FUZE Museum

NINTENDO

Nintendo is one of if not the most impactful company in the gaming industry.

The company started in Kyoto, Japan in 1889 by making traditional playing cards known as Hanafuda cards.

In the 1960s the company began to struggle because the popularity of Hanafuda cards was declining among adults in favour of other recreational activities.

In 1969 Nintendo began to make tabletop games and in 1970 they made the first Japanese electronic toy which was called the Beam Gun.

In 1972 Magnavox released the Magnavox Odyssey which was the first commercial video game console and they partnered with Nintendo to make a version of the Beam Gun that served as a light gun.

In 1974 Nintendo released their first arcade game, an electro-mechanical game called Wild Gunman, which used a light gun; that same year they acquired the distribution rights to the Magnavox Odyssey in Japan.

In 1977 they acquired the rights to make their own Pong consoles called the Color TV-Game 6 and Color TV-Game 15, they later made two more Color TV-Games with racing and breakout.

In 1980 Nintendo expanded by making arcade games and their first handheld, the Game and Watch, which were small LCD games that served as dedicated handhelds and could tell the time, unlike the Color TV-Games they were released internationally and were a lot more successful.

Nintendo's first big success in the arcade market was Donkey Kong which was made to salvage unsold arcade cabinets and was one of the first platforming games. It began the career of their most famous developer and character, those being Shigeru Miyamoto and Mario respectively.

In 1983 Nintendo released the Famicom, the company's first console with interchangeable cartridges, the console featured a lockout chip that prevented poor quality software from ending up on the console as was the case for many consoles before it. This rise in low quality games for consoles in North America hurt the region's gaming market and meant the Famicom would have struggled if it was released with the design it had in Japan.

The Famicom was released internationally as the Nintendo Entertainment System which was larger and had a design similar to a VCR which made people see it as something different to a video game console

By 1988 the Game and Watch was getting old and sales were declining and it was clear that Nintendo needed to innovate their handhelds by making one with a higher frame rate and better graphics and sound as well as having interchangeable cartridges like the Famicom. The console was launched in 1989 and came with Tetris, a third party game, which Nintendo felt would appeal to a wider audience than Mario. The console was even more successful than the Famicom and had a very long lifespan which was partly due to the success of Pokémon.