Say Nintendo and you may think of Mario, Zelda or the game console in your hand. But the company's story began not with a screen but with colorful playing cards made of paper. And a full 88 years before its first home console.
September 23, 1889, Kyoto
Nintendo's founder was Fusajiro Yamauchi. On September 23, 1889, in the Japanese city of Kyoto, he opened a small business, first named Nintendo Koppai. His product was hanafuda: traditional Japanese playing cards bearing flower and nature motifs.
As Wikipedia reports, hanafuda was born as an alternative to Western-style playing cards, which were banned in Japan at the time. Yamauchi's handmade cards caught on, and the company lived off this business for many years. So Nintendo's first "game" was not a screen but a deck of paper. The concept of play was written into the company's DNA from the start; only the material the game was played on changed.
Grandson Hiroshi and the "let's try everything" era
In 1949, after the founder's grandson Hiroshi Yamauchi's grandfather had a stroke, Hiroshi left Waseda University and took over the company. The card business grew; with a deal with Disney, Nintendo began printing Disney characters on its cards. Sources give the year of this deal as either 1958 or 1959.
But the card market had a limit. So the company branched out into very different fields. In 1960 it started running a taxi company called Daiya in Kyoto; this business was later sold because of problems with the labor union. After the 1963 name change, it set up a food company with two other firms and sold products like instant rice.
One of the most interesting products of this period was a remote-controlled vacuum cleaner called Chiritory. The patent lists as inventor Gunpei Yokoi, one of the company's legendary designers. Sources give the year as 1978 or 1979; the US patent application was filed on October 5, 1979. The device cleaned the floor by spinning on its axis or moving along a straight line.
From toys to the screen
Nintendo's approach to its present identity came through toys. In 1966 Hiroshi Yamauchi saw a prototype of an extendable arm made by Gunpei Yokoi. Sold as the "Ultra Hand", this toy became one of the company's first big toy successes. After this success Yokoi became one of the company's most important designers and one of the people who moved Nintendo step by step toward electronic games.
The real turning point was the Color TV-Game 6, released in Japan on June 1, 1977. Developed together with Mitsubishi Electric, this device was Nintendo's first home game console and went on sale at a price of 9,800 yen. In the same year a second model, the Color TV-Game 15, was released, and the series ran from 1977 to 1983. From 1889 to 1977 is exactly 88 years.
| Then | Now |
|---|---|
| 1889: Handmade hanafuda cards | Game consoles known around the world |
| 1960: A taxi company in Kyoto | Game characters recognized around the world |
| 1977: The first home console, Color TV-Game | A gaming giant that still makes hanafuda |
A story of change spanning more than 130 years
There are plenty of failed attempts on this journey. The taxi company was sold, and the food and home appliance ventures were not the businesses that would decide the company's future. But every attempt taught the company what didn't work. In the end Nintendo returned to its natural field, games that entertain people; this time with electronics instead of paper.
What makes Nintendo interesting is that it never forgot its roots. According to a 2022 Kotaku report, the company still makes hanafuda even after becoming a console giant; some decks even have Mario-themed cards. The roots of the player-friendly, fun-focused approach we see on consoles today may also be sought in this long history of cards and toys. But the real lesson is this: to survive, it knocked on many doors, from taxis to rice, from vacuum cleaners to toys, and kept trying until it found the right one.
Do you think a playing card workshop turning into one of the world's best-known game companies was down to luck, or to never-ending experimentation?