History of Nintendo

The Nintendo logo since May 11, 2016

The history of Nintendo, an international video game company based in Japan, starts in 1889 when Fusajiro Yamauchi founded "Yamauchi Nintendo", a producer of hanafuda playing cards. Since its founding, the company has been based in Kyoto.[1] Sekiryo Kaneda was Nintendo's president from 1929 to 1949. His successor, Hiroshi Yamauchi, had the company producing toys like the Ultra Hand among other ventures. In the 1970s and '80s, Nintendo made arcade games, the Color TV-Game series of home game consoles, and the Game & Watch series of handheld electronic games.

Mario, from the Super Mario game series, is the mascot of Nintendo.

Shigeru Miyamoto designed the arcade game Donkey Kong (1981): Nintendo's first international hit video game, and the origin of the company's mascot, Mario. After the video game crash of 1983, Nintendo filled a market gap in the West by releasing their Japanese Famicom home console (1983) as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in the U.S. in 1985. Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka's innovative NES titles, Super Mario Bros. (1985) and The Legend of Zelda (1986), were highly influential to video games.

The Game Boy handheld console (1989) and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System home console (1990) were successful, while Nintendo had an intense business rivalry with console maker Sega. The Virtual Boy (1995), a portable console with stereoscopic 3D graphics, was a critical and financial failure. With the Nintendo 64 (1996) and its innovative launch title Super Mario 64, the company began making games with fully-3D computer graphics. The Pokémon media franchise, partially owned by Nintendo, has been a worldwide hit since the 1990s.

The Game Boy Advance (2001) was another success. The GameCube home console (2001), while popular with core Nintendo fans, had weak sales compared to Sony and Microsoft's competing consoles. In 2002, Hiroshi Yamauchi was succeeded by Satoru Iwata, who oversaw the release of the Nintendo DS handheld (2004) with a touchscreen, and the Wii home console (2006) with a motion controller; both were extraordinarily successful. Nintendo, now targeting a wide audience including casual gamers and previously non-gamers, essentially stopped competing with Sony and Microsoft, who targeted devoted gamers. Wii Sports (2006) remains Nintendo's best-selling game.

The Nintendo 3DS handheld (2011) successfully retried stereoscopic 3D. The Wii U home console (2012) sold poorly, putting Nintendo's future as a manufacturer in doubt, and influencing Iwata to bring the company into mobile gaming. Iwata also led development of the successful Nintendo Switch (2017), a home/handheld hybrid console, before his death in 2015. He was succeeded by Tatsumi Kimishima until 2018, followed by current president Shuntaro Furukawa.

## 1889–1949: Hanafuda cards

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Nintendo poster from early Meiji Era, showing the company's hanafuda cards Nintendo's first headquarters was in Kyoto (1889).

Nintendo was founded as Yamauchi Nintendo (山内任天堂) by Fusajiro Yamauchi on September 23, 1889.[2][3] though it was originally named Nintendo Koppai. Based in Kyoto, Japan, the business produced and marketed hanafuda, a type of Japanese playing card. The name "Nintendo" is commonly assumed to mean "leave luck to heaven", but there are no historical records to validate this.[4] Hanafuda cards were an alternative to Western-style playing cards which were banned in Japan at the time. Nintendo's cards gained popularity, so Yamauchi hired assistants to mass-produce them.

Fusajiro Yamauchi did not have a son to take over the family business. Following the common Japanese tradition of mukoyōshi, he adopted his son-in-law, Sekiryo Kaneda, who then legally took his wife's last name of Yamauchi. In 1929, Fusajiro Yamauchi retired and allowed Kaneda to take over as president. In 1933, Sekiryo Kaneda established a joint venture with another company and renamed it Yamauchi Nintendo & Co.

Nintendo's headquarters were almost destroyed in 1945, during World War II, when the United States military was preparing to use their newly-invented nuclear bomb on a Japanese city; in June 1945, Kyoto was the top city considered by the military for an attack, but U.S. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson removed it as a potential target due to his appreciation of the city.[5]

In 1947, Sekiryo established a distribution company, Marufuku Co., Ltd.,[6] to distribute the hanafuda and several other types of cards produced by Nintendo. Sekiryo Kaneda also had only daughters, so again his son-in-law (Shikanojo Inaba, renamed Shikanojo Yamauchi) was adopted into the family. Yamauchi later abandoned his family and did not become company president. Subsequently, his son Hiroshi Yamauchi was brought up by his grandparents and he later took over the company instead of his father.

## 1949–1966: Disney partnership and public listing

[edit]

Nintendo's second headquarters from 1933-1959

In 1949, Hiroshi Yamauchi attended Waseda University in Tokyo. However, after his grandfather suffered a debilitating stroke, he left to take office as the president of Nintendo.[7] In 1950, he renamed Marufuku Co. Ltd. to Nintendo Karuta (任天堂かるた), and in 1951 to Nintendo Karuta (任天堂骨牌) (writing "karuta" as "骨牌" rather than "かるた").[8][9][10] In 1953, Nintendo became the first company in Japan to produce playing cards from plastic.[11]

In 1956, Yamauchi visited the U.S., to engage in talks with the United States Playing Card Company (USPCC), the dominant playing card manufacturer in the United States, based in Cincinnati. He was shocked to find that the world's biggest company in his business was relegated to using a small office. This was a turning point for Yamauchi, who then realized the limitations of the playing card business.[citation needed]

In 1958, Nintendo made a deal with Disney to allow the use of Disney's characters on Nintendo's playing cards.[9] Previously, Western playing cards were regarded as something similar to hanafuda and mahjong: a device for gambling. By tying playing cards to Disney and selling books explaining the different games playable with the cards, Nintendo could sell the product to Japanese households. The tie-in was a success and the company sold at least 600,000 card packs in one year. Due to this success, in 1962, Yamauchi took Nintendo public, listing the company in Osaka Stock Exchange Second division.[10]

In 1963, Nintendo Playing Card Co., Ltd. was renamed to simply "Nintendo" by Yamauchi.[10] Nintendo started to begin experimenting in other areas of business using the newly injected capital. This included establishing a food company in partnership with two other firms with a product line featuring instant rice (similar to instant noodles),[12] a vacuum cleaner, and Chiritory. All these ventures eventually failed, except toymaking, based on some earlier experience from selling playing cards.[13] In 1964, while Japan was experiencing an economic boom due to the Tokyo Olympics, the playing card business reached saturation. Japanese households stopped buying playing cards, and the price of Nintendo stock fell from 900 yen to 60 yen.[14]

In 1965, Nintendo hired Gunpei Yokoi as a Maintenance Engineer for the assembly line. However, Yokoi soon became famous for much more than his ability to repair conveyor belts.[15]

## 1966–1972: Toy company and new ventures

[edit]

During the 1960s, Nintendo struggled to survive in the Japanese toy industry, which was still small at this point, and already dominated by already well-established companies such as Bandai and Tomy. Because of the generally short product life cycle of toys, the company took the approach of introducing new products at a quicker rate, marking the start of a major new era for Nintendo.

In 1966, Yamauchi, upon visiting one of the company's hanafuda factories, noticed an extending arm-shaped toy, which had been made by one of its maintenance engineers, Gunpei Yokoi, for his own enjoyment. Yamauchi ordered Yokoi to develop it as a proper product for the Christmas rush. Released as the Ultra Hand, it became one of Nintendo's earliest toy blockbusters, selling over hundreds of thousands units. Seeing that Yokoi had potential, Yamauchi pulled him off assembly line work. Yokoi was soon moved from maintenance duty to product development.

The Ultra Machine and Love Tester are two commercial toys made by Nintendo in the late 1960s.

Due to his electrical engineering background, it soon became apparent that Yokoi was quite adept at developing electronic toys. These devices had a much higher novelty value than traditional toys, allowing Nintendo to charge a higher price margin for each product. Yokoi went on to develop many other toys, including the Ten Billion Barrel puzzle, a baseball throwing machine called the Ultra Machine, and a Love Tester.

Nintendo released the first solar-powered light gun, the Nintendo Beam Gun,[16] in 1970; this was the first commercially available light-gun for home use, produced in partnership with Sharp.[17]

In 1972, Nintendo released the Ele-Conga, one of the first programmable drum machines. It plays pre-programmed rhythms from disc-shaped punch cards, which can be altered or programmed by the user, to play different patterns.[18]

## 1972–1983: Arcade, Color TV-Game, and Game & Watch

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Main articles: Color TV-Game and Game & Watch

Further information: List of Nintendo arcade games

### Entrance into video games

[edit]

Released in 1972, the first commercially available video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey, has a light gun accessory, the Shooting Gallery.[19] This was the first involvement of Nintendo in video games. According to Martin Picard in the International Journal of Computer Game Research: "in 1971, Nintendo had—even before the marketing of the first home console in the United States—an alliance with the American pioneer Magnavox to develop and produce optoelectronic guns for the Odyssey (released in 1972), since it was similar to what Nintendo was able to offer in the Japanese toy market in 1970s".[20]

In 1973, its focus shifted to family-friendly arcades with the Laser Clay Shooting System,[21] using the same light gun technology used in Nintendo's Kousenjuu series of toys, and set up in abandoned bowling alleys. Gaining some success, Nintendo developed several more light gun machines for the emerging arcade scene. While the Laser Clay Shooting System ranges had to be shut down following excessive costs, Nintendo had founded a new market.

Nintendo also entered the video game market. Its first steps were to acquire the rights to distribute the Magnavox Odyssey in Japan in 1974 and to release its first video arcade game, EVR Race,[22] in 1975.

### Color TV-Game console line

[edit]

In 1977, Nintendo released the Color TV-Game 6 and Color TV-Game 15, two consoles jointly developed with Mitsubishi Electric. The numbers in the console names indicate the number of games included in each.[10]

### Shigeru Miyamoto and Donkey Kong (1981)

[edit]

Shigeru Miyamoto created the 1981 game Donkey Kong.

In the early 1980s, Nintendo's video game division was led by Yokoi to create some of its most famous arcade games. The massively popular Donkey Kong was designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and released in arcades in 1981. Home releases soon followed, made by Coleco for the Atari 2600, Intellivision, and ColecoVision video game systems. Some of Nintendo's other arcade games were ported to home consoles by third parties, including Donkey Kong Jr., Sky Skipper, Mario Bros., and Donkey Kong 3. Nintendo started to focus on the home game market. It stopped manufacturing and releasing arcade games in Japan in late 1985,[23][24] and withdrew its membership from the Japan Amusement Machinery Manufacturers Association (JAMMA) on February 28, 1989.[25]

The release of Donkey Kong caused Universal Studios, Inc. to take legal action and sue Nintendo for copyright infringement on their character King Kong, which was actually in the public domain. The court sided with Nintendo in Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd.. Nintendo thanked their lawyer, John Kirby, by giving him a $30,000 boat called the Donkey Kong, along with "exclusive worldwide rights to use the name for sailboats," and named the character Kirby after him.[26]

### Game & Watch

[edit]

Ball (1980), the first release in the Game & Watch series

In addition to the arcade game activity, Nintendo was testing the consumer handheld video game market with the Game & Watch. It is a line of handheld electronic games produced by Nintendo from 1980 to 1991. Created by Gunpei Yokoi, each Game & Watch features a single game to be played on an LCD screen in addition to a clock or an alarm. It is the earliest Nintendo product to garner major success, with 43.4 million units sold worldwide.

