The Fascinating History Of Nintendo

Undoubtedly one of the biggest names in gaming, Nintendo Co., Ltd. and its creations are easily recognizable all over the world. The names Bowser, Yoshi, Luigi, Samus, Kirby, Zelda, and of course Mario instantly offer up feelings of nostalgia for many, and drum up memories of great times exploring fantastic worlds full of wonder, peppered with innocent child-like humor, and surprises galore on truly iconic gaming systems.

Yes, we all know Nintendo as one of the purveyors of the gaming era, but what is not as well known is that despite a ban on gambling, the company was actually started in order to make handmade Japanese playing cards, or Hanafuda, over a hundred and thirty years ago!!!

Intrigued yet? Let's try to condense some points in their vast and intriguing history to the confines of this article, and explore the important milestones of this true gaming icon together – all the way from its humble beginnings to the current day.

Quick note here, please be aware that not every specific detail can be covered in this article, so some details might be left out for brevity.

To start off, here are a few quick facts to keep in the back of your mind while reading...

Our journey today starts with the aforementioned Fusajiro Yamauchi, who saw the potential in the market for these cards due to the ban on all others, and came up with a plan to re-introduce the ancient game (which had been around since the Edo period which lasted from 1603-1886) by crafting hand-drawn illustrations on cards made of mulberry tree bark. Consequently, According to the fine folks at Retro Junk, he opened up a new company named Nintendo Koppai on September 23, 1889.

This turned out to be a great idea indeed, as Nintendo's Hanafuda cards increased in popularity nationwide — eventually even being used for underground gambling. Where there's gambling, the Yakuza usually isn't too far away, so even the infamous Japanese Mafia used Nintendo's playing cards back in those days. As a matter of fact, according to the BBC, members of the Yakuza even had/have tattoos that are inspired by the illustrations on the Nintendo cards.

A little side-note here: If you've ever wondered why there was the random "flower power" in Mario Brothers, and the ability to shoot fireballs, it was because of these "flower cards." This is the one original tradition that has stayed with Nintendo to this day.

Eventually moving to a new location in 1952 and branching out internationally, Hiroshi had the great idea to partner up with Disney, which has always been popular in Japan it seems, in order to gain more appeal for their cards with Japanese families by featuring popular Disney characters on these cards (via WIRED).

Another stroke of genius at this time was releasing books that would explain in detail how to play the various Hanafusa games. This idea proved so successful that Nintendo sold over 600,000 decks in one year alone, prompting Hiroshi to take the company public on the Osaka Stock Exchange in 1962. The desire to branch out was also firmly instilled at this time. As a result and after a few name changes, finally, in 1963, the name was cemented as just Nintendo Co. Ltd in order to allow a wider gamut of at the time current and future products to be included.

A graduate from Doshisha University, a man named Gunpei Yokoi was hired in 1965 as an assembly line maintenance engineer for the line which still manufactured the Hanafuda Cards (via The Game Crater), which by now had waned quite a bit in popularity. Working in this position for several years, Gunpei sometimes created certain things for his own, personal enjoyment, and as luck would have it, Hiroshi Yamauchi visited the plant one fateful day and took notice of one of Gunpei's inventions — the Ultra Hand — an extending arm which could grasp onto things far away.

That little whatchamacallit became one of Nintendo's big successes, selling 1.2 million units across Japan and simultaneously putting Nintendo on the map again. This was not Gunpei's last success at Nintendo, however. He's also responsible for the Ultra Machine — a device, which could throw baseballs, and the successful Love Tester — a gadget to test a boy and girl's romantic feelings towards each other. It was far from accurate, of course, but good fun nonetheless.

After these initial successes, Gunpei would prove to become an invaluable asset for the company many times over (via Nintendolife).

1977-1986 – aka. The Miyamoto Years

Backing up in the timeline just a bit here, it was during these crucial years that Nintendo would also decide to create their own video game consoles with a little help from their friends at Mitsubishi Electric. The result: Color TV Game 6 and Color TV Game 15 in '77 and '78, respectively. These were consoles you could hook up to your TV and play a very basic version of 'Pong' with a few stylistic alterations. (via centre for computing history)

The company also concentrated on simple arcade games such as Sheriff and Radar Scope at this time – and while enjoying moderate success in their native Japan, trying to break more into the American market proved to be a lot more difficult for them – even thrusting them to the verge of financial collapse.

By the time 1985 rolled around, another important employee would emerge from the obscurity of a basic desk job as an apprentice in the planning department — none other than Shigeru Miyamoto who would play a key role in reversing the downward trend and catapulting Nintendo straight to iconic status. (via Nintendolife)

By the mid '80s, Nintendo's focus shifted more to the home market, and the company eagerly released a home console they had been working on for quite a while, namely the Family Computer. The what?!?  Yep, that rather ordinary moniker was the name given to this iconic console in Japan — the Famicom (Family Computer).

