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WhileNintendomay be a well-known and beloved company now, one of the biggest in all of Japan, in fact, it was not always the renowned gaming company that it is today. That’s not to say they started their business from humble beginnings, but that the concept of video games did not exist when they were founded.
The history of Japan is a fascinating one, from simple playing cards to renowned video games beloved the world over. As a company, Nintendo has had plenty of ups and downs, though has managed to come out the other end stronger than they ever have been before. Here’s just a quick look at how Nintendo became the company it is today.
When Was Nintendo Founded?
The Hanafuda Days
Back onSeptember 23rd 1889, Nintendo was formed by Fusajiro Yamauchi to create Hanafuda, a type of Japanese playing card. This simple concept proved a success, though nothing astronomical, and allowed Yamauchi to retire in 1929, with his son-in-law Seikryo Kaneda taking over the company in his place.
The burgeoning business continued apace until 1956, when Hiroshi Yamauchi visited the United States to discuss growing his own playing card business in Nintendo. Here, he learned thatplaying cards were a rather limited business. With playing cards already dwindling in popularity in Japan and there clearly not being a larger market in the United States, Yamauchi made a new plan.
He spoke with Disney and in 1958,Nintendo had begun printing cards bearing Disney characters, massively boosting their sales and popularity. So immense was this success that Yamauchi turned Nintendo from a private family business into a publicly traded company in 1962, and a year later officially renamed the company simply ‘Nintendo’.
Pivot To Toymaking
At this point, Yamauchi had known that playing cards were not enough to keep Nintendo afloat, and so spent the next few years experimenting in new industries with the safety provided by the Dinsey-branded playing cards. These includedfood, vacuums, and toys,the last of which was the only one that had any lasting impact. Yet faced with other toy companies already dominating the market, Nintendo had to innovate even further.
On a chance day in 1966, Yamauchi saw one of the assembly line workers,Gunpei Yokoi, playing with a toy of his own creation. Admiring the unique nature of it, Yamauchi asked it to be made into a proper product. This toy, theUltra Hand, proved a massive success, and so Yokoi was moved to product development instead, cementing Nintendo as a toy company for the proceeding future.
The Ultra Hand may sound familiar to you, as it is one ofLink’s abilities in Tears of the Kingdom.
Nintendo would go on to make plenty more toys following this, many of them aiming at a more premium market than what other toy companies in Japan had been aimed at during the period. One of these toys was the Nintendo Beam Gun, which wasthe first-eversolar-poweredlight gun.
Entry Into Video Games
Light Guns And Arcade Machines
With Nintendo’s toys leaning more towards premium entertainment and being made in cooperation with other companies, its ideas were naturally inclined towards newer technologies for it to take advantage of. The interaction withthe American company Magnavoxwould herald the beginnings of Nintendo’s future involvement in video games.
In 1972, Nintendo assisted with the launch of the Magnavox Odyssey due to their usage of Nintendo’s light gun technology, and in turn, Nintendo acquired the distribution rights for the Magnavox Odyssey in Japan in 1974. Wanting to capitalise on the growing video game market, Nintendo also releasedtheir first-ever arcade game, EVR Race in 1975. Then in 1978, Nintendo created its first-ever home console, theColor TV-Game.
In 1980, Nintendo established an office in America, its first overseas division since its foundation in 1889.
In 1981, Nintendo’s video game ambitions would be solidified withthe release of Donkey Kong for arcades, designed byShigeru Miyamoto. The game, and subsequent arcade games they created, were a runaway success, and other companies were hired to bring these arcade games to home consoles. Seeing great success from this,Nintendo decided to focus on home consoles entirely.
Their first endeavour in this regard was actually in 1980 with the Game and Watch series. This success prompted them to makea dedicated home system that could run multiple games, rather than those pre-programmed into the system.
The NES And Nintendo’s Home Console Push
The NES was released in 1983as the Family Computer, typically shortened toFamicon. It was a massive success even taking into account a controversy with a malfunctioning chip that caused games to freeze during play. With this success in their home market,they attempted to move the console to Americawith the help of Atari.
This deal fell through, and then America facedthe great video game crash of 1983, effectively wiping out the majority of American companies involved in the industry. Seeing as they had no competition, Nintendo took a chance and released the Famicom as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), which once again proved a massive success.
In 1985 camethe release of Super Mario Bros., a game that would become the face of Nintendo in the following decades. Fearing the same fate as Atari and other such American video game companies, Nintendo became incredibly selective with the games they released, allowing only what they classed as passing their renowned ‘Seal of Quality’ to be released. This proved a winning strategy for them and pushed them to create a successor to the NES.
Konami was the first company authorised by Nintendoto develop and release games for the NES.
Dominating The Handheld Market
While Nintendo only kept growing,it did not allow its ambitions to lie only in home consoles. The company had weathered many temperamental markets already and knew not to become too reliant on any single revenue stream.
This resulted inthe Game Boy being released in 1989, one of the greatest-selling consoles of all time. Whilethe SNES would also be released the following yearas the follow-up to the NES, it was the Game Boy that was truly eye-catching to the public, lack of a backlight notwithstanding.
The SNES became a massive success once again, with Nintendo hoping to push its life cycle even further with the Game Boy keeping them safely profitable. This led toan early partnership with Sonyto create a disc-based attachment for the SNES, though this partnership fell apart for unspecified reasons. Ironically, the failed development of the Nintendo PlayStation wouldlead to the eventual creation of the Sony PlayStation, and the loss of Nintendo’s leading position in the home console market.
