Nintendo

Nintendo started in 1889 when Fusajirō Yamauchi began hand-painting Hanafuda playing cards in Kyoto. For decades the company stayed in the card business, even supplying the first Western-style playing cards to Japan during the Russo-Japanese War. It wasn't until the 1960s that Nintendo began experimenting with electronic toys, and the pivot to video games came in the 1970s with arcade hits. The real breakthrough hit in 1981 with Donkey Kong, which became the hottest coin-op machine around and introduced the world to a certain mustachioed plumber.

The Nintendo Entertainment System launched in America in 1985 and single-handedly revived a home console market left for dead after the Atari crash. From there the company built an empire: Game Boy in 1989, Super NES in 1991, Nintendo 64 in 1996, and the Wii in 2006, which created the casual gaming boom. After the disappointing Wii U, Nintendo rebounded spectacularly with the Switch in 2017, a hybrid console that has sold over 140 million units. The company's franchises are household names, Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Pokémon, Animal Crossing, Splatoon, Metroid, and its characters are among the most recognizable in pop culture.

Nintendo operates an oligopolistic market alongside Sony and Microsoft, but it has always carved its own path. Rather than chase raw power, it prioritizes innovative hardware and polished, family-friendly software. Three of the top five best-selling consoles of all time are Nintendo devices. In 2023 The Super Mario Bros. Movie grossed over $1 billion, and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom sold 18.5 million copies in its first months. The company is now preparing the Switch 2, its next-generation system, while continuing to expand into multimedia and brand partnerships. [edit]