Nintendo

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Nintendo

image description
Country of origin: Japan
Lifespan: 1889 to present
Activities: Console manufacturer, developer, publisher.
Website: http://www.nintendo.com

Contents

History

1889 – 1968

Nintendo Koppai was the name of a small Japanese business founded in 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi to produce and market the playing card game Hanafuda in Kyoto, Japan. The cards, which were all handmade, soon began to get extremely popular and Yamauchi had to hire assistants to mass produce cards to keep up with the high demand.

During 1929, Yamauchi retired from the company and allowed his son-in-law, Sekiryo Yamauchi, to take over the company as president. In 1933 Sekiryo Yamauchi established a joint venture with another company and thus renamed the company Yamauchi Nintendo & Co. In 1947 Sekiryo established the company Marufuku Co. Ltd to distribute the Hanafuda cards, as well as several other brands of cards that had been introduced by Nintendo.

Hiroshi Yamauchi, the grandson of Sekiryo Yamauchi, took office as the president of Nintendo during the year of 1949. He renamed Yamauchi Nintendo & Co. Nintendo Playing Card Company, Ltd., and, in 1951 he renamed their distribution company, Marufuku Co. Ltd., to Nintendo Karuta Co. Ltd.

In 1959, Nintendo struck a deal with Disney to have them allow Nintendo to use Disney's characters on Nintendo's playing cards. The deal was a success and sold at least 600,000 cards in a single year.

Following this, in 1963, Yamauchi Nintendo & Co. was renamed Nintendo Co. Ltd. by Hiroshi and Nintendo began to experiment in other areas of business. During the period of time between 1963 and 1968, Nintendo founded a taxi company and a "love hotel", as well as producing toys, games and several other things (including a vacuum cleaner). Both the taxi company and love hotel ended in failure and were eventually closed

1969 – 1980

In 1969 Nintendo established a games division within their company. In the following years, Nintendo produced several successful toys and games, the most notable being their beam guns and Ultrahand, an arm expansion toy. Most of these inventions were the ideas of a new Nintendo employee, Gunpei Yokoi.

In 1973 Nintendo expanded on their light gun idea with the introduction of The Laser Clay Shooting System, which used solar cells to simulate clay pigeon shooting. The Laser Clay Shooting System was another huge success. In 1974 the same idea was reused with the introduction of Wild Gunman, which was a laser gun game where a player would attempt to draw a light gun and shoot at an image of a gunman before the gunman "shot back". Wild Gunman was exported to the USA and Europe.

During 1975 Yamauchi began doing research into a new American trend in which you could connect a device to your television in order to play simple games, called video games. Other companies, such as Atari, had had some success in this field and Hiroshi decided it would be a good business venture for Nintendo to delve into. In the same year, he negotiated a deal with Magnavox to allow Nintendo to produce and sell the Magnavox Odyssey, a simple video game console. Since Nintendo didn't have the necessary equipment to manufacture these machines, they created a pact with Mitsubishi, who would manufacture them.

With Nintendo's new relationship with Mitsubishi, in 1977 the two companies released their joint effort video game machine, the Color TV Game 6, which allowed players to play six different very simple versions of tennis, which sold millions of units. 1977 is also the year Shigeru Miyamoto joined Nintendo, working as an art designer for arcade games.

Soon, Nintendo released several other successful home video game consoles, including an advanced version of the Color TV Game 6, called the Color TV Game 15, a racing game, and another game called Blockbuster.

In 1979 Nintendo began design work for what was to be their first handheld game console, the Game & Watch, which was another idea of Gunpei Yokoi. It was released in 1980, which is also the year that Nintendo announced the addition of a new wholly owned subsidiary, located in New York, named Nintendo of America. The Game & Watch was very successful.

1980 – 1982

Also in 1980, Nintendo began the production of arcade games. These arcade games were mostly shoot-'em-ups sometimes using Nintendo's light gun, going under names such as Hellfire or Sheriff. However, this direction changed when Shigeru Miyamoto was given the task of repurposing hardware left over after the commercial failure of the arcade alien shoot-'em-up Radar Scope. Mr. Miyamoto went in a completely different direction and began work on Donkey Kong, with the help of Yokoi, which was a silly arcade game starring the attempts of an obese carpenter trying to rescue his girlfriend from an ape. Although originally frowned upon by fellow Nintendo workers, the release of Donkey Kong was a huge success and the game sold over 65,000 units, making it the most popular arcade game of the year.

During the same year, Nintendo, probably inspired by the success of Atari and several other companies, set to work on a new, more advanced multicartridge video game console. They knew that in order for the system to be successful, since other companies had already released multicartridge systems, that their console would have to be better than the rest, and still carry a feasible price.

