Nintendo

Nintendo is a Japanese video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It has created numerous handheld video game consoles and home video game consoles, such as the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Game Boy, the Wii, and the Nintendo DS, as well as major video game franchises, such as Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid.

The company was founded in 1889 as a producer of playing cards. Nintendo did not enter the video game industry until the 1970s.

History change

Hanafuda change

Nintendo was founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi as a company that manufactured Japanese playing cards—hanafuda—which he designed and produced himself. The company was named Nintendo Koppai, which can be translated as "Leave it to fate."

Fusajiro retired in 1929 and handed the reins to his son-in-law, Sekiryo Yamauchi, who renamed the company Yamayuchi Nintendo & Co. in 1933. Then in 1947, he founded a new company, “Marufuku Co. Ltd.” (which he renamed "Nintendo Playing Cards Co. Ltd." in 1951), to distribute his hanafuda cards overseas.

In 1949, his grandson, Hiroshi Yamauchi, took over. Under him, Nintendo Karuta's business diversified into unusual ventures: the company sold individual rice portions, ran taxi companies, and even operated love hotels. None of these sideline businesses lasted long.

Nintendo's former headquarters in the city of Kyoto.

After signing a contract with Disney, the company went public under the name Nintendo Co. Ltd. in 1962.

In 1969, a "Games" department was created. It was led by a newcomer, Gunpei Yokoi. Their first toy sold over a million units and was called Ultra Hand, which allowed users to grab objects that were far away from them.

The shift to video games change

In the 1970s, Nintendo turned its attention to the video game market. At first, Nintendo held the Japanese distribution rights for the Magnavox Odyssey, the first video game console in history.

When an oil crisis in 1973 caused the price of plastic to soar, Nintendo was forced to find new ways to stay profitable, and this ultimately helped push the company further into electronics.

On June 1, 1977, Nintendo released its first video game console in Japan: The Color TV-Game 6. This console ran on batteries and featured six versions of a game similar to Pong, called Light Tennis. It could be played by two people, but the controllers were a bit flimsy. 360,000 units were sold.

The Color TV-Game 6

That same month, the Color TV-Game 15 was released. It was a more advanced version of the Color TV-Game 6, featuring fifteen versions of the game Light Tennis (a variation of Pong). This console was quite successful: 700,000 units were sold. Together, the Color TV‑Game series became the best‑selling consoles of the first generation.

Since their small consoles were selling well, Nintendo continued to innovate in this area. This was followed by the Color TV-Game Racing 112, the Color TV-Game Block Kuzuchi, and the Computer TV-Game. These video game consoles belong to the first generation of consoles, devices that often came with games already built into the console.

In the late 1970s, Nintendo began to make arcade games, one of which is their first original creation, Sheriff.

Nintendo's first major successes change

In 1980, Nintendo released the Game & Watch, a creation of Gunpei Yokoi. It fit in a pocket, and there were many models containing a variety of different games. Yokoi had the idea while traveling by train when a man sitting next to him was playing with his calculator to pass the time. This gave him the idea to create small portable games specifically for adults looking to pass the time.

Nintendo then realized that the main buyers of the Game & Watch were not adults, but children. Nintendo therefore decided to create more colorful video games aimed at children. Many other models were released in the following years. Over 43 million units were sold.

In 1981, Donkey Kong was released in arcade machines. This game features Donkey Kong, a gorilla who has kidnapped Mario's girlfriend. The player navigates a few stages consisting mainly of girders and ladders. In 1982, it got a sequel, Donkey Kong Jr., where Mario is the villain and Donkey Kong Jr. has to rescue his father, Donkey Kong, from him. In 1983, Nintendo released another landmark arcade title, Mario Bros., where Mario and his brother Luigi must fight pests in the sewers of New York.

In 1983, the Family Computer was released in Japan. In the Western world, the console received an equivalent titled the Nintendo Entertainment System, released in the United States of America in 1985 and then Europe and Canada in 1986.

In the early 1980s, the video game market crashed because microcomputers were selling like hotcakes, since they cost as much as game consoles and could do more than just play video games. The Famicom had a fairly competitive price and still managed to hold its own. To avoid the bad reputation of video games after the crash, Nintendo redesigned the NES with a front‑loading slot that looked like a VHS player and bundled it with toy‑like accessories, including a light gun named the NES Zapper and the Robotic Operating Buddy (R.O.B.). Nintendo ultimately managed to sell millions of Nintendo Entertainment System units, a result of both their marketing strategy and several popular games for the system.

In 1985, the hugely popular Super Mario Bros. was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System on the system's day of launch and its Japanese counterpart, the Family Computer. Princess Toadstool (later renamed Princess Peach), the princess of the Mushroom Kingdom, has been kidnapped by Bowser, and Mario and Luigi go on a journey to rescue her. Super Mario Bros. sold over 40 million copies. It received a sequel titled Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels in Japan in 1986, though America and Europe received a different Super Mario Bros. 2 (a reskin of Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic) in 1988 since the original sequel was considered too difficult for American players. In 1990, Super Mario Bros. received another long-awaited sequel, Super Mario Bros. 3. Several Super Mario titles have continued to release to date.

In 1986, The Legend of Zelda was released. It is an adventure game where the player controls Link, a warrior who must gather the eight fragments of the Triforce of Wisdom in order to travel to Death Mountain and face Ganon, the game's villain. The game was another huge success, just like Super Mario Bros., and many sequels were released afterward.

The Game Boy.

Beginning in 1989 and continuing throughout the 1990s, Nintendo dominated the handheld market with the Game Boy. Although its two main competitors, the Atari Lynx and Sega Game Gear, boasted full-color screens, the Game Boy outsold both systems despite having only a four-color palette.

