Nintendo Co., Ltd.
Company History
Nintendo History: Founding, Growth & Key Milestones
Founded 1889 in Kyoto, Japan
When was Nintendo founded?
Nintendo was founded in 1889 in Kyoto, Japan by Fusajiro Yamauchi and Hiroshi Yamauchi, making it 137 years old.
- Founded
- 1889
- Founding place
- Kyoto, Japan
- Founders
- Fusajiro Yamauchi and Hiroshi Yamauchi
- Headquarters today
- Kyoto, Japan
- Milestones documented
- 13 (1889–2025)
- Current CEO
- Shuntaro Furukawa
- Acquisitions
- 3
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1889 | Nintendo Founded |
| 1949 | Hiroshi Yamauchi Takes Over |
| 1981 | Donkey Kong Arcade Released |
| 1983 | Famicom Released |
| 1985 | Super Mario Bros. Released |
| 1989 | Game Boy Released |
| 1996 | Nintendo 64 Released |
| 2002 | Satoru Iwata Becomes President |
| 2004 | Nintendo DS Released |
| 2006 | Wii Released |
| 2012 | Wii U Released |
| 2017 | Nintendo Switch Released |
| 2025 | Nintendo Switch 2 Released |
- Where was Nintendo founded?
- Nintendo was founded in Kyoto, Japan in 1889. wikidata.org
- Who founded Nintendo?
- Nintendo was founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi and Hiroshi Yamauchi.
- When did Nintendo start?
- Nintendo was founded in 1889.
- How old is Nintendo?
- Nintendo is 137 years old as of 2026.
- How did Nintendo start?
- Nintendo began in 1889 as a Kyoto workshop making hanafuda cards, and its habit of treating play as a premium craft still shapes how it builds consoles today.
Founding Story
In 1889, Fusajiro Yamauchi started a tiny business in Kyoto making 'Hanafuda', beautifully painted Japanese playing cards. The business was successful but highly niche. By the 1960s, Fusajiro's great-grandson, Hiroshi Yamauchi, realized playing cards were a dead end. Desperate, he tried everything: he bought a taxi fleet, a TV network, and even a hotel. They all failed. As a last resort, he noticed a young maintenance engineer (Gunpei Yokoi) playing with an extending mechanical arm he built for fun. Yamauchi rushed the toy to production, pivoted the entire 70-year-old playing card company into electronics, and accidentally birthed the video game industry.
Founders
Fusajiro Yamauchi
Fusajiro Yamauchi founded Nintendo Koppai in 1889 in Kyoto, Japan. Originally, the company solely produced handmade hanafuda cards from the bark of mitsu-mata trees. The cards became popular throughout Japan, particularly within gambling circles and the yakuza, forcing Yamauchi to hire assistants to mass-produce them just to keep up with intense local demand. He retired in 1929, passing the business to his son-in-law Sekiryo Kaneda (later Sekiryo Yamauchi), and died in 1940. While he did not live to see the company move into electronics, his foundational establishment of Nintendo as a premium entertainment and gaming company set the exact cultural trajectory for his great-grandson, Hiroshi Yamauchi, to later pivot the business into toys and video games. His insistence on quality control and treating entertainment as a serious, premium business remains baked into Nintendo's corporate DNA over a century later. Fusajiro Yamauchi was born in 1859.
Hiroshi Yamauchi
While not the original founder of the playing card business, Hiroshi Yamauchi is the architect of the modern, electronic Nintendo. After taking over in 1949, he quickly realized the playing card market had limited growth potential. He famously visited the United States in the 1950s and was shocked to see that the world's largest playing card company operated out of a small, uninspiring office. Convinced that cards were a dead end, he immediately diversified Nintendo into a chaotic array of businesses: taxi services (Daiya), a love hotel chain, a TV network, and even instant rice. All of these failed. Finally, he found success in the 1960s and 70s with electronic toys (like the Ultra Hand) and arcade games, largely driven by the clever of his engineer Gunpei Yokoi. Under his famously hard-nosed, top-down leadership, Nintendo released the Famicom (NES), the Game Boy, and the Super Nintendo (SNES). He possessed an uncanny ability to identify talent, famously hiring a young artist named Shigeru Miyamoto who would go on to create Mario and Zelda. Yamauchi ruled Nintendo with an iron fist until 2002, handling the company through the volatile birth of the console industry and retiring as one of the richest men in Japan. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).
Key Milestones
Nintendo Founded
Fusajiro Yamauchi founded Nintendo Koppai in Kyoto to produce handmade hanafuda playing cards.
Source: nintendo.co.jpHiroshi Yamauchi Takes Over
21-year-old Hiroshi Yamauchi becomes president, initiating the hard-nosed modernization and diversification of the company away from playing cards.
Source: nintendo.co.jpDonkey Kong Arcade Released
Designed by Shigeru Miyamoto, the arcade game introduces Mario (then 'Jumpman') and becomes a global hit, establishing Nintendo in America.