Here’s what theNintendo PlayStation prototype looked like, in case you were curious how similar it was to either the SNES or original PlayStation.
Dwindling Home Market And Growth Of Handhelds
Nintendo released the Nintendo 64 in 1996, a home console focused on producing games with 3D graphics. This console, though an overall success, did not reach the success of prior home consoles, especially considering Sony’s greater push into the market with the original PlayStation in 1994. This led to Nintendo puttingan even greater focus on the handheld market.
In 1995, Pokemon was first released for the Game Boy. As you’re likely aware,this was a massive successfor both Nintendo and Pokemon, with Nintendo still holding a third of the shares of the Pokemon Company to this day. This was such a success that Pokemon isone of the biggest media franchises in the world.
Nintendo followed up the Game Boy in 1998 withthe Game Boy Color, even allowing prior games to now beplayed with coloras well as new games to be made with more specific colors. Pokemon Yellow was launched alongside it as a showcase of its new capabilities. While the home market dwindled, Nintendo only kept growing with handhelds.
The Game Boy Color was succeeded bythe Game Boy Advance in 2001, and the N64 by the Gamecube. Like the previous era, the handheld console was an undeniable success while the home console only further solidified Nintendo’s decline in this sector.
This in time led toNintendo creating the DS,a successor to the Game Boy that focused more on a unique gaming experience that could not be had anywhere else.
DS means Dual Screenby the way, in case that was ever on your mind.
Creation Of The Nintendo Direct
In 2011, Nintendo launched a new form of presentation that would in time go on to change the gaming industry entirely, and those wereNintendo Directs.
Nintendo Directs wereNintendo’s own way of presenting all the information on their products, be they games or consoles, in a pre-recorded, concise package without needing to rely on live events, unnecessary details, or who would actually be able to attend. By making them an online event, everyone could watch them simultaneously without having to sacrifice hours of their day.
At this point, it almost feels impossible to imagine a world pre-Nintendo Directs, so profound is the effect they’ve had. In the decade since the very first debuted, plenty of people have emulated them.State of Play, Capcom Showcase, Square Enix Presents, and some that boldly just call themselves Directs. In many ways, it could be argued that Nintendo Directs were the first nail in the coffin that led to the collapse of many in-person events.
Rise Of The Wii, Fall Of The Wii U
After the failure of the Gamecube and the success of the DS as a Game Boy successor, Nintendo had to try something new for home consoles, something to set them apart from the competition. While they could no longer lead in terms of power, they could excel in innovation. And so,the Wii was born.
After its launch in 2006,the Wii was a runaway hit, becoming one of the best-selling consoles in history, a title Nintendo continues to hold with multiple consoles. Being as comparatively cheap as it was, many picked it up andthe novelty of motion controls became a selling pointfor many. It wasn’t competing with anyone but occupying its own niche instead. How could you go wrong with the sequel to it?
By making it completely different.It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what went wrong with the Wii Uwhen there were so many issues. The name was off, the marketing was misguided, and the shared functionality implied by the name simply wasn’t all that present. When it launched in 2012, it went on to becomeone of Nintendo’s most disastrous consoles.
So disastrous that many of Nintendo’s board members, includingPresident Satoru Iwata took pay cutsto allow the company to recover and make sure no employees had to be laid off.
While Iwata indeed seemed to be a genuinely caring figure, it’s important to note that because of Japanese law,employees cannot be laid off without declaring bankruptcy.
While Nintendo had the money in the bank to survive the Wii U’s failure, it was one thatdid immense damage to its reputationat the same time they were winding down the lifecycle of the 3DS consoles.
The Passing Of Satoru Iwata
In 2015, the President of Nintendo,Satoru Iwata, passed away after a battle with cancer. He was responsible for much of Nintendo’s public image from a faceless company with great games and consoles to one that felt personable.
Nintendo Directs were pioneered by him, as was the production of the Wii and DS consoles. He had worked at Nintendo long before his role as presidenton the likes of Pokemon and Smash, working firsthand as a programmer on these titles. He was someone who worked in the trenches from the early days and knew what made both Nintendo’s games and consoles tick.
In the final months of his life, he had beenoverseeing the development of the Nintendo Switch, salvaging aspects of the ill-fated Wii U into something brand new.
Runaway Success Of The Nintendo Switch
Launched in March 2017, the Nintendo Switch marked Nintendo’s first new home console since 2012’s Wii U. This was an unusually short period between modern home consoles, though one that was sorely needed in Nintendo’s case. For years, rumours swirled as to what this new console would entail.
To call the Switch a success would be an understatement.It is currently the second best-selling console in history, with sales of over141 millionat present. Compare this to the Wii U’s comparativelypaltry 13 millionto know how much of a triumphant return this was.
Even more shocking is that more Nintendo Switch consoles (141 million) have been sold than games for the Wii U (103 million)
The Switch ushered inunprecedented third-party support for Nintendoas well after years of relying almost exclusively on first-party games. It also helped the company expand its userbase, shifting away from its previous image of appealing to just children and families. The Switch became everything Nintendo needed it to be to make them hopeful for the future once again.
Nintendo has seen plenty of booms and busts in their history of over 100 years, and they’ll likely see more as well. It’s unlikely they will ever have a face as prominent as Iwata again, nora console as successful as the Switch, though the future for Nintendo looks bright indeed.
