A (0:00)

Nintendo is one of the most legendary video game companies in the world. Many of you have probably owned a Nintendo system to play video games. If you're old enough, you may have even played some of their games in a video arcade. Even if you've never played a video game through cultural osmosis, you're still probably aware of many of its popular characters like Mario and Donkey Kong. Learn more about the history of Nintendo and how a 19th century company wound up making video games on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. This episode is sponsored by Quint's. Temperatures are dropping and the holidays will soon be upon us. This is when you want your wardrobe to just work. Stuff that looks sharp, feels good and you'll actually reach for that's why I go with Quince. I recently purchased a Mongolian cashmere sweater at Quint's. You can pick one up for $50 when you normally drop $200 or more for the same thing. They also have great denim pants and chinos as well as fantastic down jackets as well as wool and leather coats. By partnering directly with ethical factories and top artisans, Quinn's cuts out the middleman to deliver premium quality at half the cost of similar brands and often even bigger discounts. Get your wardrobe sorted out and your gift list handled with Quince. Don't wait. Go to quince.com daily for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com daily free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com daily. This episode is sponsored by Chubby's. The holidays are here, which means family dinners, office parties and last minute plans. And Chubby's has the gear to keep things effortless. From cozy layers to sharp looking essentials, they've got winter style down to a science. They have every wear pants which are lightweight, durable and water resistant. Built for busy holiday schedules, unpredictable weather and everyday versatility. Their flannel overshirts combine the look of a classic flannel with the warmth of a fleece. A perfect layering piece for winter events, travel days or lounging by the fireside. And they even have the NFL by Chubby's collection stretch polos, mesh shorts and swim trunks featuring all 32 teams. Ideal for gifting or repping your team from tailgates to hot tubs. Although I highly recommend purchasing only Green Bay packers merchandise for a limited time, Chubby's is giving my listeners 20% off your purchase at Chubby's with the promo code daily at checkout. But if it's Black Friday, skip the code and take advantage of even bigger markdowns during their exclusive Black Friday sale. Just head to chubbyssshorts.com and make sure to support the show and tell them I sent you. Nintendo is one of the most popular and well known video game companies in the world. But what most people don't know is that the company actually dates back when well before the advent of computers. The company's origins date back to 1889 in Kyoto, Japan. Founder Fusajiro Yamauchi started the business to make playing cards. Known in Japan as Karuda, these cards are much like Western playing cards, but feature plants and animals instead of suits. Yamauchi named his business Yamauchi Nintendo. This was later shortened to just Nintendo. The word Nintendo comes from three Japanese nin, which means responsibility, duty or to entrust, 10 meaning heaven or the heavens, and do, meaning hall or temple. Although exact corporate name meanings are rarely official, the conventional and widely accepted reading is leave luck to heaven or entrusted to heaven, reflecting both the company's early identity as a maker of playing cards and the broader cultural association between games of chance and fate. However, there is no set definition as to the meaning of the word, and it isn't known why it was chosen. You might be thinking that investing in a playing card business was a weird choice, but there was high demand within Japan. This is because Japan had banned most forms of gambling, so any cards that were tolerated by the government were desirable. Many of Yamauchi's potential competitors left the card industry not wanting to risk anything illegal. Yamauchi's decision to remain in the market ultimately led the business to become one of the primary playing card producers in Japan. As demand increased, so did Yamauchi's business. He brought in assistants to help mass produce cards. Despite support, the company struggled financially because the cards were expensive and time consuming to make. This caused Yamauchi to make a difficult choice. If he wanted Nintendo to stay afloat, sacrifices needed to be made. Ultimately, the choice was made to develop cheaper, lower quality cards, and this decision proved to be correct as it allowed the business to expand into other Japanese cities where demand for playing cards was still high. In 1902, Nintendo branched out into the Western playing card market, aiming to export its cards abroad. Many decks were sent from Japan, but they were also sold at home. This made Nintendo's cards popular worldwide while expanding its product