## 1983–1989: Famicom and Nintendo Entertainment System

[edit]

Main articles: Nintendo Entertainment System and History of the Nintendo Entertainment System

### Famicom

[edit]

The Family Computer or "Famicom" which released in Japan in 1983

In 1982, Nintendo developed a prototype system called the Advanced Video System (AVS), which could be used as a simple home computer. Accessories including controllers, a tape drive, a joystick, and a light gun were developed for the system, but it never released.[27][28][29] In July 1983, Nintendo released the Family Computer console in Japan, as its first attempt at a cartridge-based video game console. More than 500,000 units were sold within two months at around $100 each. After a few months of favorable sales, Nintendo received complaints that some Famicom consoles would freeze on certain games. The fault was found in a malfunctioning chip and Nintendo decided to recall all Famicom units that were currently on store shelves, at a cost of approximately $500,000.[citation needed]

### 1984 restructuring

[edit]

Nintendo's primary logo from 1984 to 2004, used as a secondary logo since then

From 1984 until 2004, Nintendo's employees were divided into four research & development (R&D) divisions; Research & Development 4, as it was named at its founding, was created in 1984 as the team behind most internal game development, led by Shigeru Miyamoto. It was renamed Entertainment Analysis & Development (EAD) by 2004.[30][31]

### Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)

[edit]

In 1983, Nintendo was in negotiations with Atari, then one of the biggest gaming companies, to distribute the Famicom in the United States under the name "Nintendo Enhanced Video System" (EVS). However, right before the deal was finalized, Atari backed out of it after its executives visited the 1983 Consumer Electronics Show and saw a demonstration of Donkey Kong's port for the Coleco Adam home computer, Coleco being one of Atari's main competitors; the executives were unaware of the port beforehand.[32]

Global video game industry revenues from 1978 to 1990, showing the effect of the video game crash of 1983 and the Nintendo-driven recovery of the late 1980s

Atari began restarting negotiations later that year, but Nintendo thought the EVS would be unsuccessful, given what just happened to the United States' gaming market: from 1983 to 1985, the gaming industry, particularly in North America, experienced a large scale recession which greatly weakened its four major game console manufacturers: Atari, with the Atari 2600; Coleco, with the ColecoVision; Magnavox, with the Odyssey 2; and Mattel Electronics with the Intellivision. Atari continued to make consoles with diminished popularity until they shuttered in the 1990s, Coleco left gaming entirely, Magnavox cancelled the North American release of its Odyssey³ console, and Mattel closed its Mattel Electronics division.[33][34][35]

The crash had many causes. There had been an influx of poorly-received games published by third party developers for home consoles in preparation for the 1982 North American holiday season, many containing glitches that crashed consoles or rendered the game unplayable; the console manufacturers had forewent quality control in allowing these games, which ruined gaming's reputation among consumers, to be published for their platforms. Home computers that could play games became more affordable, hurting home console sales; the many PC platforms added to the amount of gaming platforms on the market with similar technology, making each individual platform less unique to consumers. Home consoles were also becoming cheaper, making manufacturers take a loss on each system sold in hopes that they would make up the lost profits in software sales; after the crash, they were left without enough revenue to operate as they had been.[36]

The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), released in 1985, with a controller plugged in The R.O.B. peripheral for the NES, released in 1985

Nintendo decided to release the EVS in North America without the help of Atari. The renamed "Nintendo Advanced Video System" (AVS) was first shown to the public at the 1985 Consumer Electronics Show; reception to the AVS was lukewarm, spurred by attendees' negative feelings towards video games after the 1983 crash.[37] Soon, the company went back to redesign the console—and its marketing—to make the AVS dissimilar to America's existing game consoles.[37][38] The console was renamed the "Nintendo Entertainment System" (NES), the phrase "entertainment system" intentionally used to avoid sounding like a console.[38] The NES' games themselves were referred to by Nintendo's marketing as "game paks" [sic] instead of cartridges, which were inserted into a "control deck" instead of a console.[37] To look similar to contemporary entertainment devices such as VCRs and stereo systems, the Famicom's exterior was changed to a gray, boxy shape with a "futuristic aesthetic".[38] Nintendo created R.O.B., a robot-shaped peripheral for the NES, to market the console as having another aspect than the games themselves.[37]

Nintendo recognized that the 1983 crash was partially caused by the large amount of perceived low-quality games from third party developers being sold for American game consoles, so NES cartridges contained the patented "10NES" lockout chip: a chip on the cartridge's circuit board which connects to a corresponding chip within the console, once the cartridge is inserted—the console only plays a game if it detects the presence of the 10NES within its cartridge. The 10NES was only available to Nintendo and third party developers who Nintendo officially licensed to publish games for the system; third parties thus had to get the company's approval to make any NES game. The 10NES also prevented pirated versions of licensed games from running.[37][38] After the NES found success, Tengen, a subsidiary game developer of Atari, found a way to reverse engineer the chip, and created their own version of it which theoretically allowed them to publish unlicensed NES games; this did not work out for Tengen, as Nintendo won a lawsuit against them for patent infringement.[37]

A statement by Nintendo in a magazine about the "Seal of Quality" on NES games[39]

Nintendo allowed third parties to make NES games with the stipulation that those developers would not make games for any competing console; would not make games with gratuitous violence or intense depictions of controversial topics, such as religion; and would only release two games for the system per year.[37] Games which Nintendo officially approved for the system were designated with a "Nintendo Seal of Quality" disclaimer on the front of its packaging, which the company's marketing encouraged consumers to trust as a sign of a game's "excellence in workmanship, reliability, and [...] entertainment value." The company still uses the seal on game packaging to this day.[37][39]

Nintendo test marketed the NES in the New York City area in late 1985. Historian Frank Cifaldi writes that the console's exact launch date during this round of test marketing is unknown, but is probably in October. The first NES sold at Nintendo's launch event was to an employee of an unknown competing company, who also bought all 15 of the console's launch titles.[40][41] Nintendo expanded the test to Los Angeles in February 1986, followed by tests in Chicago and San Francisco. They would go national by the end of 1986, along with 15 games, sold separately. In the U.S. and Canada, it widely outsold its competitors.

#### Super Mario Bros.

[edit]

Takashi Tezuka co-designed Super Mario Bros. with Shigeru Miyamoto

Koji Kondo composed the game's score

One of the first games released for the NES was Super Mario Bros., designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka. Another game starring Mario, it was originally intended to be the last Famicom title developed by Nintendo for release in cartridge format; the company had planned to start releasing Famicom games exclusively for the Famicom Disk System, a disk drive peripheral that can be attached to the console to allow it to run floppy disks. Miyamoto and Tezuka initially developed Super Mario Bros. as a shooter, but it eventually turned into a platformer based around jumping. With a design that Miyamoto referred to as "the culmination of all NES cartridge games up to that point", the game finished development as "perhaps the most influential game of all time", Daniel Alvarez writes for TheGamer.[42][43]

After Jump Bug (1981), Flicky (1984), and Pac-Land (1984), Super Mario Bros. was one of the first side-scrolling video games: a type of 2D platformer in which the game's camera pans across a level to follow the player character's position in the level—in the case of Super Mario Bros., the camera would scroll to the right as Mario moves in that direction.[43] Steven L. Kent writes in his 2001 book The Ultimate History of Video Games:[44]

> "[The game] took Mario out of his single-screen setting [from Donkey Kong and Mario Bros.] and placed him in a huge vivid world [...] players now controlled him as he ran through a seemingly endless, brightly coloured countryside filled with caverns, castles, and giant mushrooms. The landscape was much too expansive to fit on a screen."

Mario's jump was utilized in new ways, such as to stomp on enemies to defeat them, to break blocks, and collect coins. Mario could also obtain power-ups: items like the Super Mushroom which give him special powers that change gameplay.[42][44] Koji Kondo, a composer who had joined Nintendo in 1984, made his first of many original scores for Nintendo games when he composed Super Mario Bros. Using a program that could export music written in the BASIC programming language to a Famicom game, Kondo aimed to make attention-grabbing background music for the levels that never became tiring to listen to, even after repeating on short loops.[45]

Mark Langshaw writes for Digital Spy that "gamers back in 1985 had never seen a platformer done so well" as Super Mario Bros.[42] It became one of the most successful video games ever released, ultimately selling 40.24 million copies. Nintendo has ported the game to other consoles "at virtually every opportunity", starting with a version titled Super Mario Bros. Special (1986) for the NEC PC-8801 and Sharp X1 home computers.[46][47] Because the Famicom version was so successful, Nintendo continued making cartridge-based games for the console, even after the release of the Famicom Disk System.[42] In 1986, Nintendo of America started releasing the NES version as a bundle with the system.[41] Multiple writers have since claimed that because Super Mario Bros. is responsible for the NES' success in North America, it is thus responsible for saving the North American video game industry, after the 1983 crash had made it seem bound to fail permanently.[42][48][49]

The last major first-party game for the NES was Super Mario Bros. 3, which was released in early 1990 in North America, with more than 18 million units sold.[50]

#### The Legend of Zelda

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The Legend of Zelda, released for the Famicom in February 1986, was designed by Miyamoto, working with story writer Takashi Tezuka. The game's core concept, of exploring the high fantasy setting of Hyrule, was inspired by Miyamoto's experiences in the countryside of Kyoto, his home city. Ryan Lambie writes for Den of Geek: "He wanted to reproduce in video game form the same sense of awe and excitement he felt when he explored [the countryside's] forests and caves as a kid, to introduce the pleasure of discovering things or the anxiety of becoming lost in a maze."[51][52] Zelda is an early open-world game—in which the player has freedom to move in many directions—and has a non-linear structure, so the tasks required to complete the game can be done in an order of the player's choosing. The player, controlling Link, traverses the kingdom of Hyrule to find pieces of the magical Triforce artifact in order to save Hyrule's princess, Zelda, from the villain Ganon. Similar to role-playing video games (RPGs)—which, until Zelda, had mostly released for personal computers instead of home consoles—the game "contain[s] monsters, dungeons, missions to complete, characters to converse with", Ryan Lambie writes.[51] Koji Kondo composed the game's score.[45]

The Famicom Disk System (top), released in 1986, attached to a Famicom console (bottom)

