A History of Nintendo

Nintendo was founded in 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi. At the end of the 19^th century, when television let alone video games were not even a twinkle in the public's eye, Nintendo had a very different purpose: manufacturing playing cards.

These were Hanafuda cards, which were handcrafted from mulberry bark. It was the result of card game developments after 1633, when all contact with the West (including western style playing cards, which had become very popular among the Japanese) was outlawed. The Japanese began to develop their own systems of playing cards, one of which was Hanafuda.

Playing cards were the focus of Nintendo's activities for decades. In 1907, Fusajiro finally managed to be allowed to produce western style playing cards in Japan as well as sell them in Japan, the first time such cards had been allowed in Japan since the initial ban back in 1633.

In 1929 Fusajiro retired. Under his control the company he had created was the largest playing cards company in all of Japan. The reigns of Nintendo were handed over to Fusajiro's son-in-law, Sekiryo Kaneda (Kaneda took on his wife's surname of Yamauchi, keeping business control under the Yamauchi name). Under Sekiryo Nintendo continued to expand.

Hiroshi Yamauchi

If one name was to completely dominate the history of Nintendo and oversee all it would become, it was Hiroshi Yamauchi. Hiroshi was the great-grandson of Nintendo's founder Fusajiro. Hiroshi's father, Shikanojo, had run away when Hiroshi was only 5, leaving Hiroshi next in line to take control of Fusajiro's legacy in 1949.

Hiroshi immediately began making changes at Nintendo. He built a new, modern headquarters in 1952 and in the next year began manufacturing plastic-coated playing cards. In 1959 he made a breakthrough: a deal with the popular American animation company Disney to allow Nintendo to exclusively design playing cards using Disney characters. 600,000 packs were sold in 1959 alone of the new Disney playing cards.

In the 1960's Hiroshi decided to move beyond the playing cards that had made Nintendo what it was, and began producing toys and games. He also began expanding into other industries such as portioned instant rice, the opening of a new hotel with rooms rented by the hour and even a taxi company. However as Hiroshi was to find out it was in toys and games that Nintendo's fortunes were to be found.

Electronic Toys and Video Games

The year 1971 is often seen as the birth of the video game as we know it. This was the year that Computer Space, the first ever coin-op video game, was created. A new sensation was looming on the horizon.

Only a year before a new employee had come to work for Nintendo by the name of Gunpei Yokoi. Yokoi was a maintenance engineer, and one day while Hiroshi was visiting the Nintendo factory he noticed Yokoi operating an expanding arm. Yokoi had created the expanding arm for his own amusement but Hiroshi immediately ordered him to develop it for sale during the upcoming Christmas rush. This order Yokoi obeyed creating the Ultra Hand. The toy was extremely popular and Yokoi was quickly switched from maintenance to product development. He would have much to do with the upcoming success of Nintendo.

Both Hiroshi and Yokoi watched the booming popularity of video games in the United States with interest. In 1975 they secured the rights to produce and sell the Magnavox Odyssey (the first ever home video game console system) in Japan.

Soon enough Nintendo was not only selling Odyssey consoles, they were developing their own video games as well, both for home systems as well as for the arcade. They set up a joint venture with Mitsubishi Electric to create their own video game console which they introduced to the market in 1977 known as Color TV Game 6 and Color TV game 15. (The 6 and 15 represented the number of individual games present on both systems). Nintendo had entered the video game market.

Famicom Nintendo Entertainment System

Nintendo had begun to make a name for itself in the video game market. In 1980 they had produced the popular video game Donkey Kong. In the same year they also began producing handheld LCD games called the Game & Watch series (because the game also included a clock with built in timer and alarm system).

1983 would be the year for Nintendo to truly shine. This was the year they created the Famicom (short for Family Computer). As soon as the game became a major hit in Japan, Nintendo began work to expand the product to the American market.

The first company that Nintendo turned to in order to sell their new Famicom to American consumers was Atari. In fact, a deal was almost reached where Atari would purchase the rights to sell the system in the United States. However, shortly before the last papers were to be signed a rival video game company, Coleco, demonstrated a prototype Donkey Kong video game for their new ADAM system. The prototype was illegal and unauthorized by Nintendo but Atari became worried they were being double crossed and Nintendo was also working with Coleco and pulled out of the deal. Nintendo was left to bring the Famicom to the US market on their own.

This finally happened in 1985 when the Famicom, now dubbed the Nintendo Entertainment System (or NES). The initial run was sold only in the New York area and sold about 90,000 units. At the same time a new video game was released back in Japan: Super Mario Bros.

Soon enough the NES is being released everywhere in the United States. By 1987 Nintendo was dominating the video game console market. Of 4.1 million home consoles sold in 1987, 3 million of them are Nintendo, the rest are mostly Atari or Sega.

Super NES and Beyond

By the beginning of the 1990's Nintendo was clearly the dominant player in the world of home video games. In 1989 they released the GameBoy, which differed from previous handheld games in that you could plug in any number of cartridges to play different games, rather than only having one game per unit. The character of Mario, star of the popular Super Mario Bros series has become a pop culture icon.

In 1991 Nintendo released their next home console system in the US: the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (better known as the Super NES). They had strong competition, though, in the Sega Genesis which had been released the year before. The Super NES is released with the incredibly popular new game Super Mario World, which sold 17 million copies worldwide in 1991 alone.

1996 marked the debut of Nintendo's new breakthrough product: the Nintendo 64 (so named because of its use of 64 bit graphics). A new Mario game is introduced with the launch: Mario 64, which is considered to be one of the greatest video games of all time.

New competition had risen in the video game console world, this time from Sony with their release of the Sony Playstation, which one would come to be one of the most if not the most popular video game system on the market. Sony and Nintendo continue in competition with each other in 2001 when the release Playstation 2 and GameCube, respectively. The next year newcomer Microsoft also introduced the Xbox.

Nintendo also began expanding its GameBoy line, coming out with GameBoy Color in 1999. This is replaced with GameBoy Advance in 2001 and finally Nintendo DS in 2004.

2002 saw the retirement of Hiroshi Yamauchi. He had worked at Nintendo for 52 years, overseeing its change from the largest playing card company in Japan to one of the largest video game companies in the world. Control was handed over to Satoru Iwata, the first CEO of Nintendo not to be a Yamauchi.

Nintendo Wii

In 2006 Nintendo decided that it would once again revolutionize the video game industry, this time with the Nintendo Wii which was set to compete with Sony's long anticipated Playstation 3. The Wii differs from video game units of the past with its controller, one whose movement is determined by physically moving the controller in the direction desired rather than pressing buttons or moving a joy stick.

With both its unique design and cheaper price than the Playstation 3, the Wii has come to dominate the video game market in the months since its initial release. Unlike video games of the past the Wii has also expanded beyond the traditional market for video games, becoming popular with players of all ages from children to retirees.