The Japanese multinational consumer electronic company Nintendo is the world’s largest video game company and incredibly was originally founded in 1889. In its first incarnation Nintendo produced handmade playing cards and did not move into the video games industry until the 1970s, where they started to develop a produce arcade machines in the developing arcade scene.
Spotting the possibilities in the market Nintendo ploughed resources and efforts into developing various titles to small success until the release of Donkey Kong in 1981, which gave them success and introduced a character who would become synonymous with the company in the form of Mario, a fringe character in the game known simply then as Jumpman.
Over the years Nintendo have been responsible for many Iconic consoles including the handheld Gameboy and DS Series (including 3DS Models), The Nintendo Entertainment System (or NES) and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), The 64-bit system Nintendo 64 (N64) which launched many games that have achieved classic status such as Goldeneye. We have also seen the GameCube, which lost Nintendo’s position as market leader, which was later regained by the Wii.
With the Wii, Nintendo revolutionised how video games were played and viewed and brought in a demographic to video games. The Wii inspired several new game franchises, some targeted at entirely new market segments of casual and fitness gaming, which helped the Wii sell over 100 million units. The name Nintendo when translated from the Japanese becomes “leave luck to heaven.”