The original headquarters in Kyoto. The right section was later rebuilt while the left portion was reportedly demolished.
Author - 株式会社灰孝本店 許諾
Author - 株式会社灰孝本店 許諾
On September 23rd, 1889, Fusajiro Yamauchi founded Nintendo as Nintendo Karuta. Back then of course the company didn't produce video games. Instead they created hanafuda, a type of Japanese playing card.
Even with a quick start, the company had financial issues due to being favorable to only a niche market along with the cards being slow and expensive to produce. To combat this they started producing a set of lower quality cards that were easier to replace.
Even with a quick start, the company had financial issues due to being favorable to only a niche market along with the cards being slow and expensive to produce. To combat this they started producing a set of lower quality cards that were easier to replace.
In 1902 Nintendo opened their doors to the Western market with Western style cards though due to delays, it wasn't until 1907 where they full started selling their cards over there. It is said that these cards were originally produced for Russian prisoners of war who were captured during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904. Around this time Yamauchi was getting ready to retire but due to Japanense tradition, he needed a heir to the company. Sekiryo Kaneda was adopted by Yamauchi in 1907 and they became the next president of Nintendo in 1927. After this Nintendo swapped presidents for a little while and not much happened until 1952. It was at this time that Nintendo has landed a partnership with Disney which allowed them to print Disney's charecters onto their own cards. Around now, Nintendo was the 2nd largest card company manufacturer in Japan.
In 1950's, Nintendo started manufacturing board games such as chess, shogi, and majong. They even created several toys of their own such as the super grabber, ultra machine, and the love tester, the lather of which was a novelty toy that tried to figuire out how compatible a boy and a girl are. After this, Nintendo started to bust out onto the tech scene and started to create electronical toys, consoles, and games thus ending the first chapter of Nintendo.
The ultra machine would fire softballs at the user so they could hit it back.
Author - Vinelodge
Author - Vinelodge