History of Nintendo | Sunday Observer

History of Nintendo

2 April, 2023

Nintendo is a multinational video game company based out of Japan, and is one of the most recognizable names in all of gaming.

With a history that predates video gaming as a whole, Nintendo had a large role in popularizing the industry from the brink of collapse and is responsible for revolutionizing how people now spend a lot of their free time. With decades of experience at the forefront of gaming, Nintendo has created countless iconic franchises such as Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Pokemon that millions around the world enjoy to this day.

Nintendo as a company was founded well over a century ago in 1889 Kyoto, Japan, as Nintendo Karuta, a playing card company by Fusajiro Yamauchi. Hanafuda as a game had its own turbulent history at the time, as it became the de facto card game in the country since traditional numbered playing cards were banned as gambling.

Most card producers stopped making Hanafuda as the game was used by the Yakuza as a replacement, allowing Nintendo to flourish as one of the biggest makers of the cards. This success allowed Nintendo to branch out to many different avenues as post World War II Japan was much less interested in recreational activities, forcing them to diversify into other industries such as instant foods, vacuum cleaners, taxi cab services and they were even rumoured to own love hotels. All these new ventures failed, but Nintendo soon shifted its focus to toys and games instead,

Nintendo had its foot in the door of video games from quite nearly the beginning, being the Japanese distributor for the world’s first commercial home video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey.

Home console

In 1977, Nintendo created their first home console, the Colour TV Game, which had immediate success in Japan. But it wouldn’t be until the 1980s that Nintendo became a major player in the world stage of video gaming.

In 1980, Nintendo released its first arcade game, Radar Scope, which was not successful in Japan but performed better in the United States. In an effort to salvage their investment, Nintendo of America hired a young designer named Shigeru Miyamoto to create a new game using the same hardware.

Miyamoto’s creation, Donkey Kong, was a massive success, launching Nintendo into the spotlight of the video game industry. During this time, Nintendo would also release the Game and Watch, one of the first commercially successful handheld game consoles, which also innovated the d-pad, a staple of gaming to this day.

Following the success of Donkey Kong, Nintendo released its first home console, the Family Computer, colloquially known as the Famicom in 1985, which was an immediate success. In just three years, nearly 20% of homes in Japan owned a Famicom, turning the console and Nintendo into a household name.

In the West during this time, the gaming industry was still reeling from the video game crash of 1983, but Nintendo redesigned the Famicom into the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), and released it into the US despite the perceived risk. The NES was a massive success and almost single handedly revived video gaming in the US.

The NES and Famicom consoles featured groundbreaking classic games such as’ Super Mario Bros’, ‘Metroid’ and ‘The Legend of Zelda’ which would go on to become some of the most beloved video game franchises of all time. Nintendo continued to dominate the industry with the release of the ‘Game Boy’ in 1989, a handheld console that revolutionized portable gaming, and despite initial skepticism, alongside its 1998 sequel Game Boy Color, would go on to become the most sold console of its time, and 4th most sold of all time.

Stiff competition

In the following decades, Nintendo faced stiff competition from companies such as Sega and Sony, but continued to innovate and produce classic games and game consoles. Such as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), Nintendo 64, GameCube, Nintendo DS, Wii, and most recently, the Nintendo Switch.

While most of its competitors iterated on their existing console with not much changing besides performance, Nintendo was notable for always innovating something completely new unheard of with every successive gaming generation.

Every Nintendo console release was an event that would change the world of gaming, introducing a brand new way of playing, and a ton of games that would cement themselves in fans’ hearts until Nintendo’s next release which would do it all over again. More than any other video game developer, Nintendo games are characterized by being ‘Fun’ above all else, a design philosophy that has led to a lot of their best games being timeless classics that have defined gaming for countless fans around the world.

However, Nintendo is not immune to legitimate criticism. Nintendo is notoriously litigious, and very protective of its intellectual property, to the point of taking its own fans to court over fan works. As a company that always seeks to innovate, Nintendo also has a bad habit of mistreating its older games, most of them getting no attention or legitimate way of playing, leading to a lot of its thousands of games being lost to history.

Despite this, Nintendo has not survived for 130+ years for no reason. Nintendo’s impact on video games and popular culture is impossible to ignore. From the popularity of its characters and franchises to the way that people consume media and interact with each other, Nintendo has had a profound influence on the world of entertainment. With new consoles and games constantly being released, it is clear that Nintendo will continue to have a significant cultural impact for years to come.

Comments