Source: nintendo.co.jpFamicom Released
Released the Family Computer (Famicom) in Japan, later released globally as the NES, effectively saving the home console industry.
Source: nintendo.co.jpSuper Mario Bros. Released
Nintendo released Super Mario Bros. in September 1985.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgGame Boy Released
Nintendo transformed the handheld gaming market with the release of the Game Boy, bundled with Tetris.
Source: nintendo.co.jpSatoru Iwata Becomes President
Satoru Iwata succeeded Hiroshi Yamauchi as president in 2002.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgNintendo DS Released
The dual-screen, touch-enabled handheld launched, eventually selling more than 154 million units, one of the best-selling consoles of all time.
Source: nintendo.co.jpWii Released
The Wii launched, introducing motion controls, abandoning the graphics arms race, and becoming a cultural phenomenon.
Source: nintendo.co.jpWii U Released
The launch of the Wii U, a commercial failure that forced Nintendo into consecutive years of operating losses.
Source: nintendo.co.jpNintendo Switch Released
The hybrid console launched, reversing the fortunes of the Wii U era and driving record, sustained profits.
Source: nintendo.co.jpNintendo Switch 2 Released
The Switch 2 launched in June 2025 and sold 19.86 million units by March 31, 2026, Nintendo's fastest-selling hardware in its first months.
Source: nintendo.co.jpMajor Acquisitions
Next Level Games
2021To secure exclusive development resources, ensure the continued production of high-quality franchises like Luigi's Mansion, and prevent the studio from being acquired by a competitor.
Dynamo Pictures (Renamed to Nintendo Pictures)
2022To strengthen the planning and production structure of visual content in the Nintendo group, allowing them to create high-quality CG animation internally.
Shiver Entertainment
2024To secure a studio with deep expertise in porting complex, high-fidelity games to Nintendo platforms, specifically preparing for the technical demands of the Switch successor.
Keep researching Nintendo
Nintendo Company History FAQ
How was Nintendo originally founded in Kyoto in 1889?
Nintendo was founded on September 23, 1889, in Kyoto, Japan, by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi as "Nintendo Koppai." The company hand-painted traditional Japanese Hanafuda (flower cards) playing cards made from mulberry bark. The cards became a nationwide sensation, popular with both families and Japanese gaming clubs, establishing the foundation for what would become the world's oldest gaming corporation.
How did Nintendo save the American video game industry in 1985?
Following the devastating 1983 North American video game crash (where low-quality shovelware like Atari's E.T. caused industry revenues to collapse by 97%), retailers refused to stock video games. In 1985, Nintendo released the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) disguised as an entertainment robot toy (R.O.B.), enforced the strict "Nintendo Seal of Quality," and published Super Mario Bros., single-handedly reviving the home gaming industry.
What led Nintendo to transition from playing cards to electronic toys in the 1960s and 1970s?
During the 1960s, third-generation president Hiroshi Yamauchi recognized the growth limits of playing cards and experimented with taxi services, love hotels, and instant rice before discovering factory maintenance engineer Gunpei Yokoi. Yokoi invented the Ultra Hand mechanical toy in 1966, followed by the solar-powered Beam Gun and Game & Watch handheld LCD games, transforming Nintendo into an electronic entertainment pioneer.
What was the significance of the Nintendo Game Boy launched in 1989?
Designed by Gunpei Yokoi, the 1989 Game Boy combined an inexpensive monochrome screen with phenomenal battery life and Tetris as a bundled launch title. The Game Boy line sold over 118 million units worldwide, creating the modern handheld gaming market and demonstrating Nintendo's core doctrine that accessible gameplay beats expensive technical specifications.
How did the Nintendo 64 and GameCube eras reshape Nintendo's competitive positioning?
During the mid-1990s and early 2000s, Nintendo retained proprietary ROM cartridges for the N64, losing key third-party partners like Square to Sony's CD-ROM PlayStation. While the N64 and GameCube produced landmark innovations like Super Mario 64 and Super Smash Bros., intense hardware competition prompted Nintendo to pivot away from raw computing horsepower toward blue ocean disruptive design.
How did the Nintendo Wii achieve mainstream crossover success in 2006?
Under CEO Satoru Iwata, the Wii deliberately rejected HD graphics to focus on intuitive motion controls with the Wii Remote. Bundled with Wii Sports, the console appealed to non-traditional gamers—including parents and seniors—selling over 101 million units and dramatically expanding the demographics of the video game industry.
How did the Nintendo Switch achieve historic commercial turnaround after the Wii U failure?
After the commercial failure of the Wii U (13.5 million units sold), Nintendo unified its handheld and home console engineering divisions under the leadership of Shuntaro Furukawa and Shigeru Miyamoto. Launched in March 2017 with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the hybrid Nintendo Switch sold over 140 million units, becoming the third best-selling video game console in history.
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