The ambitious concept required more space than was available on Famicom, so, the game was released for the Famicom Disk System. The Legend of Zelda's floppy disk had a capacity of 112 kilobytes of data, far more than a standard Famicom cartridge. The game could run on a standard NES cartridge when the game released for the latter system in 1987.[51][53] As the game required more time to complete than any previous console game, Zelda introduced to consoles a player's ability to save their progress before turning off the console and returning to the game where they left off later. Miyamoto exploited various new technologies within the Famicom to make available storage space for each game save: the battery-powered backup storage found in Famicom Disk System floppy disks, as well as NES cartridges; and the advances in graphics provided by the Famicom/NES' Memory Map Controller (MMC) chip. As the save system allowed for longer games, it laid the foundation for more complex storylines within console games.[53] Lambie writes that Zelda achieving RPG-like gameplay on consoles influenced the hugely popular Famicom/NES RPGs Dragon Quest (1986) and Final Fantasy (1987)— and that its open world, non-linear gameplay "anticipated" later sandbox games like Grand Theft Auto V (2013), in which players have a great degree of creativity to interact with a game world.[51][54][55]

#### Metroid

[edit]

In August 1986, Nintendo released Metroid, a 2D action-adventure game, for the Famicom. It introduced a unique type of level design to the genre: the player character, Samus Aran, could explore the game world by navigating both X- and Y-axes of a large map—as opposed to previous action-adventures, which had players move in only one direction—which has a maze-like layout designed to feel claustrophobic. The map expands in size throughout a playthrough, as the player uses items and abilities they discover on the map to unlock gates which contain entryways to new areas. In 1987, the Famicom game Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, developed by Konami, deviated from the first Castlevania (1986) by featuring level design similar to Metroid's. Nintendo and Konami's games formed the basis of the long-lasting "Metroidvania" subgenre of games.[56][57]

Metroid is also notable for making Samus Aran one of the first female main characters in an action game. Generally, as people played the game for the first time, they assumed that Samus, a "badass" bounty hunter, was male—the game's instruction manual and an official strategy guide even refer to the character as "he"—and only learned her actual gender from a cutscene during the game's "true" ending. Multiple writers consider Samus a feminist icon, as the shock of a woman having performed the player's accomplishments changed many gamers' perceptions of women's roles in video game stories.[57][58][59][60]

Nintendo Power's logo from 2005 to 2012

### Nintendo Power

[edit]

In 1988, Nintendo of America began publishing Nintendo Power, a bimonthly magazine with news about, and strategy guides to, games on Nintendo consoles. It was designed "primarily to promote upcoming Nintendo products", and contained prose that, Reeves Wiedeman writes for The New Yorker, "read like lightly repurposed promotional material from the company’s marketing department", although its staff had some amount of independence from Nintendo. The magazine soon gained a devoted readership, as it was one of the best ways for Nintendo fans to get information on upcoming releases. It also included gaming-themed posters, detailed walkthroughs for games, game reviews from critics (which were generally positive), and rankings of record high scores in various games that were submitted by readers.[61] In 2007, Nintendo entered a contract to transfer the publishing and distribution of Nintendo Power to Future plc.[62] The magazine ended publication in 2012, likely having shut down as gaming news had become more accessible via the Internet and mobile phones.[61]

## 1989–1996: Game Boy, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and Virtual Boy

[edit]

Main articles: Game Boy and Super Nintendo Entertainment System

### Game Boy

[edit]

The Game Boy and Super Nintendo Entertainment System are Nintendo's fourth generation video game consoles.

In 1989, Nintendo released the Game Boy (also created by Gunpei Yokoi), along with the accompanying game Tetris. Due to the price, the game, and its durability (unlike the static and screen rot of the prior Microvision from Milton Bradley Company), the Game Boy line eventually amassed sales of 118 million units.[63] Super Mario Land was released with the system, and 14 million copies were sold worldwide. Also in 1989, Nintendo announced a successor to the Famicom, the Super Famicom.[64]

### Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES)

[edit]

The Super Famicom was released in Japan in November 1990. The launch was widely successful, and the Super Famicom was sold out across Japan within three days, with 1.6 million units sold by June 1991.[65] In August 1991, the Super Famicom was launched in the U.S. under the name "Super Nintendo Entertainment System" (SNES), followed by Europe in 1992.[66] Like the NES, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System has high technical specifications for its era. The SNES controller had also improved over that of the NES, as it now had rounded edges and four new buttons, a standard which is evident on many modern controllers today. In Japan, the Super Famicom easily took control of the gaming market.

In 1991, Nintendo agreed to a settlement regarding price-fixing allegations brought by the Federal Trade Commission and attorneys general in New York and Maryland. Nintendo had been accused of threatening to cut off shipments of the NES to retailers who discounted the price of the system. The estimated cost of the settlement was just under $30 million.[67]

In July 1992, Nintendo of America announced it would no longer manufacture arcade equipment.[68][69]

### Film and TV ventures

[edit]

In the 1980s and 1990s, Nintendo licensed its intellectual properties (IPs) for five American TV shows produced by DiC, four of them being Saturday morning cartoons on NBC: Captain N: The Game Master (1989-1991);[70] The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! (1989), a hybrid animated-live action show which included animated Legend of Zelda shorts;[71][72] King Koopa's Kool Kartoons (1989), a programming block of old cartoons such as Betty Boop, with bumpers featuring a live action portrayal of Bowser, which aired on KTTV, a Fox affiliate in Los Angeles;[73] The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 (1990);[74] and Super Mario World (1991).[75][76] Super Mario World was the first of these to be affected by the Children's Television Act, a 1990 U.S. law which forced children's TV shows to include moral lessons;[75][76] the act influenced NBC to cancel their tradition of airing cartoons on Saturday mornings.[77][78] In 1993, the first film adaptation of a video game, Super Mario Bros., released in theaters. A live-action film starring Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo as Mario and Luigi, respectively, it was a financial and critical failure, making Nintendo apprehensive about licensing their IPs for films for decades.[79][80]

### "Console war" with Sega

[edit]

At the start of the 1990s, Nintendo occupied 80% of the global video market, the other 20% split among three other competitors; "[the] most promising of these", Frank Cifaldi writes for Kotaku, "was a scrappy little upstart called Sega." Sega, a Japanese company, released their new home console, the Sega Mega Drive, in 1988 in Japan. In 1989, it launched in the U.S. as the "Sega Genesis". Initially, the Mega Drive "was making a modest name for itself" in Japan, whereas in North America, the Genesis was "hardly making a dent in Nintendo's 8-bit empire" despite generating excited media coverage.[81][82]

Sega "ostensibly [had not] much to lose" when in 1990, they hired Tom Kalinske—the former head of marketing at Mattel—to run Sega of America's marketing team. He and the marketing team began an intense and unorthodox campaign that made Sega a viable competitor, investing millions on what Cifaldi calls an "aggressive smear campaign" against Nintendo.[81] The team decided not to focus on what they viewed as Nintendo's core demographic, children, and worked on making Sega seem cool to a teenage audience.[83]

Still from a TV ad with the phrase "Genesis does what Nintendon't", one of many taglines and phrases Sega used to attack Nintendo's products

Keith Stewart writes for The Guardian that Sega of America made themselves the "brash bad boy of the industry" with a "TV and print advertising campaign that set out to belittle Nintendo and its quaint, family-orientated consoles". Their TV ads, for example, "went straight for the teenagers with [an] aggressive, rock music-driven, jump cut-filled" style, and directly targeted Nintendo, such as with the tagline "Genesis does what Nintendon't".[83] Sega toured malls across the U.S., setting up demonstrations favorably comparing their games against Nintendo's.[81] They alleged the Genesis was more powerful than the SNES due to a hardware feature known as "blast processing"; they marketed the phrase so intensely that Nintendo took out a two-page ad in various gaming magazines to rebut Sega's use of the phrase; in reality, it was a real feature which was unique to the Genesis, but did not provide the complete technological superiority over the SNES that Sega was claiming.[84]

Sega worked to get American game studios like Accolade, Electronic Arts (EA), and Spectrum Holobyte to develop Genesis-exclusive titles. They outbid Nintendo of America to get the rights to use NFL player Joe Montana as a mascot for a football video game, which became EA's Joe Montana Football (1990).[83] Developers moving to the Genesis forced Nintendo to remove some of its stringent game licensing standards made for the NES' launch, such as developers not being allowed to publish a game on both Nintendo's and a competitor's consoles.[37]

Tom Kalinske also lowered the Genesis' U.S. retail price, bundling the console with its "most promising new game", Sonic the Hedgehog, for free. This had Sega take a large loss on each console sold, trying to "get [the] Genesis in as many homes as possible" and hope that software sales from those homes could make up for the losses.[81] Sonic the Hedgehog, a platformer, released as a Genesis-exclusive title in 1991; it debuted Sonic, a blue hedgehog who can run at very high speeds. Britannica writes that the character was "designed to seem more modern than Nintendo’s mascot, Mario." After his debut game was a massive success, Sonic became the mascot of Sega, who began "a long battle for video [game] supremacy with Nintendo".[85][86]

Eventually, the Genesis became the most popular game console in the U.S,[83] and Nintendo's market share dropped to approximately 35%. However, after a few years, the SNES eventually overtook the Genesis in North America, in part due to its exclusive game library. Total worldwide sales of the SNES eventually reached 49.10 million units,[63] compared to the Genesis at an estimated 40 million units.[87] By May 1993, Nintendo had reportedly become one of the top ten leading companies in the world.[88]

### 1993—94 U.S. Senate hearings on video games

[edit]

In the 1990s, as games started commonly depicting graphic violence or sexual themes, like the arcade game Mortal Kombat (1992) and PC game Doom (1993), U.S. lawmakers became concerned about the industry's effect on children, then gaming's largest demographic. Video games had already earned a reputation in America as a "ravager of young minds", which had influenced Yamauchi to have Nintendo donate $3 million to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1990, to "help it create games that think", as the Associated Press wrote. Soon after Mortal Kombat, some in Congress began calling to censor games like it, or as Senator Joe Lieberman said, "ban them constitutionally". This led to the 1993—1994 U.S. Senate hearings on video games.[89][90][91][92][93] Nintendo and Sega differed on this topic: unlike their Genesis ports, Mortal Kombat and Doom's SNES ports were forced to remove appearances of blood per Nintendo's NES-era requirements. Congress' main issue, Night Trap (1992), depicted sexually-motivated violence against teenage girls, and was available on the Sega CD; in contrast, Nintendo of America chairman Howard Lincoln testified to the Senate that "Night Trap will never appear on a Nintendo system", as "it promotes violence against women, [which] simply has no place in our society".[37][91][94]

Nintendo and Sega, among others, successfully lobbied the U.S. Congress from censoring gaming content by putting ESRB ratings such as this on games' packaging

Hoping for games' content to be free from government oversight, Nintendo and Sega participated in the gaming industry's creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), a private organization which creates age and content ratings for display on game packages in North America, and which lobbied Congress to only hold game publishers accountable for working with the ESRB—rather than Congress passing censorious legislation. Games like Mortal Kombat were given the "M" or "Mature" rating on their packaging, signifying to retail workers that those games should only be sold to those aged 18 or above. Nintendo then relaxed some of their censorship rules, allowing Mortal Kombat II (1993) to depict blood in its 1994 SNES port.[91][95][92] Night Trap released for the Nintendo Switch in 2018.[94]