The rest of the world would eventually (after a few tweaks and a bit of rebranding) come to know it as The Nintendo Entertainment System, and thanks to Super Mario Brothers, and later Zelda (and many others), it would completely revolutionize home entertainment and the entire games industry after being unveiled at the CES in 1985; becoming the best-selling console of its time. Ask any dedicated gamer for the most iconic system ever made, and you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who wouldn't say it was the original NES. It brought an entire generation of kids into gaming and established the hobby as an iconic part of global culture.

In 1988, Gunpei Yokoi and his team at Nintendo R&D1 had a genius idea of merging the two very successful concepts of the Game & Watch's portability with the NES' cartridge interchangeability and conceived the new Game Boy handheld system (via Companies History).

The Game Boy was released in Japan on April 21, 1989, and in North America on July 31, 1989. Nintendo of America president Minoru Arakawa managed a deal to bundle the popular third-party game Tetris along with the Game Boy, and the rest, as they say, is history. In other words, it was a smashing success (via Venturebeat). Game Boy marked the first time that users could play with a handheld device that offered interchangeable game titles and continued improvement and development. New games came out constantly, and many of Nintendo's classic titles like Super Mario Bros saw popular versions on this device.

Released in 1996, the Nintendo 64 (N64) was one of Nintendo's biggest console releases and a new milestone in gaming history. Released in the fifth generation of gaming and competing with the PlayStation and Sega Saturn, the N64 was groundbreaking both in console design and also in the game library it provided. Who could forget classics like 'Goldeneye', Ocarina of Time, Super Mario 64, or Super Smash Brothers?

While the N64 not only was the first console to feature 3D graphics, the games it had made huge impacts on the video game industry, which can still be felt today (via History Computer).

The N64 was an insanely popular platform that gave a glance of what modern gaming could be, and the games that came with it brought in new developments, which helped to evolve and change game design for years to come. This console is still regarded as one of the most recognized systems in history, and the games in it, like Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, are widely considered to be the most influential and overall greatest games of all time, and merely thinking about them probably just wrought out a joyful tear of nostalgia.  

Resistance is futile, as the famous phrase on a certain Sci-Fi show warned. As consoles began to adopt new memory types, Nintendo couldn't resist and made the change as well. According to Retrounite, The GameCube introduced a more powerful console than the N64; one which used discs rather than cartridges. 

Launching right after a fateful event in the US in September of 2001 and overshadowed by the original Playstation, the GameCube was still a fairly successful system for the company thanks to some truly memorable games with Luigi's Mansion, Pikmin, and Super Smash Bros. Melee. But it was just a short time later, in 2003, that Nintendo would come out with arguably one of their most spectacular games ever. That game was Metroid Prime, which was followed up by Metroid Fusion — heralding a triumphant return of the Metroid series. There were a few more stand-out games on the Cube. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, and Super Mario Sunshine were two of my personal favorites, for instance.

Coming to the end of this look at the extensive history of one of, if not THE most important company in gaming, let's move to the more modern era of motion-controlled games, which was heralded by this massive success for Nintendo with its unusual "nunchuck" remote. Coming on the scene in 2006, the Wii was directly competing with Sony's Playstation 3 — the most powerful system to have ever been conceived at that time.

The former had neither the snazzy graphics nor any comparable hardware to compete — and yet it became a smash hit. It's no wonder with games like The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Wii Sports at launch and Super Mario Galaxy shortly after. The Wii craze had begun — ushering a new era of "active" gaming, and helping to make the experience more active for users. 

(via Retrounite)

1889-1977 was the formational period of Nintendo. The company was founded by Yusajiro Yamauchi to produce custom-designed Hanafuda cards and card games. For nearly 90 years, the company saw success in tabletop card games. The success was enough for them to form separate companies to provide for manufacturing needs and to experiment with other business ventures.

The late '70s and early '80s proved to be the beginning of the company's heavy involvement in video games. It began with the development of arcade cabinet games.

Betwen 1983 and 1989 was the Famicom/NES era for the company. Every decision was about the production and publishing of Famicom consoles and game cartridges.

In 1990, the Super Famicom or Super NES took over the home console market. This era furthered the idea of video games and home consoles for every audience. It had transformed from a child's device into a legitimate system. 1996 started the era of the Nintendo 64. Graphics had now become 3D and the memory allowed for software to let developers create longer and more memorable experiences. Some staples of the era include 007 Goldeneye, Spyro, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and Majora's Mask.

Between 2001 and 2005, as consoles began to adopt new memory types, Nintendo made the change as well. GameCube introduced a more powerful console than the N64 that used discs rather than cartridges. The Wii era began in 2006. This was among the company's least successful runs, but not because they offered a poor product. They simply failed to hold a solid manufacturing and distribution schedule for a product with incredibly high demand. Despite this, the Wii introduced motion controls in a family-friendly way.

The company fixed its product supply line issues with its next console generation between 2012 and 2016. The Wii U revamped the Wii design, offering more power, a controller with a screen, and better motion tracking. In 2017, Nintendo hit development gold with the newest iteration of the Wii that now allowed for the console to be docked for home entertainment or played portably on the built-in display. The Switch has been refreshed one time to include a larger OLED screen.

(via Nintendo)