Nintendo

Nintendo (Japanese: 任天堂; {{Template:nasdaq|NTDOF}}, {{Template:tyo|7974}}) was originally founded in 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi to produce handmade hanafuda cards, for use in a Japanese playing card game of the same name. Over the years, it became a video game company, one of the most powerful in the industry. Aside from video games, Nintendo is also the majority owner of the Seattle Mariners, a Major League Baseball team.

History

1889–1968

Nintendo started as a small Japanese business by Fusajiro Yamauchi in 1889 as Nintendo Koppai. The name, "Ninten" roughly translates as "leave luck to heaven" or "in heaven's hands". Based in Kyoto, Japan, the business produced and marketed a playing card game called Hanafuda. The cards, which were all handmade, soon began to gain popularity and Yamauchi had to hire assistants to mass produce cards to keep up with the high demand.

Related Topics:
Fusajiro Yamauchi - 1889 - Kyoto, Japan - Hanafuda

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In 1929, Yamauchi retired from the company and allowed his son-in-law, Sekiryo Yamauchi, to take over the company as president. In 1933 Sekiryo Yamauchi established a joint venture with another company and thus renamed the company Yamauchi Nintendo & Co. In 1947 Sekiryo established the company Marufuku Co. Ltd to distribute the Hanafuda cards, as well as several other brands of cards that had been introduced by Nintendo.

Related Topics:
1929 - Sekiryo Yamauchi - 1933 - 1947

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Hiroshi Yamauchi, the grandson of Sekiryo Yamauchi, took office as the president of Nintendo during the year of 1949. He renamed Yamauchi Nintendo & Co. Nintendo Playing Card Company, Ltd., and, in 1951 he renamed their distribution company, Marufuku Co. Ltd., to Nintendo Karuta Co. Ltd.

Related Topics:
Hiroshi Yamauchi - 1949 - 1951

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In 1959, Nintendo struck a deal with Disney to have them allow Nintendo to use Disney's characters on Nintendo's playing cards. The deal was a success and sold at least 600,000 cards in a single year.

Related Topics:
1959 - Disney

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Following this, in 1963, Nintendo Playing Card Company Ltd. was renamed Nintendo Co. Ltd. by Hiroshi and Nintendo began to experiment in other areas of business. During the period of time between 1963 and 1968, Nintendo founded a taxi company and a "love hotel", as well as producing toys, games and several other things (including a vacuum cleaner). Both the taxi company and love hotel ended in failure and were eventually closed.

Related Topics:
1963 - 1968 - Taxi - Love hotel - Toy - Game - Vacuum cleaner

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1969–1980

In 1969 Nintendo established a games division within their company. In the following years, Nintendo produced several successful toys and games, the most notable being their beam guns and Ultrahand, an arm expansion toy. Most of these inventions were the ideas of a new Nintendo employee, Gunpei Yokoi.

Related Topics:
1969 - Beam gun - Gunpei Yokoi

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In 1973 Nintendo expanded on their light gun idea with the introduction of The Laser Clay Shooting System, which used solar cells to simulate clay pigeon shooting. The Laser Clay Shooting System was another huge success. In 1974 the same idea was reused with the introduction of Wild Gunman, which was a laser gun game where a player would attempt to draw a light gun and shoot at an image of a gunman before the gunman "shot back". Wild Gunman was exported to the USA and Europe.

Related Topics:
1973 - Solar cell - 1974 - Wild Gunman - USA - Europe

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During 1975 Yamauchi began doing research into a new American trend in which one could connect a device to a television in order to play simple games, called video games. Other companies, such as Atari, had had some success in this field and Hiroshi decided it would be a good business venture for Nintendo to delve into. In the same year, he negotiated a deal with Magnavox to allow Nintendo to produce and sell the Magnavox Odyssey, a simple video game console. Since Nintendo didn't have the necessary equipment to manufacture these machines, they created a pact with Mitsubishi, who would manufacture them.

Related Topics:
1975 - Television - Video games - Atari - Magnavox - Magnavox Odyssey - Video game console - Mitsubishi

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With Nintendo's new relationship with Mitsubishi, in 1977 the two companies released their joint effort video game machine, the Color TV Game 6, which allowed players to play six different very simple versions of tennis, which sold millions of units. 1977 is also the year Shigeru Miyamoto joined Nintendo, working as an art designer for arcade games.

