Origin
The Late Card Era
Saturday, June 26, 2010
nintendo history
Nintendo started as a small Japanese business by Fusajiro Yamauchi near the end of 1887[1] as Nintendo Koppai. Based inKyoto, Japan, the business produced and marketed a playing card game called Hanafuda. In recognition of its card-playing roots, the name "Nintendo" means "leave luck to heaven".[2] The cards, which were all handmade, soon began to gain popularity, and Yamauchi had to hire assistants to mass produce cards to keep up with demand.
Fusajiro Yamauchi did not have a son to take over the family business. Following common Japanese tradition, he adopted his son-in-law, Sekiryo Kaneda (Sekiryo Yamauchi, after the marriage). In 1929, Yamauchi retired from the company and allowedSekiryo Yamauchi to take over the company as president. In 1933, Sekiryo Yamauchi established a joint venture with another company and renamed the company Yamauchi Nintendo & Company.
In 1947, Sekiryo established the company Marufuku Company, Ltd., to distribute the Hanafuda cards, as well as several other brands of cards that had been introduced by Nintendo. Sekiryo Yamauchi also had only daughters, so again his son-in-law (Shikanojo Inaba, renamed Shikanojo Yamauchi) was adopted into the family. Shikanojo never became president because he left his family. Subsequently, his son Hiroshi was brought up by his grandparents. Hiroshi later took over the company instead of his father.
Hiroshi Yamauchi attended Waseda University in Tokyo. However, after his grandfather died suddenly in 1949, he took office as the president of Nintendo. He renamed Yamauchi Nintendo & Company to Nintendo Playing Card Company, Limited, and in 1951 he renamed their distribution company, Marufuku Company, Limited, to Nintendo Karuta Company, Limited. In 1953, Nintendo became the first company in Japan to produce playing cards from plastic. This was a huge hit and allowed Nintendo to dominate the card market.[citation needed]
In 1956, Hiroshi Yamauchi visited the U.S., to engage in talks with the United States Playing Card Company, the dominant playing card manufacturer in the United States. Yamauchi was shocked to find that the world's biggest company in his business was relegated to using a small office. This was a turning point for Yamauchi, who then realised the limitations of the playing card business.[citation needed]
In 1959, Nintendo struck a deal with Disney to have them allow Nintendo to use Disney's characters on Nintendo's playing cards. Previously, Western playing cards were regarded as something similar to hanafuda and mah jong: a device for gambling. By tying playing cards to Disney and selling books explaining the different games one could play with the cards, Nintendo could sell the product to Japanese households. The tie-in was a success and the company sold at least 600,000 card packs in a single year. Due to this success, in 1962, Yamauchi took Nintendo public, listing the company in Osaka Stock Exchange Second division.[citation needed]
Following the aforementioned success, in 1963 Nintendo Playing Card Company Limited was renamed to Nintendo Company, Limited by Hiroshi. Nintendo now began to experiment in other areas of business using the newly injected capital. During the period of time between 1963 and 1968, Nintendo set up a taxicompany, "love hotel" chain, food company (trying to sell instant rice, similar to instant noodles) and several other things (including a vacuum cleaner, Chiritory, which later appeared as a two-player game in WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$ in 2003). All these ventures failed, except toymaking, where they had some earlier experience from selling playing cards.[citation needed] In 1964, while Japan was experiencing an economic boom due to the Tokyo Olympics, the playing card business reached its saturation point. Japanese households stopped buying playing cards, and the price of Nintendo stock fell from 900 yen to 60 yen.[citation needed]
In 1965, Nintendo hired Gunpei Yokoi as a maintenance engineer for the assembly line. However, Yokoi soon became famous for much more than his ability to repair conveyor belts.[citation needed]
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