### Collaborations with Sony and Philips

[edit]

Shortly before 1988, as Nintendo was developing the SNES, it partnered with Japanese technology company Sony to make the system's SPC700 sound card, with the team at Sony headed by engineer Ken Kutaragi. In 1988, the two companies increased their cooperation on the SNES, as they worked to make a CD-ROM disk drive peripheral for the console, that could play game disks in order for the console to play games of larger sizes and with improved graphics and sound. In 1990, Nintendo and Sony announced their collaboration on the device, and in 1991, the device's name was publicly revealed to be the "Nintendo PlayStation". Only around 200 prototypes were ever manufactured.[96]

The only known prototype of Nintendo and Sony's unreleased "PlayStation" console (center), next to Sony's publicly released console of the same name (right) which resulted from the prototype

Before development finished on the SNES, Nintendo re-examined their licensing terms with Sony and found that Sony would, in their view, receive a disproportionate amount of revenue from their games which were CD-based. Nintendo attempted to renegotiate their deal with Sony, but did not get a desired outcome. One day after Sony publicly revealed their collaboration with Nintendo at the Consumer Electronics Show, Nintendo cancelled their deal by announcing they were working on CD-based games with Dutch electronics company Philips instead, surprising Sony.[96]

Philips Interactive Media developed four games using Nintendo properties for Philip's disc-based multimedia player, the CD-i: Link: The Faces of Evil (1993), Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon (1993), Hotel Mario (1994), and Zelda's Adventure (1995)—all four were critically panned.[97][98][99] Led by Ken Kutaragi,[100] Sony decided to continue work on the Nintendo PlayStation, making it a standalone console under the name "PlayStation". The console launched in 1994. It attracted developers frustrated with Nintendo's strict licensing policies, and allowed them to develop games that could display fully-3D computer graphics. In 2014, a document from the Nintendo PlayStation's development that detailed technical details of the device was leaked online. Any working prototype of the device was lost until 2009, when a working unit was found in an attic in Pennsylvania, which was detailed and demonstrated by its owner online in 2015.[96]

In 1995, Nintendo had new competition when Sega introduced their 32-bit Saturn, while Sony introduced the 32-bit PlayStation. Sony's fierce marketing campaigns ensued, and it started to cut into Nintendo and Sega's market share.

### Company expansion

[edit]

Nintendo purchased the Seattle Mariners, an American baseball team, in 1992

In June 1992, at the behest of Hiroshi Yamauchi, Nintendo bought majority shares of the Seattle Mariners, a Major League Baseball team based in Seattle, Washington. The team had put themselves up for sale in December 1991, as large amounts of debt put them on the verge of shutting down. Both a foreign organization buying an American sports team, as well as Yamuachi relinquishing control of the Mariners to its American managers, were unusual; Yamauchi said that his decision was "not being undertaken as business, but rather as a form of community service" by helping a struggling American company: "Japan has the United States to thank for its miraculous [post-World War II] growth, and Nintendo has also been allowed to do business in America. I owe a great debt to the United States, and I want to do everything in my power to pay it back.[93][101] Nintendo sold their majority share of the team in August 2016, retaining only 10% ownership.[102]

HAL Laboratory, a Japanese game development studio, has had a strong business relationship with Nintendo since HAL was asked to fix issues with Nintendo's Famicom game Pinball (1984). The studio released games for Nintendo consoles from that point forward. In 1993, HAL was on the verge of bankruptcy; at Yamauchi's behest, Nintendo bought them and made them a second-party developer of games for Nintendo systems, on the condition that HAL employee Satoru Iwata become the studio's head. Iwata was a game designer and programmer who had been with the studio since 1980, shortly after its founding.[103] He had designed the Famicom games Balloon Fight (1984) and Adventures of Lolo (1989). After Iwata became the studio's head, he played a major role in developing or publishing their games EarthBound (1994), Pokémon Stadium (1999), Pokémon Gold and Silver (1999), and Super Smash Bros. (1999), among others.[103][104][105]

In 1994, after many years of Nintendo's products being distributed in Australia by Mattel since the NES in 1985, Nintendo opened its Australian headquarters and its first managing directors were Graham Kerry, who moved along from Mattel Australia as managing director and Susumu Tanaka of Nintendo UK Ltd.

In 1995, Nintendo purchased part of Rare.

### Project Reality

[edit]

In 1993, Nintendo announced plans to develop a new 64-bit console codenamed Project Reality, capable of rendering fully 3D environments and characters. In 1994, Nintendo also claimed that Project Reality would be renamed Ultra 64 in the US. The Ultra 64 moniker was unveiled in arcades on the Nintendo branded fighting game Killer Instinct and the racing game Cruis'n USA. Killer Instinct was later released on the SNES. Soon after, Nintendo realized Konami owned the rights to the "Ultra" name. Specifically, only Konami had rights to release games for the new system with names like Ultra Football or Ultra Tennis. Therefore, in 1995 Nintendo changed the final name of the system to Nintendo 64, and announced that it would be released in 1996. The system and several games were previewed, including Super Mario 64, to the media and public.

### Virtual Boy

[edit]

The Virtual Boy tabletop console, released in 1995, with its controller. The device in red is the console's headset, which can display stereoscopic 3D visuals

In July 1995, Nintendo launched the Virtual Boy console in Japan. Designed by Gunpei Yokoi, it was a virtual reality "tabletop console", which displays its games on a monitor located inside a headset which sits at tabletop level, and connects to a traditional controller. The monitor displays games entirely through stereoscopic 3D visuals, the 3D effect achieved via two "flat, oscillating mirrors [that] beam a different image to each eye". The monitor can only display pixels colored either black or four shades of red.[106][107]

John Friscia later wrote for The Escapist that while the Virtual Boy had "so many things that were remarkable and genuinely laudable", it was ultimately "the worst hardware disaster that Nintendo has ever had"; it remains the company's largest commercial failure. The combination of the 3D and red monochrome visuals frequently caused eye fatigue and headaches for users. Each Virtual Boy game includes the option to automatically pause the gameplay every 15 to 30 minutes, and were each packaged with multiple warnings noting that long periods of play could cause headaches, and in rare cases, seizures. The console's various games were seen as disappointing, and only 22 titles were ever released for it. Nintendo discontinued the system in Japan in December 1995, and afterwards, continued selling it in North America for only a few more months.[106][107]

## 1996–2001: Nintendo 64 and Game Boy Color

[edit]

Main articles: Nintendo 64 and Game Boy Color

### Pokémon franchise

[edit]

Game Freak started in Japan in 1982 as a gaming magazine. In 1989, its co-founder, Satoshi Tajiri, turned the publication into a game development studio and made multiple games for Nintendo and Sega consoles, including Yoshi (1991), Mario & Wario (1993), and Pulseman (1994). Around 1990, Tajiri came up with the idea for Pocket Monsters, a game about collecting animals and having them fight other animals. It was inspired by his childhood memories of exploring forests and catching bugs and tadpoles inside of them. Tajiri pitched the game to Nintendo, who hesitantly greenlit the game. Led by Tajiri, Game Freak spent six years developing Pocket Monsters for the Game Boy, with Tajiri being aided by Miyamoto.[108] In February 1996, Pocket Monsters was released for the Game Boy in Japan; two different variants of the game, Pocket Monsters Red and Pocket Monsters Green (dually known as Pokémon Red and Green), were sold in stores containing slight differences but featuring the same core gameplay. In the west, Pocket Monsters was released under the name Pokémon, the two versions renamed Pokémon Red Version and Pokémon Blue Version (Pokémon Red and Blue), respectively.[108][109]

Pokémon merchandise at the Pokémon Center Mega Tokyo location in Ikebukuro, Japan, in 2016

Pokémon Red and Blue sold millions of copies worldwide. It was the beginning of a prolific series of Pokémon games, which soon became one part of an extensive media franchise. Red and Green were adapted into an anime TV series, which premiered in Japan in 1997 and later syndicated in other countries. In 1998, the Pokémon Center franchise of international Pokémon-themed retail stores started with the opening of Pokémon Center Tokyo, and Pokémon: The First Movie, a film based on the anime series, debuted in Japanese theaters. In 1999, the Pokémon Trading Card Game franchise was launched. In 2000, The Pokémon Center Company, the Japanese business which managed the retail franchise, rebranded as The Pokémon Company, which began managing the media franchise's branding and merchandise within Japan. In 2001, Pokémon USA, Inc. was founded as an American branch of The Pokémon Company; it eventually became The Pokémon Company International, to manage branding and merchandise everywhere but Japan.[108][109][110][111] Decades after Red and Blue, Pokémon has continued to be a cultural phenonemon around the world, but its popularity in the late 1990s was so strong as to be dubbed "Pokémania" by some writers.[111][112] A 1999 article for Time magazine described the sensation as such:

> "[It] may be [hard to survive] the relentlessness of Pokemania, a multimedia and interactive barrage like no other before it, with children mesmerized into cataloging a menagerie of multiplicative monsters, with trading cards linked to games linked to television shows linked to toys linked to websites linked to candy linked back to where you started--a pestilential Ponzi scheme. [...]. Smelling profits, America's conglomerates have pokeyed up to cash in."

Howard G. Chua-Eoan and Tim Larimer, "Beware of the Poke Mania" [sic], Time (November 22, 1999)

A child hugging a costumed performer dressed as Pikachu, the species of Pokémon that serves as the franchise's mascot

In western countries, the Pokémon franchise's popularity with children elicited such a widespread negative response among adults, especially parents, that anthropologist Christine Yano later wrote that such reactions constituted a moral panic. That type of negative response did not significantly exist in Japan.[113] The Pokémon Trading Card Game in particular provoked a strong response in the west; in 1999, the Los Angeles Times interviewed many school officials from across the U.S., who "have concluded the cards are disrupting learning, poisoning playground friendships and causing such distraction that some children forget their homework, tune out in class and even miss school buses as they scramble to acquire one more card."[114] Pokémon cards were "almost universally banned" from elementary school grounds in the U.S.,[115] and schools in other countries implemented similar bans.[116][117][118] In the U.S. and U.K., there was a noticeable trend of violence over, or thefts of, the cards, especially between children.[119][120][121][122][123] In 2000, in response to many Christians alleging Pokémon to be Satanic, the Catholic Church-owned TV station Sat2000 declared the franchise devoid of “any harmful moral side effects".[124]

Pokémon is currently the world's highest-grossing media franchise, having made a total $147 billion USD in revenue for its owners as of 2024.[125] Neither Game Freak nor The Pokémon Company are owned by Nintendo, but the latter still receives revenue from the Pokémon property; the franchise is jointly owned by Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures Inc., the latter being the producers of the franchise's video games. Junichi Masuda, co-founder of The Pokémon Company, said in 2017 that while Game Freak could hypothetically develop Pokémon games for Nintendo's competing gaming platforms, Game Freak does not do so as a friendly gesture towards Nintendo.[110]

### Nintendo 64

[edit]

Nintendo 64 black console with blank game cartridge and grey controller

In June 1996, the Nintendo 64 was released in Japan, with more than 500,000 units sold on the first day.[21] It released in North America in September, selling out Nintendo's initial shipment of 350,000.[21] Nintendo's extremely competitive climate was pushed by many third-party companies immediately developing and releasing many of their leading games for Nintendo's competitors. Many of those third-party companies cited cheaper development and manufacturing costs for the CD format, versus the cartridge format.