In 1982 Nintendo released their sequel to Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr. as an arcade game. Although not selling as many units as the original Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr. still sold well, selling around 35,000 units. This was also the year they established Nintendo of America Inc. in Redmond, Washington and merged the New York subsidiary into it. [edit]

1983 – 1989

In May 1983, Nintendo released their Famicom (Family Computer) system in Japan, which was their first attempt at a cartridge-based video game console. The system was very successful, selling over 500,000 units within two months. The console was also technically superior and inexpensive when compared to its competitors, priced at about $100 USD. However, after a few months of the consoles selling well, Nintendo received complaints that some Famicom consoles would freeze when the player attempted to play certain games. The fault was found in a malfunctioning chip and Nintendo decided to recall all Famicon units currently on store shelves, which cost them almost half a million dollars USD.

It was also in 1983 that Nintendo planned to release the Famicom in the USA. In the USA, however, the video game market had almost completely died out due to the large amount of low quality games. Nintendo decided that to avoid this, they would only allow games that received their "Seal of Quality" to be sold for the Famicom, using a 10NES lockout system to prevent unlicensed games.

By 1984 the Famicom had proven to be a huge continued success in Japan. However, Nintendo also encountered a problem with the sudden popularity of the Famicom — they did not have the resources to manufacture games at the same pace they were selling them. To combat this, Yamauchi decided to divide his employees into three groups, the groups being Research & Development 1 (R&D 1), Research & Development 2 (R&D 2) and Research & Development 3 (R&D 3). R&D 1 was headed by Gunpei Yokoi, R&D 2 was headed by Masayuki Uemura, and R&D 3 was headed by Takeda Genyo. Using these groups, Yamauchi hoped Nintendo would produce a low amount of high quality games rather than a high amount of average quality games.

In 1985 Nintendo announced they were going to release the Famicom worldwide – except under a different name – the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) – and with a different design. Super Mario Bros. was also released for the Famicom in Japan and became a large success.

They soon began shipping the Nintendo Entertainment System to the USA in 1986, along with 15 games, sold separately, and in the USA, it outsold its competitors on a ten to one scale. This was also the year that Metroid (Japan) and Super Mario Bros. 2 (the Japanese version) were released.

In 1988, Nintendo unveiled Nintendo Power, a monthly news and strategy magazine from Nintendo that served to advertise new games. The first issue published was July/August edition, which spotlighted the NES game Super Mario Bros. 2. Nintendo Power is still being published today with over 180 issues.

In 1989 Nintendo released the Game Boy, along with the accompanying game Tetris. Later, Super Mario Land was also released for the Game Boy, which sold 14 million copies worldwide. 1989 was also the year that Nintendo announced a sequel to their popular video game console, the Famicom, to be called the Super Famicom.

By the end of the 1980s the courts found Nintendo guilty of anti-trust activities because it had abused its relationship with third party developers and created a monopoly in the gaming industry by not allowing developers to make games for any other platforms.

1990 – 1995

The Super Famicom was released in Japan on November 21st, 1990. The system's launch was largely successful, and the Super Famicom was sold out across Japan within three days. In August 1991, the Super Famicom was launched in the U.S. under the name "the Super Nintendo Entertainment System" (SNES). The SNES was released in Europe in 1992.

1992 was the year in which Gunpei Yokoi and the rest of R&D 1 began planning on a new virtual reality console to be called the Virtual Boy. Hiroshi Yamauchi also bought shares of the Seattle Mariners in 1992.

In 1993 Nintendo announced plans to develop a new 64-bit console codenamed Project Reality, that would have be capable rendering fully 3D environments and characters. In 1994, Nintendo also claimed that Project Reality would be renamed Ultra 64 in the US. In 1995 Nintendo changed the final name of the system to the Nintendo 64, and announced that it would be released in 1996. They later showed previews of the system and several games, including Super Mario 64, to the media and public.

1995 is also the year that Nintendo purchased part of Rareware, a choice that would prove to be a wise investment.

In the mid-90s Nintendo of America eased up on its stringent policies on blood and violence. After Sega created the Mega CD (Sega CD in North America) add on for its 16-bit machine, Nintendo initially contracted with Sony to develop an addon CD-ROM drive for the SNES, but after Sony announced a standalone version of the drive, Nintendo terminated the contract and went with Philips. Nintendo announced their alliance with Philips at the same conference that Sony announced their CD-ROM drive. Nothing happened about the addon drive in regard to the SNES, but Sony took the time and research and began to spin it off into a new product, the PlayStation.

In 1995 Nintendo released the Virtual Boy in Japan. The console sold poorly, but Nintendo still said they had hope for it and continued to release several other games and attempted a release in the U.S.

