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History of Nintendo

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The history of Nintendo traces back to 1889, when it was founded to produce handmade hanafuda. Nintendo Co., Ltd. (任天堂株式会社, Nintendō kabushikigaisha) is a Japanese multinational consumer electronics company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It eventually became one of the most prominent figures in today's video game industry, being the world's largest video game company by revenue.^[1]

Contents

• 11889–1949: As a card company
• 21949–1965: Disney tie-in and public listing
• 31966–1972: Toy company and new ventures
• 41972–present
  • 4.1Game & Watch and Nintendo Entertainment System
  • 4.2Game Boy and Super NES
  • 4.3Nintendo 64 and Game Boy Color
  • 4.4Game Boy Advance and GameCube
  • 4.5Nintendo DS and Wii
  • 4.6Nintendo 3DS and Wii U
  • 4.7Nintendo Switch
• 5References
• 6Further reading
• 7External links

1889–1949: As a card company[edit]

Nintendo poster from early Meiji Era
Nintendo was founded as Yamauchi Nintendo (山内任天堂) by Fusajiro Yamauchi on September 23, 1889.^[2][3][4] Based in Kyoto, Japan, the business produced and marketed hanafuda. The name "Nintendo" is commonly assumed to mean "leave luck to heaven", but there are no historical records to validate this assumption.^[5] The cards, which were all handmade, soon began to gain in popularity, and Yamauchi had to hire assistants to mass-produce cards to keep up with the demand.

Fusajiro Yamauchi did not have a son to take over the family business. Following the common Japanese tradition, he adopted his son-in-law, Sekiryo Kaneda, who then legally took his wife's last name of Yamauchi. In 1929, Fusajiro Yamauchi retired from the company and allowed Sekiryo Kaneda to take over the company as president. In 1933, Sekiryo Kaneda established a joint venture with another company and renamed the company Yamauchi Nintendo & Co.

In 1947, Sekiryo established a distribution company, Marufuku Co., Ltd.,^[6] to distribute the hanafuda,

well as several other types of cards produced by Nintendo. Sekiryo Kaneda also had only daughters, so again his son-in-law (Shikanojo Inaba, renamed Shikanojo Yamauchi) was adopted into the family. Shikanojo later abandoned his family and did not become company president. Subsequently, his