Nintendo released their 16-bit console, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, in 1991, after releasing the Japanese Super Famicom in 1990.

Back then, cartridges were the norm for most consoles. Sega released its Mega CD. Nintendo also planned to do the same with its Super Nintendo Entertainment System, a concept known as the SNES-CD. The company partnered with Sony to design the SNES-CD. But Nintendo's president, Hiroshi Yamauchi, realized upon reading the contract with Sony that the agreement granted Sony ownership of all games in that format. The collaboration between Nintendo and Sony then fell apart, and Nintendo partnered with Philips. Sony decided to continue developing the console on its own. It was released in 1994 and was called the PlayStation.

The arrival of the PlayStation and 3D change

In 1993, Argonaut developed the Super FX, a chip designed to be inserted into Super Nintendo cartridges that enabled the creation of 3D polygon-based games. The SNES briefly competed with the PlayStation and the Sega Saturn. Nintendo eventually had to catch up to the market and began working on a 64-bit console codenamed Ultra 64.

The Virtual Boy.

In the summer of 1995, Nintendo released a 32-bit semi-portable console called the Virtual Boy, another invention of Yokoi's. The Virtual Boy is a red and black system that featured a type of virtual reality headset. It was a commercial failure to an extent that Nintendo never released the Virtual Boy in Europe. The 3D effect caused headaches and nausea and the stand was not very ergonomic. Production of the Virtual Boy would cease a year later. Gunpei Yokoi left Nintendo shortly thereafter to join Bandai. He died after being struck by a car in 1997.

The Nintendo 64.

The Ultra 64 (also known as Project Reality) was eventually retitled the Nintendo 64 and released in 1996 in Japan and the United States and in 1997 in Europe. Even though Nintendo lost to the PlayStation and did not have many third-party developers to support them (notably Squaresoft, who produced Final Fantasy games for the PlayStation), Nintendo still managed to release successful titles for the Nintendo 64, such as Super Mario 64 (released on the same day as the Nintendo 64), GoldenEye 007, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and Super Smash Bros..

In 1998 and 1999, the Game Boy saw its last major releases: Pokémon Red, Blue, and Yellow Version. Although released near the end of the console's lifespan, these games were massive successes, and the Pokémon franchise (originally released as Pocket Monsters in Japan in 1996) became an international phenomenon. The popularity of Pokémon Red Version and Pokémon Blue Version helped Nintendo maintain its handheld market dominance; this is evident in how the Game Boy Color, released shortly after the games, ultimately outsold the WonderSwan Color and Neo Geo Pocket Color. Like the original Game Boy's competitors, the Atari Lynx and Sega Game Gear, these rival systems failed to overtake Nintendo despite having higher technical specifications.

In 2001, the Game Boy Advance was released, a 32-bit handheld console with color capabilities that displayed more vibrant graphics than the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Many games were released alongside the console, notably Super Mario Advance, Pokémon Ruby Version and Pokémon Sapphire Version, and The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap.

The GameCube, released in 2001.

Later that year, Nintendo released the Nintendo GameCube. It became Nintendo's least successful home console up to that point, partly because of stiff competition from the Xbox and PlayStation 2, both of which offered online play. Nintendo preferred local multiplayer, which it saw as more social, but the GameCube still had online play for very few games, such as Mario Kart: Double Dash!!.

In 2002, Hiroshi Yamauchi (president) stepped down and Satoru Iwata succeeded him.

The Wii, released in 2006, truly revitalized Nintendo in the market.

The Nintendo DS. Nintendo would release variants over time, such as the DSi and the 3DS.

In 2004, the Nintendo DS was launched, a handheld console with new features, such as a backlit touchscreen.

Nintendo then announced that it was working on a console with a new way to play. First codenamed Revolution, the system's official name later became the Wii.

The Wii was a huge success because it appealed to the market of "casual gamers," meaning people who play occasionally. It won over the market because it allows players to move around while playing. The Wii has a remote control-like controller known as the Wii Remote and a small controller (Nunchuk) that can be connected to it. For games like Wii Fit, there was also a platform that the player could stand on, the Wii Balance Board. The Wii became the second-best-selling home console in history (after the PlayStation 2). However, its hardware was significantly less powerful than its rivals, continuing the pattern that Nintendo had set since the Nintendo 64.

In 2011, Nintendo released the Nintendo 3DS, a successor to the original Nintendo DS. The system and its models, like the Nintendo 3DS XL, all sold well.

The Wii U, released in 2012.

In 2012, the Wii U was released, but the new console struggled to win over consumers since too many people confused it for the original Wii. The Wii U sold poorly, leading to financial losses for the company.

After struggling with their previous console, Nintendo released the Nintendo Switch in 2017, which became a major success. The system is unique for its ability to switch between handheld and home console mode, hence the name. The Nintendo Switch supports up to four players on a single Switch (in some games, it is possible to play online with up to eight players at the same time). At launch, it had a very small game library (The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, 1, 2, Switch!, Just Dance 2017...), but many games have been released ever since.

In 2025, Nintendo released the Nintendo Switch 2, an upgraded model that keeps the same hybrid design and includes backward compatibility with original Switch games.

The company today change

Nintendo generated approximately €4.5 billion in revenue (total sales) in 2014,^[1] and has just over 5,000 employees. It remains one of the most successful Japanese companies in the world, with hundreds of millions of consoles and handhelds sold, and billions of games. The company has a major international presence, having offices in North America, Europe, Australia, and South Korea. Nintendo has also expanded into mobile gaming, theme parks, and the film industry, producing movies based on its popular franchises.