### Game Boy Pocket and exit of Gunpei Yokoi

[edit]

Nintendo followed with the release of the Game Boy Pocket, a smaller version of the original Game Boy, designed by Gunpei Yokoi as his final product for the company. A week after the release of the Game Boy Pocket, he resigned from his position at Nintendo. He then helped create the WonderSwan, a competing handheld console.

In October 1997, Yokoi died in a car accident at the age of 56. He was driving on the Hokuriku Expressway in Neagarimachi, Ishikawa Prefecture, when he hit the car in front of him. Stepping out to inspect the damage on his car, he was hit by a passing vehicle, seriously injuring him and causing his death two hours later.[15][126]

### Legal issues

[edit]

In 1997, the European Economic Community forced Nintendo to drastically rework its third-party licensing contracts, ruling that the company could no longer limit the number of games a license could release, require games to undergo prior approval, or require third-party games to be exclusively manufactured by Nintendo.[127]

In December 1998, Nintendo sued the owner of the "zelda.com" domain name, which linked to pornographic images at the time.[128]

In December 1999, Israeli-British illusionist Uri Geller sued Nintendo for £60 million over his likeness allegedly being represented in the Pokémon Alakazam.[129][130] The lawsuit was dropped in 2003, and Geller sued multiple times after; in 2020, he apologized for the legal battle.[131]

In March 2000, Nintendo made an $80 million USD settlement with the Attorney General of New York, over hand injuries sustained by children while rotating the Nintendo 64 controller's joystick in five different minigames within Mario Party (1998). The company issued game gloves to prevent future injuries.[132]

In June 2000, Nintendo announced that they had gotten Apollo Ltd., a major Hong Kong company who had produced pirated versions of Nintendo games, shut down by Hong Kong law enforcement.[133][134]

Retro Studios' headquarters in Austin, Texas, before moving to a different building in the city in 2011

### Founding of Retro Studios

[edit]

In 1998, as Nintendo was developing its next home console, codenamed "Dolphin" at the time, the company worked with American game producer Jeff Spangenburg—who previously worked at Acclaim Entertainment, then-publisher of the Turok series—to found Retro Studios, a game development studio based in Austin, Texas. Spangenberg was fired from Acclaim earlier that year, and then secured a deal with Nintendo of America to develop for the Dolphin; Nintendo funded Retro's 40,000-square-foot studio. Within a few years, the studio had about 150 employees.[135]

The Game Boy Color, released in 1998, in Atomic Purple

### Game Boy Color

[edit]

In October 1998, the Game Boy Color was launched in Japan, with releases in North America and Europe a month later. It was a version of the original Game Boy that could display a wide variety of colored pixels, compared to the original handheld's monochrome display. The Game Boy Color could run cartridges of games whose graphics were developed with the new system in mind, but it was also backwards compatible with games originally intended for the monochrome Game Boy; for the latter games, users could choose between four predefined palettes which automatically colored the entire display. The console itself launched in five colors, named Berry, Grape, Kiwi, Dandelion, and Teal. It was later released in Atomic Purple, the device's plastic exterior made to be transparent.[136]

### The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

[edit]

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the first Zelda game to use a fully-3D graphics engine, released for the Nintendo 64 in 1998. It popularized both the "context-sensitive button" game mechanic, which allows a controller's button to have multiple different uses in a game, depending on the player's location in the game world; and "camera lock-on", which lets the player temporarily force the game's camera to only rotate around one point in 3D space, to more easily understand and interact with a 3D environment.[137][138][139] 1Up.com wrote in 2012 that these additions made the game feel "intuitive" as opposed to "the bulk of 3D action adventures in the mid-to-late [1990s, which] played like hell".[139] Ocarina of Time was unanimously lauded by critics. As of 2025, Guinness World Records labels it the "most critically acclaimed video game ever", as its average review score from critics is a 99 out of 100 on Metacritic.[140]

The 64DD, released in 1999, attached below a Nintendo 64 console

### 64DD

[edit]

In 1999, Nintendo released the 64DD, a disk drive peripheral that allowed the Nintendo 64 to play disk-based games. The company advertised the device in international gaming magazines for years prior, essentially saying it would "change the way we play games". However, the 64DD was only sold in Japan, and only seven games were made for it. The peripheral was mainly sold only through a website called Randnet, as a bundle with all seven games.[141]

## 2001–2004: Game Boy Advance and GameCube

[edit]

Main articles: Game Boy Advance and GameCube

### Game Boy Advance

[edit]

The original Game Boy Advance released in 2001, in its Indigo version

Nintendo released the Game Boy Advance (GBA) handheld console in Japan in March 2001, followed by North America and Europe in June.[142][143] The system had a much larger screen than previous versions of the Game Boy, and its screen could display more colors than the Game Boy Color. The GBA had backwards compatibility with Game Boy and Game Boy Color cartridges, and much like the unreleased accessory for the Dolphin, it could connect to the GameCube using a "Link Cable" and be used as a second display for compatible GameCube games.[144] In North America, the GBA was highly successful at launch, becoming Nintendo's fast-selling system at the time, with 500,000 units sold in around a month.[143]

### GameCube

[edit]

In the early 2000s, Sega stopped making game consoles after the financial failure of their Dreamcast home console.[145][146] Becoming solely a game developer and publisher, Sega began releasing their developers' games on Nintendo consoles; notably, the first Sonic the Hedgehog game on a Nintendo system was Sonic Advance for the GBA in 2002.[147] Sony became Nintendo's main rival in the console field,[145] but both companies now competed against American technology company Microsoft, who released the Xbox home console in 2001.[148]

The GameCube, released in 2001, with its controller and a memory card

The Dolphin was officially announced as Nintendo's next home console at E3 1999; Nintendo of America president Howard Lincoln declared the system would "equal or exceed anything our friends at Sony can come up with for PlayStation 2" (PS2).[145] At Nintendo's "SpaceWorld 2000" trade show the next year, more details were given on the Dolphin, revealed to be named the "GameCube".[142][144] The GameCube had a more ergonomic controller than previous Nintendo consoles, and included a handle for easy carriage. Its games were released in disk format, meaning the console, in theory, had enough power to attract third-party developers back to the system after the relative weakness of the Nintendo 64; however, the mini-disc format was used, as to prevent piracy and have Nintendo not pay fees to the DVD Forum consortium, who made DVD technologies such as game disks—this meant a GameCube disk can only store 1.6 gigabytes of data, which was once again underpowered compared to Nintendo's competitors.[145][149]

While developing the GameCube, Nintendo built an peripheral for it which included an LCD screen, that could function as a second display for games—aside from the monitor connected to the console itself—and display stereoscopic 3D graphics, similar to the Virtual Boy. Nintendo's developers were able to run the game Luigi's Mansion (which released for the GameCube in 2001[145]) on the peripheral, but mass-producing it would have been too expensive for the company.[145]

The Japan-only Panasonic Q version of the GameCube

The GameCube was released in September 2001 in Japan, November 2001 in North America, and May 2002 in Europe.[149] The system had a strong launch—Nintendo said it was stronger than those of the PS2 and Xbox—but sales in succeeding months were lower than expected.[150][151][145] This was partially due to the system's small early library; this included Luigi's Mansion, which was seen as an underwhelming launch title. The GameCube also did not have a built-in DVD player, while the PS2 did; the Panasonic Q edition of the GameCube, which does have one, only ever released in Japan.[145][149]

### Leadership changes

[edit]

In 2000, after the release of Super Smash Bros., Satoru Iwata resigned as the head of HAL Laboratory to lead Nintendo's corporate planning division.[103] He temporarily forewent this position to work on debugging HAL's GameCube title Super Smash Bros. Melee (2001).[103][104] In May 2002, Yamauchi surprised Iwata by offering him the position of Nintendo's corporate president. Iwata agreed to the appointment, and he was president later that month—the first in his position to not be from the Yamauchi family.[103][152] Yamauchi remained on the company's board of directors until 2005, and with a 10% stake, he was Nintendo's largest individual shareholder until his death in September 2013. In April 2013, Forbes magazine estimated his net worth at $2.1 billion USD, making him the 13th wealthiest person in Japan.[153][154]

Satoru Iwata became president of Nintendo in 2002

Reggie Fils-Aimé joined Nintendo of America in 2003, becoming the division's president and CEO in 2006

In January 2002, Minoru Arakawa resigned as president of Nintendo of America, and Nintendo named Tatsumi Kimishima as his successor.[155] In December 2003, Reggie Fils-Aimé—the future president and CEO of Nintendo of America—joined the company as the executive vice president of sales and marketing for the America division. Before that, he had been on the marketing teams of Panda Express, Pizza Hut, and Procter & Gamble, among others.[156]

### GameCube reception and financial difficulties

[edit]

Despite the GameCube's technological improvements from the Nintendo 64, third parties generally still kept away from the new system. Nintendo was late in giving development kits to third-party developers in the lead-up to the system's launch.[145] Gavin Lane writes for Nintendo Life that the GameCube was also hurt by Nintendo continuing to target a demographic of younger players, despite having an older audience of people who owned previous Nintendo consoles; Lane writes that Sony, meanwhile, "expertly co-opted anxious teenagers desperate to distance themselves from childish things" with the PS2.[145][157] The cartoon-like aesthetic of the GameCube title The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker (2002), as well as the handle on the console, added to the perception that the GameCube was meant for children—another reason it was avoided by third-parties.[145][157]

The GameCube did not feature any major distinguishing features from its competing consoles, except for its acclaimed, console-exclusive games like Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Mario Sunshine (2002).[157] Metroid Prime (2002), the first game from Retro Studios, saved the studio from potential collapse after they had worked on multiple unfinished game projects. Taking a risk on the studio, Nintendo had then given them the Metroid property to work with. Prime was a success, with multiple publications later labeling it one of the greatest games of all time;[135][158][159] Retro's future was thus secured, and they began development on Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (2004).[135][160] Third-party developer Capcom, who historically have had a "rather close relationship" with Nintendo, released Resident Evil 4 (2005) as a GameCube exclusive upon launch; it was initially one of the "Capcom Five", five games that were announced by Capcom in December 2002 to be GameCube exclusives.[161][145] Luke Plunkett writes for Kotaku that in January 2003, the announcement was revealed to be "the result of some PR miscommunication, and not an act of corporate benevolence" towards Nintendo, when Capcom stated that the four games besides Resident Evil 4 were planned to be multi-platform. Eventually, Resident Evil 4 also released for the PS2.[161]

