Nintendo

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This article is about the Japanese company. For information about the development team, see Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development.
Nintendo
Nintendo Logo 2017.svg
Founded September 23, 1889
First Mario-related game Donkey Kong (1981)
Latest Mario-related game WarioWare: Get It Together! (2021)
Current president Shuntaro Furukawa

Nintendo (Japanese: 任天堂 nintendō; TSE: NTDOY) is a company in Japan which develops and manufactures its own line of video games and consoles. The name Nintendo means "leave luck to heaven." They are the creators of many popular franchises aside from Mario, such as The Legend of Zelda. Nintendo's mascot is Mario himself. Nintendo revived the North American video game industry after the video game crash of 1983.

History

The company's red logo from 1983-2010.
Nintendo's gray logo from 2010-2017.

The company was originally founded on September 23rd, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi to produce handmade Hanafuda cards for use in a Japanese playing card game of the same name. Eventually, in 1929, the company was passed on to Yamauchi's son-in-law, Sekiryo Kaneda. He took up the Yamauchi name when he married Fusajiro's daughter, Tei Yamauchi. The company continued on to make Hanafuda cards. However, Kaneda decided to retire in 1949 and passed Nintendo down to his grandson, Hiroshi Yamauchi. Little did he know that Hiroshi would change the focus of Nintendo for the best. In the late 70's, Yamauchi decided to expand Nintendo into the United States, as arcade machines were becoming very popular. However, his plan did not go over as well as he had hoped. Many children in the U.S. did not show much interest in Nintendo's products, like Sheriff or Radar Scope. Nintendo started to lose money, so in desperation, Yamauchi turned to one of his employees, Shigeru Miyamoto, for help.

He only called Miyamoto in because he was the only employee who had any time on his hands. Yamauchi asked Miyamoto to make a product for the arcade machine that would become a best-seller. Shigeru Miyamoto worked on the project he was thinking of for a while: Donkey Kong. When it entered the North American market, it did really become a best-seller. Nintendo started moving into video games and assigned Gunpei Yokoi to make a handheld console for enjoyment while traveling. Thus, Yokoi made the Game & Watch, which became unusually popular in both Japan and the United States. Nintendo then made the Nintendo Entertainment System, which grew very popular among children, the most popular game being Super Mario Bros. The release of the system forever changed the focus of video game development from quantity to quality and cemented the company's place in history. Aside from video games, Nintendo is also the majority owner of the Seattle Mariners, a Major League Baseball team, which is now handled by Howard Lincoln. In 2002, Hiroshi Yamauchi stepped down from office, giving the position to Satoru Iwata. In April 2013, Satoru Iwata became CEO of Nintendo of America and ran both branches until mid-2015, after Satoru passed in July 2015, Tatsumi Kimishima was appointed Iwata's successor in September 2015, until he stepped down on June 28, 2018 and was succeeded by Shuntaro Furukawa, the current President of Nintendo.

All current official Nintendo merchandise is marked with the Official Nintendo Seal. Originally, the seal was only applied to video games.

Mario-related appearances

Recurring

The Nintendo logo appearing next to a basketball at Mario Stadium in Mario Sports Mix.
The logo appearing on the sides at Nintendo GameCube in Mario Kart: Double Dash!!.

Most of Nintendo's appearances within the Mario franchise are in the spinoff titles, in which their logo can be seen in various locations, such as on banners, alleging them as an in-universe sponsor. In Mario games that were either developed or co-developed by a different studio, their logo is often similarly featured alongside Nintendo's.

Game-specific

Home consoles

A variety of Nintendo consoles

Handheld consoles

Releases of these consoles in China usually replace "Nintendo" in the name with "iQue". Examples are the iQue Game Boy Advance and the iQue DS.

See also

External links