Related Topics:
1977 - Tennis - Shigeru Miyamoto - Arcade game

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Soon, Nintendo released several other successful home video game consoles, including an advanced version of the Color TV Game 6, called the Color TV Game 15, a racing game, and another game called Kusure, or Blockbuster .

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In 1979 Nintendo began design work for what was to be their first handheld game console, the Game & Watch, which was another idea of Gunpei Yokoi. It was released in 1980, which is also the year that Nintendo announced the addition of a new wholly owned subsidiary, located in New York, named Nintendo of America. The Game & Watch was very successful.

Related Topics:
1979 - Handheld game console - Game & Watch - 1980 - New York

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1981–1982

Also in 1980, Nintendo began the production of arcade games. These arcade games were mostly shoot-'em-ups sometimes using Nintendo's light gun, going under names such as Hellfire or Sheriff. However, this direction changed when Shigeru Miyamoto was given the task of repurposing hardware left over after the commercial failure of the arcade alien shoot-'em-up Radar Scope. Mr. Miyamoto went in a completely different direction and began work on Donkey Kong, with the help of Yokoi, which was an arcade game starring the attempts of a carpenter trying to rescue his girlfriend from an ape. Although originally frowned upon by fellow Nintendo workers, the release of Donkey Kong was a huge success and the game sold over 65,000 units, making it the most popular arcade game of the year.

Related Topics:
1980 - Arcade game - Radar Scope - Donkey Kong - Carpenter - Ape

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During the same year, Nintendo, probably inspired by the success of Atari and several other companies, set to work on a new, more advanced multicartridge video game console. They knew that in order for the system to be successful, since other companies had already released multicartridge systems, that their console would have to be better than the rest, and still carry a feasible price.

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In 1982 Nintendo released their sequel to Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr. as an arcade game. Although not selling as many units as the original Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr. still sold well, selling around 35,000 units. This was also the year they established Nintendo of America Inc. in Redmond, Washington and merged the New York subsidiary into it.

Related Topics:
1982 - Donkey Kong Jr.

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1983–1989

In July 1983, Nintendo released their Famicom (Family Computer) system in Japan, which was their first attempt at a cartridge-based video game console. The system was very successful, selling over 500,000 units within two months. The console was also technically superior and inexpensive when compared to its competitors, priced at about $100 USD. However, after a few months of the consoles selling well, Nintendo received complaints that some Famicom consoles would freeze when the player attempted to play certain games. The fault was found in a malfunctioning chip and Nintendo decided to recall all Famicon units currently on store shelves, which cost them almost half a million dollars USD.

Related Topics:
1983 - Famicom - Japan - USD

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It was also in 1983 that Nintendo planned to release the Famicom in the USA. In the USA, however, the video game market had almost completely died out due to the large amount of low quality games. Nintendo decided that to avoid this, they would only allow games that received their "Seal of Quality" to be sold for the Famicom, using a 10NES lockout system to prevent unlicensed games.

Related Topics:
1983 - Seal of Quality - 10NES

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By 1984 the Famicom had proven to be a huge continued success in Japan. However, Nintendo also encountered a problem with the sudden popularity of the Famicom — they did not have the resources to manufacture games at the same pace they were selling them. To combat this, Yamauchi decided to divide his employees into three groups, the groups being Research & Development 1 (R&D 1), Research & Development 2 (R&D 2) and Research & Development 3 (R&D 3). R&D 1 was headed by Gunpei Yokoi, R&D 2 was headed by Masayuki Uemura, and R&D 3 was headed by Takeda Genyo. Using these groups, Yamauchi hoped Nintendo would produce a low amount of high quality games rather than a high amount of average quality games.

Related Topics:
1984 - Gunpei Yokoi - Masayuki Uemura - Takeda Genyo

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In 1985 Nintendo announced they were going to release the Famicom worldwide – except under a different name – the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) – and with a different design. In order to ensure the localization of the highest quality games by third-party developers, Nintendo of America limited the number of game titles third-party developers could release in a single year to five. Konami, the first third-party company that was allowed to make cartridges for the Famicom, later challenged this rule by creating a spinoff company, Ultra Games, to release additional games in a single year, although other manufactures followed the same tactic as Konami. In this year, Super Mario Bros. was also released for the Famicom in Japan and became a large success.