In September 2002, Nintendo sold its 49% stake in Rare to Microsoft, who had Rare develop games for the Xbox.[145][162] At the time, an industry analyst wrote for Eurogamer that this was likely a part of a new strategy of Nintendo's to not rely on second-party development; instead, the company would better utilize its subsidiaries like HAL Laboratory, and fund third-party development using a financial "war chest" that Yamauchi had started building before his departure.[163] Rare had also accounted for little of Nintendo's profits for 2001 and 2002. Industry commentators, as well as Rare designer Martin Hollis, later criticized the sale, either because they consider Rare's releases on the Xbox and Xbox 360 to be subpar, or they believe Nintendo removed themselves of a valuable asset.[164][165][166][167]

The Game Boy Advance SP, released in 2003, in Cobalt Blue

Nintendo's aggressive business tactics in Europe caught up to them in October 2002, when the European Commission determined that they had engaged in anti-competitive price-fixing business practices since at least the early 1990s. This commission laid a heavy fine against the company: €149 million, one of the largest antitrust fines applied in the history of the commission.[168]

Despite the relative failure of the GameCube, Nintendo was kept financially stable in this era by its revenue from the handheld gaming market,[145] which the company had "essentially cornered".[169] In January 2003, an updated version of the GBA, the Game Boy Advance SP, was announced. It released in Japan in February, and in the U.S. in March 2003.[170] The N-Gage handheld console, developed by Finnish technology company Nokia, tried to compete with the GBA when the former launched in October 2003, but it was unsuccessful.[171][172]

Nintendo temporarily halted production of the GameCube during the summer of 2003, as the company needed to sell models of the system that were filling up warehouses. At the same time, Iwata announced that the company would stop developing "increasingly sophisticated and time-consuming games" in response to the industry-wide decline in video game sales in 2002. Nintendo had also started experiencing competition from the Xbox.[173] Nintendo of America allocated $100 million to selling the GameCube for the 2003 holiday season, and dropped its U.S. price to $99.99—far below the Xbox and PS2, which were $179.99.[174] Despite these efforts, the system was still Nintendo's lowest selling console worldwide by the end of its life cycle, being far outpaced by the PS2, which ultimately sold 118 million more units than the GameCube's 21 million.[149][157] Nintendo stopped making first-party games for the GameCube in 2007.[149]

### Founding of iQue

[edit]

The iQue Player, both a console and a controller, released in 2003 in China

In 2002, Nintendo and Chinese-American scientist Wei Yen co-founded the company iQue, a joint venture to manufacture and distribute official Nintendo games within mainland China.[175] The Chinese government's Ministry of Culture had banned the sale of game consoles nationally in 2000; this led the country's gaming market to be dominated by counterfeit consoles running pirated games. Wishing to combat piracy of their games, Nintendo created iQue to work with the government to legally sell games for a China-exclusive home console, the iQue Player. The system was ultimately unsuccessful, in terms of its own sales, as well as combating piracy. Only 14 games were released for the system. By 2011, the Ministry of Culture's ban had become so minimally enforced that Sony and Microsoft had started selling their consoles in China as they would in other countries.[176] However, iQue still sells Nintendo games in China to this day.[177]

### 2004 restructuring

[edit]

In 2004, Iwata restructured Nintendo by replacing the company's four Research & Development divisions with four new divisions, one of them being Nintendo EAD, which was kept in operation. Still led by Miyamoto, EAD was now split into eight teams (EAD 1-8) who each developed separate games. The employees of the previous Research & Development 1 and 2 games were put into EAD. Two departments were made to work on hardware: Integrated Research & Development (IRD) for consoles, and Research & Engineering Development (RED) for handhelds. The fourth division, Software Planning & Division (SPD), developed titles with smaller scopes than the EAD teams, and supervised external first-party development (employees within Nintendo but based outside their Kyoto office). This structure existed until 2015.[30][31]

## 2004–2011: Nintendo DS and Wii

[edit]

Main articles: Nintendo DS and Wii

Miyamoto presenting The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess at Nintendo's E3 2004 press conference

At E3 2004, Satoru Iwata announced the GameCube's successor, codenamed "Revolution" and ultimately released as the "Wii". The Revolution started development shortly after the GameCube's launch, and was made as a "small, quiet and affordable" console, which did not prioritize graphical power. Iwata claimed graphics were not as important to the console as the gameplay of its titles, saying the latter would cause a "gaming revolution".[178]

The original model of the Nintendo DS released in 2004, in blue

Nintendo also revealed the Nintendo DS handheld at E3, saying that the system displayed games on either or both of two screens, one screen above the other. The system can be folded closed when its user is not playing. The company announced that the DS could: use Wi-Fi to wirelessly communicate with 15 other nearby devices; support a new 3D graphics engine; play multiplayer modes of games they do not own through wireless connectivity, provided a nearby device is running the game (like the GBA Link Cable, except wireless); receive messages from nearby devices; and play GBA cartridges. Also detailed was a microphone, which allows players to interact with DS games audibly. Tony Smith wrote for The Register that the new connectivity features implied "Nintendo is thinking beyond the console to a more general youth-oriented communications device". The company said that 100 developers had signed up to make games for the DS.[179]

Nintendo had begun development on twenty games for the DS by September 2004, when the company announced that the handheld would launch on November 21 in the U.S.; then Japan; and by the first quarter of 2005, Europe and Australia. IGN wrote that the DS was launching in the U.S. due to significant consumer excitement in the country, and so the launch was to benefit from the 2004 American holiday season. The company also noted that despite playing GBA games, the DS would not include a Link Cable port, so it could not play GBA games' system-link multiplayer modes. PictoChat was revealed as the aforementioned form of wireless messaging: a text- and drawing-based messaging app between nearby DS systems, which came preinstalled on every system.[180] Nintendo targeted the DS at a demographic of teenagers and young adults, and tried to prevent this new audience from perceiving the device as being meant for the company's traditional, younger demographic. In the U.S., before the DS' launch, the system was advertised with a series of sexually suggestive TV commercials, featuring the tagline "Touching is Good."[181][182][183]

Nintendo's primary logo from November 21, 2004, to May 11, 2016The Nintendo World Store in New York City, pictured in 2012

Nintendo was overwhelmed by the number of DS pre-orders, and halted further ones in early November 2004; a reported two million systems had been ordered, whereas the company had only prepared one million to be available at launch. By then, two factories in China had been allocated to produce the system; right before launch, Nintendo added a third to meet consumer demand.[184][185][186] The DS launched with seven games, two of them from Nintendo: a remake of Super Mario 64, and a pack-in demo version of Metroid Prime: Hunters (2006).[187][188] A month later, the company started facing actual competition in handheld gaming, when Sony released the PlayStation Portable (PSP).[189][190]

In May 2005, Nintendo opened its first retail store accessible to the general public, Nintendo World Store, at the Rockefeller Center in New York City. It consists of two stories, and contained many kiosks of GameCube, Game Boy Advance, and Nintendo DS games. There are also display cases filled with things from Nintendo's past, including hanafuda cards. They celebrated the opening with a block party at Rockefeller Plaza.

Also in May, at E3, Nintendo showed the Revolution's design, though not its eventual motion-sensing controller. They said the console would launch in 2006—notably, this was after the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 (PS3)'s releases in late 2005. The Revolution would have online gaming through Wi-Fi, and could run GameCube games. Iwata said the system would be "where the big idea can prevail over big budgets"; Neal Ronaghan later wrote for Nintendo World Report that in hindsight, this was likely referring to the system's motion-controlled games. The company said their plan with the DS and Revolution was to make games for both Nintendo's traditional audience, and a potential wider audience of casual gamers.[191][192] They also revealed the Game Boy Micro: a smaller version of the GBA with a brighter screen, and a faceplate which could be easily detached and replaced with a different design. The Micro was announced for release that fall.[193][194]

The Game Boy Micro, released in 2005, in silverThe Nintendo DS Lite, released in 2006, in ice blue

In September 2005, at the Tokyo Game Show, Nintendo revealed the design for the Revolution's controller, later named the Wii Remote, which was shaped like a TV remote and could be controlled alongside an attachable joystick; the latter device was later named the Wii Nunchuck. The controller can be held vertically like a TV remote, or horizontally like a traditional gaming controller. Nintendo said that they intended it to be understood by both traditional and casual gamers, and with its internal gyroscope, to be used for motion control within games. Tony Smith wrote for the The Register that the controller seemed to represent Nintendo moving away from competing with Sony and Microsoft, whose consoles "are likely to be pitched heavily toward hard-core gamers."[195][196]

In January 2006, Nintendo announced a new version of the DS which had been in development since the handheld's launch, the Nintendo DS Lite. It was two-thirds smaller and 20% lighter than the original system, with a brighter screen. The brightness could be adjusted to one of four different levels.[197][198] The DS Lite released in Japan in March 2006,[199] and in North America and Europe in June.[200][201]

In April 2006, Nintendo announced that the Revolution would release as the "Wii". The name, like the rest of the console, was intended to appeal to casual audiences, and it initially was highly controversial among Nintendo's fans.[202] Lucas Thomas later wrote for IGN: "Nintendo smartly let the name be known months before [E3], anticipating that the oddity of it would ignite a firestorm of controversy" [...] "the name would have overshadowed everything else about the system at the show."[203]

> Do you know anyone who's never watched TV, never seen a movie, never read a book? Of course not. So let me ask you one more question. Do you know someone, maybe even in your own family, who's never played a video game? I bet you do. How can this be? If we want to consider ourselves a true mass medium, if we want to grow as an industry, this has to change.

Reggie Fils-Aimé, presenting the Wii at Nintendo's E3 2006 press conference [1]

In May 2006, at E3, Nintendo announced that the Wii would release by the end of the year, and revealed multiple games they would publish for it that use motion controls, including Excite Truck (2006), Wii Sports (2006), and Super Mario Galaxy (2007). Lucas Thomas wrote that these games' E3 demos showcased "effortless" and "crucially different" implementations of motion control, which helped assuage the gaming community's skepticism towards the "shocking and surprising" concept behind the Wii. The positive reception to Nintendo's E3 showing, Thomas said, was also motivated by comparison to Sony's press conference that year, which "infamously bombed".[203] Also in May, Reggie Fils-Aimé was promoted to president and CEO of Nintendo of America. The former president of the division, Tatsumi Kimishima, was promoted to chairman of the board and CEO.[204] In July 2006, Nintendo officially established a South Korean subsidiary, Nintendo Korea, in the country's capital, Seoul, replacing Daewon Media as the official distributor of Nintendo products there.[205]

In August 2006, it was revealed that Nintendo, along with Microsoft, was made the target of a patent-infringement lawsuit. Leveled by the Anascape Ltd., the suit claimed that Nintendo's use of analog technology in their game controllers constituted a violation of their patents. The lawsuit sought to recover damages from both corporations and possibly force them to stop selling controllers with the violating technology.[206] Microsoft settled with Anascape, while Nintendo went to trial, initially losing and being ordered to pay US$21 million in damages.[207] Nintendo appealed, and in April 2010, the Federal Circuit reversed the ruling.[208] In November 2010, Anascape's appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States was denied.[209]

Original Wii console with Wii Remote

In September 2006, Nintendo announced launch details for its Wii console, and demonstrated features of the "Wii Menu" GUI. The system was first released in November 2006 in the U.S., followed by Japan, Australia, and Europe in December.[210] The console sold fast and was a big breakthrough for Nintendo,[211] picking up the pace lost from the GameCube. Its unexpected success was attributed to the expanded demographic Nintendo had targeted. In response to the Wii, in 2010, Sony and Microsoft released various PS3 and Xbox 360 add-ons targeting the same wider demographic as Nintendo.[212]

In September 2007, Nintendo of America indefinitely closed its official Internet forum, the NSider Forums, during a major redesign of their website. For months prior, cutbacks in Nintendo of America's online department led to the trimming back of NSider's chat hours and the replacement of their annual Camp Hyrule event—held during August—with a sweepstakes. In the meantime, Nintendo encouraged fans to run their own forums. Nintendo of Europe's forum section of their site was also officially closed due to a site revamp, however it had been offline citing "security issues" since June of that year. In December 2007, Nintendo opened a forum for technical support only.

