Nintendo: a titan in the gaming industry. It is hard to argue that they haven’t left an impact on the world, dominating the cultural zeitgeist and pushing the boundaries of what technology can achieve through their intellectual properties like Mario Bros. or Pokémon. However, all of that was achieved in the modern age, beginning in the 1970s. To most people, it’s unfathomable to realize that Nintendo was founded in 1889 and is older than institutions like the United Nations, as well as some countries. What about the nearly 80 years prior to that dominance?

The Nintendo Company was founded in the 19th century by Fusajiro Yamauchi in Kyoto, Japan. Before video games existed, Nintendo manufactured Hanafuda playing cards. A few years later, they began to produce typical western playing cards as well. Nintendo became famous for their high-quality, colorful cards, and began to expand throughout Japan. At the same time, they also adopted an undercurrent of infamy. Hanafuda began to be associated with the Yakuza due to their gambling rings that used those cards, and that connection was only more consolidated by their tattoos using imagery seen in Nintendo’s cards. Fortunately, the connection never became devastating for business.

Nintendo continued as a card manufacturer well into the mid-1900s, beginning to change in 1963. Fusajiro’s grandson Hiroshi Yamauchi rose to power as President of Nintendo and drove the company into a new direction. They started to experiment in new industries like taxis, toys, and, of course, games. It was that latter industry that was really starting to take off at the time, and it soon became obvious that it was Nintendo’s destiny.

So, in 1977, Nintendo launched their first home consoles: TV Game 15 and TV Game 6. They proved quite successful and led Nintendo to pursue more endeavors in the burgeoning gaming industry. In 1980, they released the LCD-handheld Game & Watch games, both of which found immense popularity in Japan. However, these two creations weren’t what cemented Nintendo in the gaming sphere. 

In 1981, just a year after Yamauchi’s son-in-law established Nintendo of America Inc., they released their biggest hit yet: Donkey Kong. Developed by artist Shigeru Miyamoto, Donkey Kong was a coin-operated arcade machine following a little red man named Jumpman trying to save a girl from a vicious gorilla throwing barrels. Donkey Kong became a staple in arcades around America and soon had a sequel, Donkey Kong Jr. Not only did Donkey Kong spawn its own eponymous franchise, it also saw the beginning of a new franchise focused solely on Jumpman. We don’t recognize him by that name today, but Donkey Kong was in fact the first appearance of Mario. His name came from the landlord that owned the property Nintendo America was based out of—Mario Segale.

Then, the Nintendo Entertainment System followed in 1985, the Gameboy in 1989, and the rest is history. Decade after decade, Nintendo established its legacy as one of the biggest video game manufacturers and developers of all time. If you think about it, it's only a natural progression from playing cards; after all, cards were the video games of the 1800s. 

Information retrieved from SJSU ScholarWorks, Nintendo, and The BCC.