line. Nintendo and the Japanese playing card market faced turmoil between 1904 and 1905, Japan went to War with Russia. During the Russo Japanese War, Japan imposed new taxes, including one on playing cards. The zaruta Z, or playing card tax, made cards more expensive to produce. This, combined with the recovery from the Russo Japanese War, put the business in danger once again. Nintendo was forced to make strategic maneuvers to stay in business. The most notable decision they made was partnering with Nihon Senpai, now known as Japan Tobacco. This partnership was more valuable than it first appeared. Nihon Senpai was owned by the Japanese government and held a monopoly over Japan's tobacco industry. By working with Japan Tobacco, Nintendo ensured its cars were in stores across the country. This move made Nintendo the largest playing card company in all of Japan. Yamauchi retired from Nintendo in 1929, but Japanese law stated that the business had to be passed down to someone in Yamauchi's family. Ultimately, his son in law, Sekiro Kaneda, who changed his last name to Yamauchi, became the next head of the business. Sekiro, as the new head of Nintendo, went to work establishing the business as a general partnership and renaming it Yamauchi Nintendo & Co. Ltd. He also invested in a new corporate headquarters, building it next to the previous one. With Sekiro leading Nintendo, the company soon confronted a major test. World War II. During the war, Japanese society shifted its focus to the war effort. There was less attention on leisure activities like playing cards. Additionally, foreign card games were banned, and this impacted companies like Nintendo. While Nintendo did survive these difficult years, its wartime records are limited, leaving its operation sparse in detail. Still, a few facts are known. Nintendo was involved in the creation of propaganda during the war. They built games to promote Japanese morale. One example of which was backgammon boards. The backgammon boards were for kids, but painted with war imagery. They often showed animals dressed as soldiers. Sometimes animals held Japanese flags. Other times they stood atop torn allied flags. Following the end of World War II, Sekiro founded a distribution company to sell and market Nintendo's products. This distribution company later became the modern day Nintendo Corporation. Sekiro retired in 1950, leaving the company to his grandson, Hiroshi Yamauchi. When Hiroshi Yamauchi took control, he also made changes. First, he renamed the company Nintendo Playing Card Co. Ltd. He also decentralized the manufacturing sites, letting the company expand its offices and mass produce cards. In 1959, Nintendo made the strategic decision to partner with Walt Disney Productions. This partnership enabled Nintendo to include Disney characters on its cards, helping the company to expand into the children's market. After partnering with Disney, Nintendo grew even more. They ran television ads to Draw more attention to the brand. They expanded their product line, adding more games and cards. The company also went public listing on the Kyoto and Osaka stock exchanges. And its name changed for the last time to Nintendo & Co. Ltd. Despite this growth, Nintendo realized a problem. They depended too much on the children's market. Now this was worsened. As adults picked up other hobbies and Disney cards lost popularity, Their company was stuck. To stay afloat, they needed a quick new solution. Yamauchi invested in a research and development department. At first, it was meant to mass manufacture classic tabletop games. But it also notably developed Nintendo's first electronic toy, the beam gun, in 1970. The beam gun inadvertently started the company's shift towards video games. They used the guns in partnership with Magnavox. Magnavox made the Magnavox Odyssey the first at home video game console. And the Beam Gun was used in one of its games. Nintendo continued to introduce new, exciting toys, Driving up demand for its products. Specifically, the company invested in technologically advanced toys similar to the Beam Gun. Nintendo created arcade games using similar light gun technology, but they faced competition. They produced products more slowly and at higher prices than competitors, leading to the discontinuation of some light gun products. Seeing the success of home video game systems, Hiroshi Yamauchi chose to invest more in video game development. His first move was to get the rights to distribute the Magnavox Odyssey in Japan. But he also took steps to start developing a Nintendo system. Despite making these changes, the company remained at risk of insolvency until the late 1970s. Then, two major decisions changed everything. One, they opened a US subsidiary in New York City, and two, they opened a new department dedicated solely to developing arcade games. As the result of these decisions, Nintendo went on to release one of the first handheld video game systems, the Game and watch, in 1980. The game and Watch quickly became one of Nintendo's most successful