Related Topics:
1985 - Nintendo Entertainment System - Konami - Ultra Games - Super Mario Bros.

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They soon began shipping the Nintendo Entertainment System to the USA in 1986, along with 15 games, sold separately, and in the USA, it outsold its competitors on a ten to one scale. This was also the year that Metroid (Japan) and (the Japanese version) were released.

Related Topics:
1986 - Metroid

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In 1988, Nintendo unveiled Nintendo Power, a monthly news and strategy magazine from Nintendo that served to advertise new games. The first issue published was July/August edition, which spotlighted the NES game Super Mario Bros. 2. Nintendo Power is still being published today with over 190 issues.

Related Topics:
1988 - Nintendo Power - Super Mario Bros. 2

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In 1989, 100 years after the company was started, Nintendo released the Game Boy, along with the accompanying game Tetris(widely considered one of the greatest games of all time). The Game Boy sold extremely well, eventually becoming the best selling video game console of all time, a record it holds to this day. Later, Super Mario Land was also released for the Game Boy, which sold 14 million copies worldwide. 1989 was also the year that Nintendo announced a sequel to their popular video game console, the Famicom, to be called the Super Famicom.

Related Topics:
1989 - Game Boy - Tetris - Super Mario Land - Super Famicom

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By the end of the 1980s the courts found Nintendo guilty of anti-trust activities because it had abused its relationship with third party developers and created a monopoly in the gaming industry by not allowing developers to make games for any other platforms.

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1990–1995

The Super Famicom was released in Japan on November 21st, 1990. The system's launch was widely successful, and the Super Famicom was sold out across Japan within three days. In August 1991, the Super Famicom was launched in the U.S. under the name "the Super Nintendo Entertainment System" (SNES). The SNES was released in Europe in 1992.

Related Topics:
November 21 - 1990 - 1991 - Super Nintendo Entertainment System - 1992

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1992 was the year in which Gunpei Yokoi and the rest of R&D 1 began planning on a new virtual reality console to be called the Virtual Boy. Hiroshi Yamauchi also bought shares of the Seattle Mariners in 1992.

Related Topics:
Virtual reality - Virtual Boy - Seattle Mariners

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In 1993 Nintendo announced plans to develop a new 64-bit console codenamed Project Reality, that would be capable of rendering fully 3D environments and characters. In 1994, Nintendo also claimed that Project Reality would be renamed Ultra 64 in the US. The Ultra 64 moniker was unveiled in arcades on the Nintendo branded fighting game "Killer Instinct" and the racing game "Cruisin' USA". "Killer Instinct" was later released on the SNES. Soon after, Nintendo realised the mistake they had made in choosing a name for their new console that the Konami corporation owned the rights to. Specifically, only Konami would have the rights to release games for the new system called Ultra Football, Ultra Tennis, etc. So, in 1995 Nintendo changed the final name of the system to the Nintendo 64, and announced that it would be released in 1996. They later showed previews of the system and several games, including Super Mario 64, to the media and public.

Related Topics:
1993 - 3D - 1994 - Konami - Ultra - 1995 - Nintendo 64 - 1996 - Super Mario 64

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1995 is also the year that Nintendo purchased part of Rareware, a choice that would prove to be a wise investment.

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In the mid-90s Nintendo of America eased up on its stringent policies on blood and violence. After Sega created the Mega CD (Sega CD in North America) add on for its 16-bit machine, Nintendo initially contracted with Sony to develop an add-on CD-ROM drive for the SNES, but after Sony announced a standalone version of the drive, Nintendo terminated the contract and went with Philips. Nintendo announced their alliance with Philips at the same conference that Sony announced their CD-ROM drive. Nothing happened about the addon drive in regard to the SNES, but Sony took the time and research and began to spin it off into a new product, the PlayStation.

Related Topics:
90s - Sega - Mega CD - Sega CD - Sony - CD-ROM - Philips - PlayStation

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In 1995 Nintendo released the Virtual Boy in Japan. The console sold poorly, but Nintendo still said they had hope for it and continued to release several other games and attempted a release in the U.S., which was another disaster.

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Also in 1995, Nintendo found themselves in a competitive situation. Competitor Sega introduced their 32-bit Saturn, while newcomer Sony introduced the 32-bit PlayStation. Sony's fierce marketing campaigns ensued, and it started to cut into Nintendo and Sega's market share.

