Nintendo

For a list of games published by Nintendo, see List of Nintendo games

Nintendo Company Ltd. (任天堂株式会社, Nintendō Kabushiki kaisha) is a video game developer, publisher, and home console and handheld manufacturer. They were founded in 1889 in Kyoto, Japan by Fusajiro Yamauchi as a manufacturer of Hanafuda playing cards. Following the success of their cards, Nintendo attempted to jump into various other businesses with little to absolutely no success until their entry into the video game market. Translated to English, Nintendo means "Leave luck to heaven".

They entered the video game market with the permission to distribute the Odyssey to the Japanese audience. Soon enough they'd make their own consoles and handheld units such as the NES, Game Boy, Nintendo 64 and Game Boy Advance, among many others. They've developed quite the name for themselves for their multitude of video game series including but certainly not limited to Mario, Pokémon, and The Legend of Zelda.

At the moment they're statistically one of the most powerful video game companies in the business. Their current generation consoles, which consists of the Wii and Nintendo DS, soar to the top of the charts each week, something that hadn't occurred for quite some time. The Wii has sold more units than Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3, at the same time the Nintendo DS has also sold more units than Sony's Playstation Portable.

History
Nintendo was founded in September of 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi as Nintendo Koppai. Their first products were hand made Hanafuda cards that quickly became popular among the Japanese. In 1956, Fusajiro's grandson Hiroshi Yamauchi took control of the company. After a visit to the United States Yamauchi realized how limited the card business was and decided to expand. Nintendo started to manufacture various products ranging from instant rice to strollers to a taxi service. Every venture, however, failed to make a profit, and Nintendo was consequently left hanging on a thread after the Tokyo Olympics caused a lack of interest in the card industry.

With the assistance of Gunpei Yokoi, Nintendo made their mark on the toy industry with products such as the Ultra Hand which subsequently led Nintendo into electronics. Yamauchi approved the purchase of abandoned bowling allies and restructured them into electronic shooting galleries, titling it the Laser Clay Shooting System. Genyo Takeda, meanwhile, created what many consider Nintendo's first video game: EVR Race. By 1980, Yamauchi chose to expand even farther and sent his son-in-law Minoru Arakawa to America to become president of Nintendo of America. After RadarScope became unsuccessful, Yamauchi hired employee Shigeru Miyamoto to create a new game to replace the unused RadarScope cabinets. This resulted in the successful Donkey Kong, which introduced Mario and started the lucrative Mario franchise.

With millions made on Donkey Kong, Nintendo decided to create a home video game console, which was called the Famicom (Nintendo Entertainment System in English speaking countries). The system was moderately successful in its first few years though after the release of Super Mario Bros. the system's sales rocketed upwards. Some say that because of the Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Mario Bros., the video game industry was brought out of its slump in America. Nintendo followed this with the successful Game Boy and in 1990 opened up a headquarter in Germany which would oversee all Nintendo products through Europe. Over the next several years Nintendo released successors to the NES and Game Boy, the most successful of which being the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Nintendo 64, GameCube and Wii (successors to the NES) and the Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, and Nintendo 3DS (successors to the Game Boy).

Nintendo offices
Nintendo's main headquarters is in Kyoto, Japan (where it has been since 1889). In 2000 Nintendo moved their headquarters close to its old one and rebuilt the old was as the new research center where Nintendo would develop some of its most successful products. Despite their prominence in Japan, Nintendo has headquarters stationed throughout the globe. In the United States, Nintendo of America is found in Redmond, Washington. They have two separate offices stationed in San Francisco, California and New York City, New York, and two distribution centers in North Bend, Washington (about 22 miles away from Redmond) and Atlanta, Georgia. Up north, Nintendo of Canada is in Richmond, British Columbia (their distribution center is in Toronto, Ontario). Nintendo of Europe is located in Großostheim, Germany, with separate entities scattered throughout the European Union (including Benelux, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom). Nintendo Australia is located in Scorseby, Victoria (they distribute their games throughout Oceania. Back in Asia, Nintendo has headquarters in South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China.

Systems
Nintendo's video game systems consists of both home consoles and handhelds. They entered the market with the Color TV Game series, which quickly became a smash hit among consumers. Their first entry into the handheld market was the Game & Watch video games. Eventually Nintendo developed interchangeable consoles and handhelds with the release of the NES and Game Boy. Their next generation console included the SNES, followed by the Nintendo 64, GameCube and Wii. In the handheld industry, following the Game Boy, Nintendo released, in the respective order, the Virtual Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, and the Nintendo 3DS. The Game Boy, Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS all had redesigns, which included Game Boy Pocket, Game Boy Light, Game Boy Advance SP, Game Boy Micro, DS Lite, and Nintendo DSi.The Wii U is coming soon.

Key people
This is a minor list of famous Nintendo people, for a bigger list, see Nintendo People.


 * Fusajiru Yamauchi - Founder
 * Hiroshi Yamauchi - Second president
 * Satoru Iwata - Third and current President NCL
 * Reggie Fils-Aime - President of Nintendo of America
 * Shigeru Miyamoto - Video game creator and head of Nintendo's EAD division
 * Takashi Tezuka - Video game creator and head of Nintendo's EAD division
 * Gunpei Yokoi - Game Boy engineer
 * Koji Kondo - Composer of music tracks in Nintendo games
 * Howard Phillips - Creator of Nintendo Power

Also See

 * List of Nintendo games
 * List of Nintendo divisions
 * Nintendo Seal of Quality
 * Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection
 * Nintendo Power
 * Advertisement campaigns
 * List of Nintendo people
 * Nintendo/gallery