Nintendo

As a card company (1889 – 1956)

Nintendo started as a small Japanese business by Fusajiro Yamauchi near the end of 1889 as Nintendo Koppai. Based in Kyoto, Japan, the business produced and marketed a playing card game called Hanafuda. The handmade cards soon began to gain popularity, and Yamauchi had to hire assistants to mass produce cards to keep up with the demand.

New Ventures (1956 – 1975)

In 1956, Hiroshi Yamauchi paid a visit to the US, to engage in talks with the United States Playing Card Company, the dominant playing card manufacturer in the US. Yamauchi was shocked to find that the world’s biggest company in his business was relegated to using a small office. This was a turning point where Yamauchi realized the limitations of the playing card business. He then gained access to Disney’s characters and put them on the playing cards, in order to drive sales.

In 1963, Yamauchi renamed Nintendo Playing Card Company Limited to Nintendo Company, Limited. The company then began to experiment in other areas of business using the newly injected capital. During this period of time between 1963 and 1968, Nintendo set up a taxi company, a "love hotel" chain, a TV network and a food company (trying to sell instant rice, similar to instant noodles). All these ventures eventually failed, and after the Tokyo Olympics, playing card sales dropped, leaving Nintendo with 60 yen in stocks.

In 1966, Nintendo moved into the Japanese toy industry with the Ultra Hand, an extending arm developed by maintenance engineer Gunpei Yokoi in his free time. The Ultra Hand was a huge success, selling approximately 1.3 million units. Gunpei Yokoi was moved from maintenance to the new "Nintendo Games" department as a product developer. Nintendo continued to produce popular toys, including the Ultra Machine, Love Tester and the Kousenjuu series of light gun games. Despite some successful products, Nintendo struggled to meet the fast development and manufacturing turnaround required of the toy market, and fell behind the well-established companies such as Bandai and Tomy.

In 1973, the focus shifted to family entertainment venues with the Laser Clay Shooting System, using the same light gun technology used in their Kousenjuu series of toys, and set up in abandoned bowling alleys. Following some success, Nintendo developed several more light gun machines for the emerging arcade scene. While the Laser Clay Shooting System ranges had to be shut down following excessive costs, Nintendo had found a new market.

Electronic Era (1975 – Present)

In 1974, Nintendo secured the rights to distribute the Magnavox Odyssey home video game system in Japan. In 1977, Nintendo began to produce their own Color TV Game home video game systems. Four of these systems were produced, each playing variations on a single game (for example, Color TV Game 6 featured 6 versions of Light Tennis).

A student product developer, Shigeru Miyamoto, was hired to Nintendo at around this time. He worked under Gunpei Yokoi and one of his first tasks was to design the casing for several of the Color TV Game systems. Shigeru Miyamoto went on to create some of Nintendo's most famous video games and become one of the most recognisable faces in the video game industry.

In 1978, Nintendo moved into the video arcade game industry with Computer Othello, and several more titles followed. Nintendo had some small success with this venture, but it wasn't until 1981 with the release of Donkey Kong, designed by Shigeru Miyamoto, that Nintendo's fortunes changes dramatically. The massive success of the game and many licensing opportunities (ports were released on the Atari 2600, Intellivision, and ColecoVision) gave Nintendo a huge boost in profit.

In 1980, Nintendo launched its handheld video game series, the Game & Watch, developed by Gunpei Yokoi. The pocket-sized games were a worldwide success.

In 1983, Nintendo launched the Family Computer home video game system in Japan alongside ports of its most popular arcade titles. In 1985 the system launched in North America as the Nintendo Entertainment System, and was accompanied by Super Mario Bros., which remains one of the biggest selling video games of all time. In 1989, Gunpei Yokoi developed the Game Boy handheld video game system. Nintendo is the longest-surviving video game console manufacturer to date, and has produced the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Nintendo 64, Nintendo Gamecube, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Pokémon Mini and Virtual Boy systems.

Nintendo’s current video game systems are the Nintendo DS Lite and Wii.

Slogans

• Now you're playing with power! (1986–1992)*
• Have you had your fun today? (1991–1992)
• The best play here! (1992–1994)
• Play it loud! (1994–1996)
• Get N or get out! (in reference to the Nintendo 64) (1996–2000)
• Who are you? (accompanied photos of civilians with Nintendo character faces pasted over) (2002–2005)
• Too much fun! (in reference to all Nintendo products) (2002–2004)
• Touching is good. (Nintendo DS) (2004–present) **
• Touch Me (Nintendo DS)(2005–2006)
• Wii would like to play. (Wii) (2006–present)

* Variations of this slogan were sometimes used. In Game Boy game commercials, it would read "Now you're playing with power...Portable power!" For Super NES, it would be "Now you're playing with power...Super power!"

** Since the release of the Nintendo DS Lite in North America, this slogan has not been used for DS games.

Gaming systems

Offices and locations

Nintendo Company, Limited (NCL), the main branch of the company, is based in Minami-ku, Kyoto, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan (34°58′11.89″N 135°45′22.33″E / 34.9699694, 135.7562028). Nintendo of America (NOA), its American division, is based in Redmond, Washington. It has distribution centers in Atlanta, Georgia, and North Bend, Washington. Nintendo of Canada (NoC) is based in Richmond, British Columbia, with its own distribution centre in Toronto, Ontario. Nintendo Australia, its Australian division, is based in Melbourne, Victoria, and Nintendo of Europe, the European division, is based in Großostheim, Germany. iQue, Ltd., a Chinese joint venture with its founder, Doctor Wei Yen, and Nintendo, manufactures and distributes official Nintendo consoles and games for the mainland Chinese market, under the iQue brand. Nintendo also established Nintendo of Korea (NoK) on July 7, 2006.

See also