Also in 1995, Nintendo found themselves in a competitive situation. Competitor Sega introduced their 32-bit Saturn, while newcomer Sony introduced the 32-bit PlayStation. Sony's fierce marketing campaigns ensued, and it started to cut into Nintendo and Sega's market share. [edit]

1996 – present

On June 23rd, 1996, the Nintendo 64 (N64) was released in Japan and was instantly a huge hit, selling over 500,000 units on the first day of its release. On October 1st, 1996, Nintendo released the Nintendo 64 in the USA, and it too was a success.

Nintendo also released the Game Boy Pocket in 1996, which was a smaller version of the original Game Boy. On August 15th, about a week after the release of the Game Boy Pocket, Gunpei Yokoi resigned from his position in Nintendo, at the age of 56.

On August 1st, 1997, the Nintendo 64 was finally released in Europe. Pocket Monsters (known as "Pokémon" in the US and Europe) was also released in Japan in 1997, which was a success. Gunpei Yokoi, former employee of Nintendo, died in a car accident at the age of 57.

Nintendo released their GameCube home video game console on September 14th, 2001, in Japan. It was released in North America on November 18th of 2001.

In 2002, Hiroshi Yamauchi stepped down as the president of Nintendo and named Satoru Iwata his successor.

In late 2004, Nintendo announced plans to release a new brand of handheld, unrelated to the Game Boy — featuring two screens, one of which was touch-sensitive. The Nintendo DS, released on November 21st, received over three million pre-orders. In addition to the touch screen, the DS can also create three-dimensional graphics, capable of somewhat surpassing those of the Nintendo 64, although it does not include hardware support for texture smoothing which results in more pixellated graphics than on the Nintendo 64.

On May 14th, 2005, Nintendo opened up its first retail store in Rockefeller Center in New York City, called Nintendo World. It is two stories tall, and contains many kiosks of Gamecube, Gameboy Advance, and Nintendo DS games. There are also display cases filled with things from Nintendo's past, including Hanafuda playing cards, Nintendo's first product. They celebrated the grand opening with a block party in Rockefeller Plaza.

Staff

Either: a list of any notable employees

Or: A full-on MobyGames-style exhaustive list of anyone who's ever been known to work for this company (leave this for now - would be easy to do once we have a database with individuals linked to companies)

List of Hardware

Home Consoles

NES

Main articles: Nintendo Entertainment System

Related article: 8-bit era

Nintendo introduced the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in the United States in the July of 1985 after a successful launch of the Family Computer (Famicom) in Japan on July 15, 1983.

The NES success was probably due to its relatively low price ($150 USD), Regardless of sales, the NES wasn't as technologically advanced as some other consoles on the market, and had blocky and uncomfortable controllers.

Under Minoru Arakawa and Howard Lincoln, the NES is often considered to be the "savior" of the video game industry in North America. Nintendo debuted Super Mario Bros., and later hits such as Metroid and The Legend of Zelda for the NES, helping to boost a market which seriously diminished in the early 1980s (often called "Video game crash of 1983" or "The Great Video Game Crash of the '80s").

Super NES

Main articles: Super Nintendo Entertainment System

Nintendo released the Super Famicom in Japan on November 21, 1990. In August 1991, Nintendo released the Super Famicom, under a new name, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), in North America. The North American release of the SNES featured a greatly different outer appearance than that of the Super Famicom, including redesigned controllers and various other cosmetic changes. In 1992, the SNES was released in Europe.

The Super Nintendo Entertainment System followed in the steps of its predecessor, sporting a relatively low price and somewhat high technical specifications for its era. The controller of the SNES had also improved over that of the NES, as it now had rounded edges and several new buttons.

In Japan, the Super Famicom easily took control of the gaming market. Despite a slow start, the SNES in North America eventually overtook its competition, the Sega Genesis, thanks to franchise titles such as Super Mario World, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Street Fighter 2, and the Final Fantasy series. In the U.S., the Genesis barely outsold the SNES, however total worldwide sales of the SNES were higher than the Genesis.

Nintendo 64

Main article: Nintendo 64

In September 1996, Nintendo introduced their third console, the Nintendo 64 (N64), which featured vastly improved three dimensional graphics and a new analog stick. Nintendo chose to remain with the cartridge medium, a surprising move, especially considering their competition's choice of emerging CD-ROM storage mediums. This may have affected the amount of games published on the Nintendo 64; CD-ROMs are cheaper to produce than cartridges, meaning cheaper costs for the third party publishers — since Nintendo did not choose to use CD-ROMs, publishers would be more swayed to publish for Sony's PlayStation, which did use CD-ROMs.

