How Nintendo Became a Video Game and Cultural Juggernaut

by Leo Wilson, age 12

Nintendo is mainly known as a video game company but when the company started, video games were almost one hundred years in the future. Nintendo was founded in 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, who created a handmade playing card game called "Hanafuda." But the company decided to stop selling cards in the 1960s when profits slowed due to the game's association with crime and gambling.

In 1960, Nintendo was flipped on its head at the direction of its then current CEO Hiroshi Yamauchi, the great grandson of Fusajiro Yamauchi. Hiroshi wanted to make Nintendo more than just a card company, he wanted to enter the growing video game arcade business. Even though, strangely enough, Hiroshi never liked playing video games.

But it wasn't going to be easy. Companies like Atari, and Mattel were already developed in the market. Atari was making very popular video games like Pong and Space Invaders. In 1975 Nintendo launched their first video game called EVR Race. The game was not a success. Constant break downs, glitches in the system, and other mechanical issues lead arcade owners to dump the game because it was too expensive to maintain.

After EVR Race Nintendo continued to make arcade games, but had only limited commercial success. Nintendo’s luck changed in 1980, when a Nintendo artist and creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, developed the game Donkey Kong. The villain (Donkey Kong) was a massive gorilla with a lot of barrels while the hero (Jump Man) is trying to save the princes that Donkey Kong took. Donkey Kong was Nintendo's first massive success, being in arcades all across the world. Jump Man was soon renamed to Mario after the owner of one of the American headquarters, Mario Segal.

After the success of Donkey Kong, Nintendo made some more new games like Donkey Kong Jr, the and the icon of Nintendo: Super Mario Bros. Super Mario Bros. was a humongous success becoming the face of Nintendo and is still one of the most iconic games in the gaming world. After the success of Super Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong Nintendo made their first home gaming console: the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System). The NES was first released in Japan where it was called the Famicom, but two years later it was released all around the world. The NES helped gaming go back to its former glory. By 1989 Nintendo was able to develop the technology to make their first handheld console, the Game Boy. The Game Boy was not the first of its kind, but it was the most popular because of its design and the long battery life.

The success of Nintendo has at times been almost impossible to keep up with. Over the past 30 years Nintendo has made hundreds, possibly thousands of beloved characters from Mario, Luigi, Link, to Zelda. Nintendo has always been on top of the electronic gaming world. Newer consoles such as the Nintendo DS and the Wii, with its motion controls, allowed Nintendo to expand and become more advanced.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records Nintendo has 4 spots in the 10 most consoles ever sold. In the 9th spot is the Game Boy Advanced, the 5th spot is the original Game Boy, the 3rd is the Nintendo Switch, and their most selling console is the Nintendo DS at spot number 2. The Nintendo DS is still one of the most successful consoles ever made, selling 154.9 million units.

In the 1990s the starting writers and artists of the popular magazine Game Freak, Satoshi Tajira and Ken Sugimori wanted to make their own game, because they thought existing games were boring. They made a card game called Capsule Monsters which they pitched to Nintendo a couple times, but to no avail. Soon after that Tajira and Sugimori redeveloped it and renamed it Pocket Monsters and released it themselves in 1996. Pocket Monsters instantly became a success in Japan. Players could play with cards with pictures of Monsters on them, and would play in a fictional universe with badges, battles, and trainers.

Two years later Nintendo and Game Freak came to an agreement to rename Pocket Monsters to Pokemon. The Japanese market exploded, Pokemon became a success, and the Game Boy got two new games on it Pokemon Red and Pokemon Blue. Players could either try and collect all 151 Monsters purchasing a copy of both games, or connect two different Game Boys.

After the global success of Pokemon, Nintendo decided to make Pokemon trading cards just like they used to do. After the success of the Pokemon card game, Nintendo made Pokemon TV shows, mangas, and movies. Eventually Pokemon became the biggest media franchise in the world.

From the lowest point of Nintendo to the highest point the company has shown why it is one of the biggest gaming companies in the world and why Nintendo will not be going any time soon. Most people believe that Nintendo is the heart of modern day gaming.

[Sources: Nintendo; Game Informer; New York Times; CNN]