In October 2007, Nintendo announced Nintendo Australia's new managing director, Rose Lappin. She is Nintendo's first female head of one of its subsidiaries and worked for Nintendo before it started in Australia as Director of Sales and Marketing for Mattel and had that role until she was announced managing director.

The Nintendo DSi, released in 2009, in black

### Nintendo DSi

[edit]

In November 2008, Nintendo released an updated version of the Nintendo DS Lite in Japan; the Nintendo DSi. It includes all features of the Nintendo DS Lite, but it includes a camera on the inside and outside of the system, and newer features. It is the first handheld game system manufactured by Nintendo that allows downloadable gaming content to the system. The Nintendo DSi was released in Australia, Europe, North America, and elsewhere in Asia in April 2009.

## 2011–2017: Nintendo 3DS and Wii U

[edit]

Main articles: Nintendo 3DS and Wii U

### Nintendo 3DS

[edit]

Nintendo's press conference at E3 2010 The original Nintendo 3DS, released in 2011, in aqua blue

In June 2010, at E3, Satoru Iwata introduced the Nintendo 3DS handheld console. It retained the general dual-screen design of the DS, but was revealed to allow for autostereoscopic 3D visuals in games—a way to view 3D visuals without the use of special glasses. The depth of the 3D effect (from the player's perspective) can be adjusted through a slider; if the slider is fully off, the system will display traditional 2D visuals.[213][214][215] The system can play 3D videos, such as certain movies that were streaming on Netflix, until the service's 3DS version shut down in 2021.[216][217] The 3DS includes gyro and motion sensors, as well as three cameras: one on its front (i.e. when its screens are opened) and two on its back—the latter two can take photos viewable in 3D at any time.[213][218] Nintendo later stated that the 3D effect should only be used by those older than age seven, as it could cause eye fatigue or headaches for younger players.[219][220]

The console introduced StreetPass, which allows two nearby 3DS systems to exchange data when both are connected to Wi-Fi and in sleep mode (turned on when its screens are closed). This was implemented in some games as a way for two systems to essentially have online multiplayer gaming without either user's involvement. In the racing game Asphalt 3D (2011), for example, two passing 3DS systems running the game can quickly simulate a race by comparing each console's record lap times on a given track, and awarding the fastest player.[216][217]

At E3 2010, 70 games (including mini-games and demos) from Nintendo or other developers were detailed for release on the 3DS.[214][215] In September 2010, Nintendo announced the console would launch in Japan in February 2011, at ¥25,000.[221] In January 2011, a U.S. launch was announced for March, selling for $249.99.[222] At launch, critics praised the console for the 3D effect's immersive and comfortable nature,[223] but criticized its display resolution and battery life—inferior to contemporary handhelds, even the PSP from 2004—as well as its expensive U.S. price.[216][224] 3DS sales started off slowly. In the U.S., it had a "reasonably strong launch", but, in part due to its price, it sold a relatively low 110,000 units during its second quarter on the market.[225] Nintendo responded in June 2011 by dropping the U.S. price to $169.99; this helped the 3DS rebound, ultimately selling 4.5 million units over its first year in the country. The company simultaneously dropped the device's Japanese price to ¥15,000.[225][226]

From December 2011 to November 2013, Nintendo operated Swapnote, an online service for sending drawings and pictures made within the app to other 3DS users; the company ended the service after an incident in Japan in which two men used Swapnote to take child pornography photos and discretely share them to each other.[227]

### Wii U

[edit]

A Wii U GamePad (left) and Wii U console (right), released in 2012, in whiteWii U kiosks at E3 2012

In April 2011, Nintendo announced a successor the Wii, giving it the codename "Project Cafe". Details on the console came at the company's E3 press conference in June 2011, where it was revealed to be named the "Wii U". Chris Zeigler wrote for The Verge: "Nintendo says [the "Wii U"] name underscores the fact that the gaming experience is all about you". The console was partially the traditional "box" with a processor that connects to a monitor such as a TV, but the Wii U's distinguishing feature was the Wii U GamePad. The GamePad is a touchscreen display and controller, which includes a microphone, gyroscope, and camera, and which is wirelessly connected to the "box". Nintendo showed the GamePad's display having many possible implementations in games, such as displaying the perspective of a rifle scope in a game, magnfiying details of a TV depending on which area of the TV the GamePad's gyroscope was aimed at. The company also said the console would output high-definition video (HD), be backwards compatible with Wii games and accessories, and support some form of video conferencing.[228]

In the early 2010s, Nintendo's profits fell to lows not seen during their history as a video game company.[229] For the fiscal year ending March 31, 2012, the company reported $530 million in losses on $8 billion in revenue, their first annual loss since 1981. The game industry as a whole had had weaker sales in early 2012, but Nintendo was further hurt by a weak start for the 3DS, and a decline in Wii sales. Erik Kain wrote for Forbes that the posting "makes sales of the upcoming Wii U all the more crucial".[230] Nick Wingfield wrote for The New York Times that Nintendo might be helped by developing games for mobile devices like the iPhone and iPod Touch, which had a larger gaming market as those devices grew more important in culture; he wrote that this was unlikely, thought, as Nintendo only made software for its hardware— in 2011, Iwata had said mobile gaming was incompatible with the company's identity.[231][232] Gaming industry executives, Wingfield reported, "say [Nintendo's decision] represents a missed opportunity, allowing a new generation of game brands, like Angry Birds, to emerge unchallenged on mobile devices, much as Disney did in another realm years ago by allowing Pixar to own computer animation." As a concession, Fils-Aimé said that Nintendo was considering "allow[ing] people to buy its games through mobile phones and have them delivered to their Nintendo devices."[231]

> "[Their] new console, the Wii U, may be Nintendo’s last, best hope for regaining its former glory. Executives are hoping for a holiday hit, and perhaps even another runaway success [like the Wii]. [...] But will it be the blowout that Nintendo needs? Many industry veterans and game reviewers are skeptical. They question whether the Wii U can be as successful as the original, now that many gamers have moved on to more abundant, cheaper and more convenient mobile games."

Nick Wingfield, "Nintendo Confronts a Changed Video Game World", The New York Times (November 24, 2012) [2]

In the U.S., demand appeared high for the Wii U after its launch in November 2012; on Black Friday that month, the system almost sold out among retailer GameStop's 3,000 U.S. locations. GameStop president Tony Bartel said, “I think people are starving for innovation, and Wii U is giving them that innovation."[231] By January 2013, sales had slowed, and Iwata admitted that "[by] the end of the Christmas season, it wasn't as though stores in the U.S. had no Wii U left in stock, as it was when Wii was first sold in that popular boom. But sales are not bad, and I feel it's selling steadily." By then, Nintendo had sold 600,000 Wii U units in Japan, and 400,000 in the U.S.; the latter was 200,000 lower than the Wii in the same period after their American launches.[233] This was less than Nintendo expected, and the company reduced their sales outlook for the Wii U, as well as the 3DS.[234] For the first quarter of 2013, Wii U sales continued to slump, and in April, Nintendo posted a second consecutive annual loss.[235]

Many industry analysts later claimed that consumer disinterest in the Wii U resulted from confusing marketing. Jason Schreier later wrote for Kotaku that the system was poorly marketed from its start; he labeled its introduction at E3 2011 "perhaps the worst hardware reveal in modern history", as Nintendo's promotional material only referred to the GamePad as a "new controller" instead of a part of a new console, leaving many to assume the Wii U was a tablet peripheral for the Wii, rather than the Wii's successor.[236] At a company meeting in April 2013, Iwata acknowledged that many believed the Wii U was either a Wii peripheral, or a new console which is still "just Wii with a pad for games", adding: "we feel deeply responsible for not having tried hard enough to have consumers understand the product."[237]

### YouTube copyright claims

[edit]

In May 2013, Nintendo started copyright claiming "Let's Play" videos of their games on YouTube—claiming future advertising revenue generated by video recordings of gameplay, which had until then gone to whoever uploaded it. Claiming copyright on a YouTube video via a "Content ID Match" had been done previously—by the owners of music and film IPs to receive revenue from song uploads or movie clips on the site—but Nintendo's decision to do so for Let's Plays was controversial.[238][239][240] Many in the gaming community argued that gameplay was, in this context, created by the person who performed it, and thus not the financial property of Nintendo.[238][241] Nintendo started removing their claims in June 2013.[242]

### Death of Satoru Iwata

[edit]

In 2014, Satoru Iwata was diagnosed with bile duct cancer. It was detected early, and soon, he underwent a successful operation to remove it. Afterwards, he issued a public statement through Nintendo:

> In general, it is said that a bile duct growth can be difficult-to-treat, partly because of the difficulty of detecting it early. In my case, luckily, it was detected very early and I had no symptoms. I was counseled that removal at an early stage would be the desirable medical option. Therefore I had surgery last week, and I came through it well, as predicted.

