How did Nintendo go from a small card company in Kyoto, Japan to a global juggernaut in the video game industry? They were able to able to mesmerize us all with fun and new intuitive ways to enjoy a medium that was only looked at as toys, but now is a medium that is enjoyed by every one of all ages. To quote the former president of Nintendo, the late Satoru Iwata said, “Above all, video games are meant to be just one thing: Fun for everyone” with that philosophy Nintendo was able to shape, save, and innovate the home video game entertainment market. As a gamer I idolized Nintendo since I was a child, providing a fun and satisfying experience with wonderful stories that provided escapism from childhood trauma and I am forever grateful towards them. Nintendo Koppai was established in 1889 in Kyoto, Japan founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi. The company initially started as manufactures of Hanafuda cards, specialized Japanese playing cards that featured beautiful illustrations of flowers that was used for playing Japanese card games. In the beginning it was considered by many not to be a very popular form of cards due to whatever reason; Fusajiro saw an opportunity to reinvent the cards by producing hand drawn cards that were from mulberry tree bark. During that time the Japanese government banned gambling, but playing Hanafuda was considered still legal, because of the Yakuza (organized crime syndicates) used these playing cards as a way to gamble. Soon after the cards began to
Nintendo take the actions it did? How did these affect the value created by the industry?
The life of Nintendo dates back to 1889 when an enteprenueur by the name of Fusjiro Yamauchi began making Japanese playing cards. By 1933 Nintendo was born and the company was established officially as an unlimited partnership titles Yamauchi Nintendo & Co. These hanafuda
In 1985, Nintendo launched their first at-home console, known as the Family Computer (Nintendo Entertainment System in the U.S.). Miyamoto created the two
In 1889, Fusajiro Yamauchi founded a small company in a building in the heart of Kyoto, Japan.(Nintendo History. n.d.) The company's purpose was to create a form of Japanese playing card called Hanafuda. He called this company Nintendo. Over the next century Nintendo grew and expanded, changing its products and services, and attempting new things as the times changed. Then, during the 1970s Nintendo fixed its eyes on a new market, video games. Nintendo showcases how a small card company can become a gaming powerhouse and a legend for companies and gamers alike.
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. In 1956, Nintendo’s president Hiroshi Yamauchi began to realize the limitation of playing cards business because it was viewed as a mere tool of gambling. In order to overcome the limitation, Nintendo struck a deal with Disney in 1959 which allowed them to put Disney characters on their playing cards. This opens up new markets where both children and homemakers started purchasing playing cards.5 Due to this success; Nintendo went public in 1962 and became a listed company in Osaka Stock Exchange. Soon after, Nintendo started to venture in
Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have been competing for a decade with Sony dominating the market throughout most of the years because of their superior technological products. The video games industry faces an entirely new rivalry situation. In 2008, Sony lost its strong position on the market, because of Nintendo’s success with their dynamic Wii over Sony’s high-tech PlayStation 3 and Windows’ Xbox 360. Although the Wii was technologically much less advanced than PS3 and Xbox 360, the Wii's cheaper price, ease of use, innovative motion-sensitive controller, and simple but fun games, made the console a hit all demographics from 9 to 65 years old, male and female. All these factors resulted in Nintendo’s Wii dominating sales and surpassing Sony’s by an impressive ratio of 2:1.
Nintendo was not always the sweet gaming company of today; it was originally the Marufuku Company, founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi, and they made paper playing cards, believe it or not, called Hanafuda cards. The Marufuku Company had originally made these cards for Russian prisoners during the Russian-Japan war of 1904 to 1905. After this, they started exporting these cards to Japanese towns in South America, Korea, and Australia. This
When talking about gaming, there has always been one name that stands above the rest, Nintendo. Nintendo Co., Ltd. was first founded September 23rd, 1889, and based out of Kyoto, Japan, where they produced and marketed playing cards. In 1977 the company released its first video game system, Color TV-Game, which is considered a first generation video gaming system, eight generations later and the Wii U was born.
Nintendo Company, Ltd is based in Kyoto Japan. They are recognized as being the "worldwide leader in the creation of interactive entertainment" (Nintendo, 2002, PG). Some of the world's best selling video gaming has come from the Nintendo Company, including Game Boy and Nintendo 64. In America Nintendo is based in Redmond, Washington. It is interesting to note that in American households nearly 40% have a Nintendo product.
Nintendo first started in 1889 under the leadership of Fusajiro Yamauchi, who named the company at first “Nintendo Koppai” (Jones, 2013). He started his company by selling Hanafuda Cards; these are simple cards that are used to play multiple games – much like the more common standardized 52 playing card sets (Jones, 2013). The name Nintendo originally is a Japanese metaphor and basically means “leave luck to heaven” (How Nintendo, Lego, Adidas and 17 other Major Companies Got Their Names, 2013). The Nintendo’s Corporations’ real boost in there business was their trip to the United States when Hiroshi Yamauchi, Fusajiro’s grandson, met the largest card manufacturer in the country and was stunned by their small offices (Jones, 2013). After that, he concluded that his business was limited and has a small angle and he has to think of an alternative in order to keep his place in the market (Jones, 2013). Their first innovation came by having a joint venture with Disney in order to print their characters on their cards that helped the business to jump into an entire new market that helped them in becoming global and grew to be known overseas (Jones, 2013). Moreover, with their new young audience target, Nintendo created books that explained new games that could be played with these cards (Jones, 2013). After that, the company with their new venture decided to go public in 1962 and that helped them in having other joint ventures (Jones, 2013). A sample of these
Nintendo then began selling a major part of their progress to the company today, the Beam Gun series of games. When the idea of arcade games was found, they ended up creating arcade games, one of which was Donkey Kong. Nintendo then started creating video games for consoles, and then then created one of their own, the Family Computer System, or Famicom. However, they ran into trouble even before they started selling video games in America, because people were buying exported systems from Japan. Fortunately, Nintendo realized the problem, that too many other companies were flooding the market with bad games. Then, in 1985, the Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES, was released in America. Nintendo received major success. Unfortunately, Nintendo was hated by fans and other licensees for putting microchips in their products so they couldn’t be replicated. Nintendo survived by striking deals with Pepsi and Toys ‘R’ Us for special distribution deals. That’s the history of Nintendo, how they started as a playing card company, and evolved into a video game company.
In the gaming industry you probably heard of “It’s -a -me -Mario” which is Nintendo’s trademark character. Nintendo started off as a Japanese card game maker into electronic gaming in a way the term today we call console gaming. What started as a Popeye concept kind of safe the girl game which is titled Mario vs Donkey Kong became a hit in retro arcade gaming came to the convenience of playing at home which is what we call a game console. It then became a bigger impact for the company when Shigeru Miyamoto father of the character “Mario” created Super Mario world it became Nintendo’s Company icon. Running
The company that is currently known as Nintendo Co., Ltd. has a much longer history than many would assume. According to the “Corporate History” webpage on the official
The main obstacle facing a start-up video game console company from entering the industry is saturation of the market from the larger video game console makers or the “big three” Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony. The big three tend to release new game consoles around the same time frame and compete head to head for sales. During the time frame it is impossible for a new entry to jump into the fray. 2010 was a banner year for video console sales Sony’s PS3 sold 14 million units followed by Microsoft’s Xbox 360 13 million and surprisingly Nintendo’s Wii led the big three selling 17 million units. After the 2010 release of all three consoles sales started to decline for each company. Nintendo took the largest sales loss at 72% in 2013 only 747,000 were sold compared