products and prompted the company to shift development to more electronics. Although Nintendo had released arcade products before, its first original video games appeared in 1979 and 1980. The games Radar Scope and Sheriff did well in Japan, but overseas they struggled, causing financial difficulties for Nintendo. Their next game had to succeed. The company found success with 1981's Donkey Kong, which not only became a smash hit in Japan, but also broke through in the United States, Right when the American arcade market was booming. This era introduced the famed game developer Shigeru Miyamoto, whose creative approach to game design helped distinguish Nintendo's titles from competitors. Simultaneously, Nintendo began building a library of game and Watch handhelds, Establishing the company's reputation for simple, elegant and highly marketable electronic entertainment. These successes gave Nintendo the financial strength and confidence to pursue a dedicated home console product. This culminated in the release of the family computer, also known as Famicom, in Japan in 1983. Famicom was more powerful than most contemporaries and was designed to be expandable with a long product life. Its launch, however, was rocky. Early units experienced hardware instability that forced a recall. Once corrected, the Famicom became a massive hit in Japan. But the American market posed a challenge after the devastating 1983 video game crash, which was caused by overproduction and poor quality games. To overcome retailer skepticism, Nintendo redesigned the Famicom aesthetically and strategically for North America, presenting it as an entertainment system rather than as a traditional console. Bundled with Super Mario Bros. And innovative peripherals like the Robot Operating Buddy, the system was introduced regionally in 1985 and rolled out nationally in 1986 as the Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES. This marked Nintendo's full emergence as the home console leader of the era. The NES gave birth to some of the most famous games in history, such as Super Mario Bros. And the Legend of Zelda. Following the release of the nes, Nintendo continued to develop new and modern video game systems. These systems proved incredibly popular with the public and contributed to the company's growth. Fully describing how each and every Nintendo system came into being would honestly make for its own episode. But suffice it to say, some of the most notable systems developed included the Game Boy in 1989, the Super NES in 1991, the Nintendo 64 in 1996, the GameCube in 2001, the Nintendo DS in 2004, the Wii in 2006, and the Nintendo Switch in 2017. It would be remiss not to end this episode discussing Nintendo's most beloved character and mascot, Mario. Mario was actually born as a secondary character in Donkey Kong, where he was trying to save his girlfriend from the giant barrel throwing gorilla he was initially just known as Jumpman in Japanese. Mario was seen again in the game Donkey Kong Jr. In this game, Mario served as the villain with Donkey Kong Jr trying to rescue Donkey Kong. After Mario kidnapped him in 1983, Mario returned to his heroic status and became the main character in the new arcade game Mario Bros. This game saw Mario and his brother Luigi trying to defeat the creatures that were breaking into the city. Shortly after the game was released for the Famicom. The game was so successful on that system that Nintendo opted to create a second version, Super Mario Bros. Mario and Super Mario became so successful that Nintendo dominated American console sales mainly because of the strategic decision to include Super Mario in its new systems. However, the love of Mario wasn't necessarily natural. Nintendo pushed Mario by putting him into almost every video game they released. He was in every game in every genre, making him a star and symbol of the company. Since his debut, Mario has appeared in over 200 different games. Super Mario Bros. Games have sold over 240 million units. As a result, Mario has become one of the best selling and most famous characters of all time. As of this recording, the Nintendo Corporation is valued at over $98 billion. It has become a powerhouse in the entertainment world, creating systems and characters that people have enjoyed for decades. Its success has led to the creation of amusement parks, movies, stores and tournaments, all designed for people who love their products, which is not too shabby for a 19th century Japanese company that made playing cards the executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kiefer. My big thanks go to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon. Your support helps make this podcast possible and I also want to remind everyone about the community groups on Facebook and Discord. That's where everything happens that's outside the podcast, and links to those are available in the show Notes. As always, if you leave a review on any major podcast app or in the above community groups, you too can have it right on the show. Sam.