Nintendo Is One of Today\'s

Nintendo is one of today's leading game system manufacturers in the world. This techno-savvy organization, however, got its start more than a century earlier with the manufacture of playing cards. Through a long history of innovation, Nintendo has been able to stay one step ahead of its competition, in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

Nintendo's History:

Despite being one of today's organizations that are constantly on the leading edge of technological industry changes, Nintendo's history began more than a century ago. In 1889, Fusajiro Yamauchi founded Nintendo Koppai to manufacture 'Hanafuda' - Japanese playing cards. By 1902, Yamauchi began manufacturing the first playing cards in Japan. Although these were originally made for export, they quickly became popular in Japan as well ("Company History").

The successful Kyoto-based organization established Marufuku Company to distribute their cards, in 1947. Four years later, the name would be changed to Nintendo Playing Card Company. Expanding their market into the children's playing cards segment, by the late 1950s, Nintendo began to sell playing cards with Walt Disney characters on them ("Nintendo").

In January of 1972, the company was listed on the second section of the Osaka Stock Exchange and on the Kyoto Stock Exchange. The following year, the company changed its name to Nintendo Co. Ltd. And began to manufacture a variety of games, in addition to their playing cards product line. By the end of the decade, the company had expanded this growing game department and built a production plant in the Kyoto suburb of Uji City ("Company History").

The 1970s saw the expansion of Nintendo from the traditional games it was founded upon to the embracing of technology to lead the gaming industry. In 1970, the organization began to sell the Beam Gun series, an opto-electronic laser shooting system and image projection system for amusement arcades. Partnering with Mitsubishi Electric, Nintendo developed their first video game system, which used an electronic video recording player ("Nintendo"). In 1977, with the development of the microprocessor, the industry would then begin to change in leaps and bounds.

Expansion, particularly in the United States, began in the 1980s and saw the development of the U.S. subsidiary, Nintendo of America.

Nintendo's 'Family Computer', employing a custom CPU and PPU came to market in Japan in 1983 ("Company History"). Two years later, the 'Family Computer', called the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), in the U.S., was introduced in America and became the number one selling toy in 1987.

This was quickly followed by the introduction of the Game Boy system, the first portable hand-held game system that offered interchangeable game 'paks' ("Nintendo"). The next two decades would be spent introducing newer, more powerful gaming systems, in an effort to stay one step ahead of the increasingly agile competition, and to meet the needs of an increasingly technology-hungry consumer.

Nintendo Today:

Today, Nintendo's primary business is the manufacture and distribution of interactive entertainment products.

Products include hardware and software for both its home entertainment and hand-held markets. Although its manufacturing facilities are located in Japan, the company has subsidiaries in: the U.S., Canada, the UK, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, and Australia ("Nintendo"). Nintendo's hardware products includes GameCube, GameBoy, and their newest gaming system brand Wii.

Nintendo also produces gaming software for their systems. Many are developed by third-party gaming software companies; however, the organization has several in-house brands. These include Mario and Pokemon. In addition to game system hardware and software, the company also still is still involved in the "manufacture and sale of poker cards and karuta cards, the sale of Pokemon goods, the management of intellectual property rights, and the provision of electronic registration services for domestic machines" ("Nintendo").