne of the Pretender, but others, like the Shrine of the Silver Monkey, messed EVERYONE up.) Adding to that were Temple Guards, who would "kidnap" you and would cause your teammate to have to start over from the beginning. Throw in [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking darkness, shadows, music, fog and Kirk Fogg]], and you'll see why more than one kid ended up walking in circles with confused looks on their faces. According to Fogg himself, this was very much intended, as the prize budget was fairly limited and they couldn't afford to have high win-rates.

** To cite an individual game that's Nintendo Hard, look no further than the early game Bullseye (not to be confused with a much easier later game that shares the same name). The contestant had to use binary search ("higher... lower...") in order to zero in on the price of a car, similar to today's Clock Game. The only trouble was, rather than making as many guesses as they could within a given time limit (as is done with Clock Game), the contestant only had seven guesses period. ''To figure out the exact price of a four-digit car down to the dollar.'' The game was retired after less than two months, with nobody ever winning it.
*** Two months? Try ''two weeks''. It was played five times in total, and the closest anyone ever came to winning was being off by ''one stinking dollar'' on their seventh guess.

* ''[[Series/{{Wipeout 2008}} Wipeout]]'' imported the Japanese obstacle course show concept to the US... though they're nice enough to let you finish the course after you inevitably fall off the Big Balls. In fact, they play Nintendo Hardness for fun! ...At least until the last course of each episode, the Wipeout Zone, where failure means you have to swim ''back'' to the last checkpoint.

** Also not helping matters is that the kids were supposedly [[https://www.knowable.com/people-whove-won-nickelodeon-games-like-legends-of-the-hidden-temple-reveal-what-it-was-like given endless free pizza and soda]]. Probably not the best things to have before doing physical activity.