Related Topics:
1995 - Saturn - PlayStation

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1996–2001

On June 23 1996, the Nintendo 64 (N64) was released in Japan and was instantly a huge hit, selling over 500,000 units on the first day of its release. On September 29 1996, Nintendo released the Nintendo 64 in the USA, and it too was a success.

Related Topics:
June 23 - September 29 - Nintendo 64

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Also in 1996, Nintendo also released the Game Boy Pocket, a smaller version of the original Game Boy. On August 15, about a week after the release of the Game Boy Pocket, Gunpei Yokoi resigned from his position in Nintendo, at the age of 56. He helped in the creation of a competitor system named the Wonderswan, utilizing the skills he gained in the creation of the Game Boy.

Related Topics:
Game Boy Pocket - August 15 - Wonderswan

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On August 1 1997, the Nintendo 64 was finally released in Europe. Pocket Monsters (known as "Pokémon" in the US and Europe) was also released in Japan in 1997, which was a success. On the October 4 1997, Gunpei Yokoi died in a car accident at the age of 57. The Pokémon franchise was proving so popular that for a brief time, Nintendo took back their place as the supreme power in the games industry. Nintendo released their handheld Pokémon Mini during 2000.

Related Topics:
August 1 - 1997 - Pocket Monsters - Pokémon - October 4 - Pokémon Mini - 2000

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On October 13 1998 the Game Boy Color was released in Japan. It was soon also released in North America (November 19) and in Europe (November 23).

Related Topics:
October 13 - 1998 - Game Boy Color - November 19 - November 23

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The Nintendo 64DD, an add on to the Nintendo 64, was released in Japan on December 1 1999, after much delay. It was never released elsewhere.

Related Topics:
Nintendo 64DD - Nintendo 64 - December 1 - 1999

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Nintendo released the Game Boy Advance in Japan on March 21 2001. This was followed by the North American launch on June 11 and the European launch on June 22. Nintendo released their GameCube home video game console on September 14 2001 in Japan. It was released in North America on November 18th of 2001, and on May 5 2002 in Europe.

Related Topics:
Game Boy Advance - March 21 - 2001 - June 11 - June 22 - GameCube - September 14 - November 18 - May 5 - 2002

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2002–present

In 2002, Hiroshi Yamauchi stepped down as the president of Nintendo and named Satoru Iwata his successor. Also, Nintendo and Chinese-American scientist Dr. Wei Yen co-founded iQue, a company that manufactures and distributes official Nintendo consoles and games for the mainland Chinese market, under the iQue brand.

Related Topics:
2002 - Hiroshi Yamauchi - Satoru Iwata - Chinese

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In late 2004, Nintendo announced plans to release a new brand of handheld, unrelated to the Game Boy — featuring two screens, one of which was touch-sensitive. The Nintendo DS, released on November 21, received over three million pre-orders. In addition to the touch screen, the DS can also create three-dimensional graphics, capable of somewhat surpassing those of the Nintendo 64, although it does not include hardware support for texture smoothing which results in more pixellated graphics than on the Nintendo 64.

Related Topics:
2004 - November 21

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President Satoru Iwata merged all of Nintendo's software designers under the EAD division, this was done to allocate more resources to Shigeru Miyamoto. As of 2005 Nintendo's internal development divisions are comprised of four groups (read Nintendo development divisions for more information).

Related Topics:
Satoru Iwata - Shigeru Miyamoto - 2005 - Nintendo development divisions

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• Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development
• Nintendo Integrated Research & Development
• Nintendo Software Production & Development
• Nintendo Technology & Development

On May 14 2005, Nintendo started up its first retail store in Rockefeller Center in New York City, called Nintendo World. It is two stories tall, and contains many kiosks of GameCube, Game Boy Advance, and Nintendo DS games. There are also display cases filled with things from Nintendo's past, including Hanafuda playing cards, Nintendo's first product. They celebrated the grand opening with a block party in Rockefeller Plaza. They plan to open the same store in other major U.S cities, those announced are Los Angeles, Dallas, Boston, and Philadelphia. Pontential cities are San Francisco, St. Louis, Buffalo, and Chicago.

Related Topics:
May 14 - 2005 - New York City - Los Angeles - Dallas - Boston - Philadelphia - San Francisco - St. Louis - Buffalo - Chicago

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