Here’s the history of Nintendo, from its humble origins through the Switch era.
Finally, in the 19th century a new card game,Hanafuda, was invented.
It used images instead of numbers, so it couldn’t be used for gambling.
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The government relaxed its laws on playing cards and allowed sales of the Hanafuda cards.
When Was Nintendo Founded?
Fusajiro sold the cards at two Nintendo Koppai stores.
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It continued adding the most popular games, as well as inventing several of its own.
These two companies continued to grow the business into a corporate giant.
After running the company for 20 years, Sekiryo suffered a stroke in 1949, forcing him to retire.
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Sekiryo called his grandson, Hiroshi Yamauchi, and asked him to take over the family business.
His lack of experience caused resentment among the Nintendo employees, followed by a factory strike.
This combined with a crash in the game card market caused a nosedive for Nintendo profits.
Without a major reinvention of the company, Nintendo risked bankruptcy.
Yokoi was moved from maintenance into the head of Games and Setup, which oversaw product development.
Yokoi and Hiroshi’s partnership reignited Nintendo, making it once again an industry giant.
Hiroshi became the richest man in Japan, but things ended tragically for Yokoi.
This one had a more comfortable design and nine additional games (all variations ofPong).
This same year, Nintendo released its first video game designed for arcades calledComputer Othello.
Although a success, it was never released outside of Japan.
The Color TV Games system was a steady seller, as was the company’s coin-op arcade catalog.
With an extremely small budget,Miyamoto created Donkey Kong.
The units were quickly switched over to Kong and it became an instant, historic success.
This made Miyamoto into Nintendo’s top game producer and the dominant force in the coin-op arcade market.
This eventually becomes a distant relative to theGameBoy, which comes later.
The Game & Watch was a hit and soon numerous toy companies were releasing their own LCD handheld games.
This also started Nintendo’s long history of packaging their most popular games along with their latest consoles.
That caused the entire industry to suffer from a poor reputation.
With video game sales slumping and a stockpile of unsellable Atari 2600 units, Sears also passed.
They also devised theNintendo Seal of Qualityto indicate authorized and officially licensed games.
These initial launches were a success and Nintendo expanded the release nationally across all of the United States.
This showed the public Nintendo’s commitment to quality over quantity.
AlthoughNintendo Poweris no longer in circulation, you’re free to still listen to its official podcast.
In 1989, Nintendo released its first and most important portable handheld gaming system.
Created by Gunpei Yokoi, the Game Boy took the market by storm.
With the Game Boy, people began seeing video games as more than just kids' toys.
It sold over 18 million copies and drove additional sales of the NES 8-bit console.
The new system was a monster success, selling 300,000 units in just a few hours.
Eventually, the SNES would finally overtake the industry again with SEGA Genesis landing in the #2 slot.
Thesediscscould hold more information, resulting in superior graphics, deeper gameplay, and broader experiences.
Soon the competition began releasing disc-based consoles with64-bit technology.
Discs required the system to move the laser reader around to locate and slowly load the game information.
The N64’s release was a bit of an odd one.
For the first time in the company’s history, Nintendo’s console dropped to #2.
From its launch, it was plagued with problems.
Nintendo forced Yokoi to rush the system’s release, causing many cut corners.
Nintendo game designerSatoshi Tajiricreated a new line of games calledPocket Monsters(akaPokemon).
It released two new systems that upgraded all of its existing traditions.
The GBA also hosted more ports of classic Nintendo games than any other system.
Game ports ranged from the Nintendo Game & Watch and NES titles to SNES and coin-op arcade games.
The GBA has outlasted any other game system and is still available today.
The success of the Nintendo DS and the Wii shot Nintendo back to the top of the console market.
It continues to remain on top, now with new ways to deliver classic games to a mass audience.