Nintendo used the code names Project Reality and Ultra 64 prior to the systems actual release, and these names are still used by some people. Nintendo also touted new "innovative" and "groundbreaking" elements of the Nintendo 64 — such as its four controller ports, an analog stick, and a 64-bit proccesor — although these might not be considered "groundbreaking" as most had been done before.

The first 3D Mario game was introduced on the N64 as Super Mario 64, which has been the archetype for almost all 3D console games to this day. The N64 managed to come out on top over the Saturn and secure a solid #2 spot under the #1 Sony PlayStation.

Other popular games were GoldenEye 007, which ushered in a new era for 1st-person shooting games for home consoles, and Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

Nintendo GameCube

Main article: Nintendo GameCube

The Nintendo GameCube is Nintendo's fourth generation console; it was released in Japan on September 14, 2001, the U.S. on November 18, 2001, and in Europe on May 3, 2002. The European launch "boasted" 20 titles at launch, which included Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 2: Rogue Leader, Wave Race: Blue Storm, Luigi's Mansion, Tony Hawks Pro Skater 3 and International Superstars Soccer 2.

Nintendo continued many of their popular franchises on the system, including Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox, Metroid, and Super Smash Bros.. The Nintendo GameCube is also responsible for several new franchises, including Pikmin, Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, the Viewtiful Joe series, and P.N.03. The GameCube also revived the Metroid series with the release of Metroid Prime and its direct sequel, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes; although the games are no longer in the same style as the older Metroid games, with the introduction of three dimensional graphics and a first-person shooter style. Nintendo has also bought exclusivity rights for the Resident Evil series and Capcom has released several GameCube-only Resident Evil titles.

Despite this, in the console wars, the GameCube is currently in last place in America, the largest video game market, falling behind both Sony's PlayStation 2 and Microsoft's Xbox [1], but it is 2nd place behind Sony PlayStation 2 in Japan, where the Xbox is something of a non-entity.

Handheld Consoles

Game Boy

Main articles: Nintendo Game Boy, Nintendo Game Boy Advance, Nintendo Game Boy Color, Nintendo Game Boy Micro

Introduced in 1989, and continuing strong today, were Nintendo's portable Game Boy systems. With several evolutions, including Pocket, Light, Color, Advance, Advance SP, and Micro versions, the Game Boy is the single most successful, and oldest video game platform still in production. The Game Boy has been known for putting over a dozen other portable systems out of business (Including Nintendo's other attempts such as the Virtual Boy). Due to low battery consumption, durability, and a library of over a thousand games, the Game Boy has been on the top of the portable console food chain since its inception and made Nintendo the domineer of the handheld console market.

Slowing sales of the Game Boy were assisted by the introduction of the Pokémon game, which started a phenomenon of top selling video games, movies, merchandise, and TV shows. The Pokémon phenomena helped and continue to help rocket Game Boy sales all around the world.

In 2004, Nintendo launched the Classic NES Series on the Game Boy Advance.

Nintendo DS

Main article: Nintendo DS

Nintendo released their Nintendo DS (Dual Screen, or Developers' System) handheld game console on November 21, 2004, in the United States, this makes the DS the first Nintendo gaming device to be released outside of Japan before the Japanese launch, which was on December 2nd 2004. In the U.S. shipments of the DS reached 500,000 within the first week and in Japan the figures were even more impressive reaching the same figure within four days of its launch.

The Nintendo DS, most notably, features dual screens, the bottom of which is touch-sensitive, which Nintendo claims introduces a unique concept into gameplay (see, for example, Yoshi's Touch and Go). It also features a built in microphone and the ability to wirelessly connect 16 player's Nintendo DS's together simultaneously via Wi-Fi (which allows large multiplayer matches). The DS is not a successor of the Game Boy Advance, but rather a completely new system; although it does carry the capability to play Game Boy Advance cartridges.

Nintendo has officially stated that the DS in the name can stand for two different things; Developer's System to their developers, or Dual Screen to their consumers. The most popular usage is Dual Screen.

Nintendo at the Game Developers Conference announced that the DS will be an online platform. Its first online game will be Animal Crossing.

Other Hardware

Related Companies

First-party and second-party divisons

Other

  • In 2003, Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro, sued Nintendo, its Pokémon division, and various other Nintendo affiliates over a breach of contract and various other charges relating to the Pokémon trading card game.
  • In the late 90's Microsoft tried (unsuccessfully) to buy Nintendo, Bill Gates has stated that if Nintendo should ever be up for sale he would put in an offer instantly

Links

  • List links to external sites here 
This article uses source material obtained from Wikipedia
The original article can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo
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