Within a year, the cancer reappeared. Iwata did not attend E3 in June 2015, leading Nintendo to issue a public statement that said, in part, "Mr. Iwata’s focus in this period [aside from upcoming Wii U and 3DS games] will be on other areas of our business that require his presence in Japan". Meanwhile, he did speak at Nintendo's annual shareholder meeting. Iwata's cancer rapidly worsened in July 2015, when he died from it at the age of 55.[243][244]

A memorial from Nintendo's fans to Satoru Iwata at the Nintendo World Store, following his death in 2015

Matt Peckham wrote for Time that Iwata was "the rarest of confluences in the business world: a corporate leader with bona fide creative experience", who presided over Nintendo's "most inventive period yet" and "[shook] industry foundations" with the Wii.[243] Takashi Mochizuki wrote for The Wall Street Journal that Iwata left behind a "mixed legacy" at the company, as although he led the launch of the successful DS and Wii, "the company’s share price and market presence lagged behind with the rise of games on smartphones, a trend which Mr. Iwata was long reluctant to join."[245] His death led to an "outpouring of sympathy" from Nintendo's fans, who, Peckham writes, had been "so endeared" to Iwata because of his "playful, almost mischievous and refreshingly candid personal style", which fans saw in E3 and Nintendo Direct presentations.[246][247]

In September 2015, Nintendo announced Tatsumi Kimishima as Iwata's successor.[248] Ollie Barder wrote for Forbes that the decision was "interesting", as Kimishima was one of the only people in the company's upper management to come from a "purely business background".[248]

### Mobile games

[edit]

Before his death, Iwata had established a partnership with mobile developer DeNA to create mobile games based on Nintendo properties.[249][250]

## 2017–present: Nintendo Switch

[edit]

Main article: Nintendo Switch

### Nintendo Switch

[edit]

The Nintendo Switch (pictured in handheld mode), introduced in 2017, is a hybrid console that allows for both portable and home console play.

After beginning the conceptual phase of development in 2012,[251] Nintendo announced in a March 2015 press conference that they were developing a dedicated video game system, codenamed "NX".[252] Fils-Aimé said in 2021 that the system was a "make or break" console for the company, as it became apparent that the Wii U's lifespan would be considerably shorter than average.[253] In April 2016, they revealed that the NX was set for a March 2017 release.[254] The NX was formally unveiled as the "Nintendo Switch" in October 2016, a hybrid console able to switch between portable and home console play.[255] In a January 2017 event, Nintendo revealed more details about the Switch.[256]

The Switch was released in March 2017.[257][258] It launched with 15 titles, five of them exclusive to the Japanese eShop. Three of them were developed by Nintendo and released worldwide: 1-2-Switch, Snipperclips, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.[259] The latter released simultaneously on the Wii U, and was a massive critical success; it was later named the best video game of all time by IGN,[260] British GQ magazine,[261] and Rolling Stone magazine.[159]

In April 2019, Tencent received approval to sell the Switch in China,[262] and the console released there that December.[263]

### Internal changes

[edit]

In April 2018, Shuntaro Furukawa succeeded Kimishima as Nintendo's president,[264] and in February 2019, Doug Bowser replaced Fils-Aimé as President and COO of Nintendo of America.[265]

ValueAct Capital, a San Francisco-based investment firm, announced in April 2020 that they had purchased US$1.1 billion worth of Nintendo stock, or a 2% stake of the company.[266] Nintendo announced its acquisition of SRD Co., Ltd. in February 2022, who had worked with Nintendo for over 40 years, primarily as a support studio.[267]

In May 2022, the Public Investment Fund of the Saudi government purchased a 5% stake in Nintendo.[268] In March 2025, the developer of Pokémon Go, Niantic, Inc., sold the game's rights to Scopely, a game developer and publisher which is owned by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund.[269][270]

### Attraction openings

[edit]

In January 2020, hotel and restaurant development company Plan See Do announced their intent to refurbish the former headquarters of Marufuku Nintendo as a hotel set to open midway through 2021,[271] and in June 2021, Nintendo announced that the Uji Ogura plant in which the company's playing cards were produced would be transformed into a museum titled the "Nintendo Gallery", to be completed by the end of the 2023 fiscal year.[272] In February 2023, Universal Studios Hollywood in Los Angeles opened Super Nintendo World, a theme park themed around the Mario franchise.[273] In May 2025, another Super Nintendo World park opened in Universal Orlando in Florida.[274]

### Re-entry into film

[edit]

In 2022, Nintendo acquired Japanese animation studio Dynamo Pictures, renaming it to Nintendo Pictures

Following the failure of the 1993 Super Mario Bros. film, Nintendo was wary of creating films based on their franchises,[275] though the Virtual Console service inspired them to pursue other utilizations of their popular software, including film.[276] A partnership between Nintendo and Sony Pictures for an animated Mario film was leaked in 2014,[275] though Nintendo announced in January 2018 that they would be partnering with Illumination to produce an animated Mario film, produced by Miyamoto and Chris Meledandri, and distributed by Universal Pictures.[277] Titled The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the film was released on April 5, 2023,[278] starring Chris Pratt as Mario.[279] In 2021, Furukawa said Nintendo plans to explore animated adaptations of their franchises beyond The Super Mario Bros. Movie.[280] In July 2022, the company announced its acquisition of the Japanese animation studio Dynamo Pictures, Inc.,[281] and renamed the studio to Nintendo Pictures Co., Ltd. following the closure of the acquisition in October 2022.[282]

### Nintendo Switch 2

[edit]

Furukawa claimed in February 2021 that the Nintendo Switch was "in the middle of its life cycle".[283] Nintendo announced the Nintendo Switch's successor, the Nintendo Switch 2, in January 2025. A Nintendo Direct about the new system happened in April. The new console is expected to launch on June 5, 2025.

## Logo history

[edit]

* 1889-1957

* 1963-1971

* 1970-1974

* 1972-1984

* 1984-2004 (primary); 2004-present (secondary)

* 2004-2016 (primary); 2016-present (secondary)

* 2016–present

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## Further reading

[edit]

* Sheff, David (1993). Game Over: How Nintendo Zapped an American Industry, Captured Your Dollars, and Enslaved Your Children. New York, New York: Random House. ISBN 0-7881-6320-5.
* Gorges, Florent; Isao Yamazaki (2010). The History of Nintendo: 1889-1980 From playing-cards to Game & Watch. Paris, France: pix'n love publishing. ISBN 978-2-918272-15-1.

## External links

[edit]

* History of Nintendo article at Gameplayer

* v
* t
* e

Nintendo

Presidents|

| Nintendo Co., Ltd.|

* Fusajiro Yamauchi (1889–1929)
* Sekiryo Kaneda (1929–1949)
* Hiroshi Yamauchi (1949–2002)
* Satoru Iwata (2002–2015)
* Tatsumi Kimishima (2015–2018)
* Shuntaro Furukawa (2018–present)

|

Nintendo of America|

* Minoru Arakawa (1980–2002)
* Tatsumi Kimishima (2002–2006)
* Reggie Fils-Aimé (2006–2019)
* Doug Bowser (2019–present)

Nintendo of Europe|

* Satoru Shibata (2000–2018)
* Stephan Bole (2018–2024)
* Luciano Pereña (2024–present)

People|

| Active|

* Shigeru Miyamoto
* Koji Kondo
* Yoshio Sakamoto
* Tadashi Sugiyama
* Yasuhisa Yamamura
* Takashi Tezuka
* Akito Nakatsuka
* Kensuke Tanabe
* Hideki Konno
* Kenichi Sugino
* Kenji Yamamoto
* Hiroji Kiyotake
* Katsuya Eguchi
* Yoshiaki Koizumi
* Eiji Aonuma
* Shigefumi Hino
* Hiroyuki Kimura
* Toru Minegishi
* Kazumi Totaka
* Mahito Yokota
* Risa Tabata
* Aya Kyogoku
* Hidemaro Fujibayashi
* Bill Trinen
* Takayoshi Sato

|

Former|

* Genyo Takeda
* Masayuki Uemura
* Yōichi Kotabe
* Hirokazu Tanaka
* Satoru Okada
* Gunpei Yokoi
* Hirokazu Yasuhara
* Takaya Imamura
* Giles Goddard

Products|

| Video games|

* Video games
* mobile games
* Consoles
* Controllers
* Characters

|

Toys|

* Love Tester
* Nintendo Tumbler Puzzle
* Ultra Hand
* Ultra Machine

Others|

* Alarmo
* Nintendo Today!

Services|

* Nintendo eShop
* Nintendo Network
* Club Nintendo
* Nintendo Account
* My Nintendo
* Nintendo Switch Online
* Nintendo Music

Software divisions|

* Entertainment Planning & Development
* Platform Technology Development

Publications|

* Nintendo Fun Club
* Nintendo La Rivista Ufficiale
* Nintendo Magazine System
* Nintendo Player's Guide
* Nintendo Power
* Nintendo World
* Official Nintendo Magazine

Events|

* Camp Hyrule
* Classic Tetris World Championship
* Iwata Asks interviews
* Nintendo Campus Challenge
* Nintendo Direct
* Nintendo PowerFest '94
* Nintendo World Championships
* NES Edition

Locations|

| Operating|

* Nintendo New York
* Saga Arashiyama Museum of Arts and Culture
* Super Nintendo World
* Nintendo Museum

|

Defunct|

* Nintendo Mégadôme

Related|

* History
* Data leak
* Marketing
* Nintendo Selects
* Nintendo Space World
* Intellectual property protection
* Bergsala
* Symphonic Legends – Music from Nintendo

* v
* t
* e

Nintendo development teams

Nintendo

Divisions|

* Entertainment Planning & Development (EPD)
* Platform Technology Development (PTD)

| Former|

* Research & Development 1
* Research & Development 2
* Integrated Research & Development (IRD)
* Research & Engineering (RED)
* Entertainment Analysis & Development (EAD)
* Software Planning & Development (SPD)
* System Development (NSD)

|

Subsidiaries|

* 1-Up Studio
* iQue
* Monolith Soft
* Next Level Games
* Nintendo Cube
* Nintendo European Research & Development (NERD)
* Nintendo Pictures
* Nintendo Software Technology (NST)
* Retro Studios
* Shiver Entertainment

Major affiliates|

* Bandai Namco
* Studios
* Camelot Software Planning
* Creatures Inc.
* Cygames
* DeNA
* Game Freak
* Genius Sonority
* Good-Feel
* Grezzo
* HAL Laboratory
* indieszero
* Intelligent Systems
* Koei Tecmo
* Omega Force
* Team Ninja
* PlatinumGames
* The Pokémon Company
* Sora Ltd.

| Former|

* AlphaDream
* Artoon
* Angel Studios
* Argonaut Games
* Cing
* DMA Design
* Factor 5
* Hudson Soft
* Left Field Productions
* Marigul Management
* Ambrella
* Noise
* Param
* Monster Games
* Rare
* Silicon Knights
* Skip Ltd.
* syn Sophia
* Vanpool

|

* v
* t
* e

Nintendo video game hardware

Consoles|

| Home|

* NES
* models
* Super NES
* Nintendo 64
* iQue Player
* GameCube
* Wii
* Wii U

|

Handheld|

* Game Boy
* Game Boy Color
* Game Boy Advance
* SP
* Micro
* Pokémon Mini
* Nintendo DS
* Lite
* DSi
* Nintendo 3DS
* 2DS
* New 3DS
* New 2DS XL

Other|

* Virtual Boy
* Nintendo Switch
* Nintendo Switch 2

Dedicated|

* Color TV-Game
* Game & Watch
* Computer Mah-jong Yakuman
* Nintendo Gateway System
* Mini Classics
* Pokémon Pikachu
* NES Classic Edition
* Super NES Classic Edition

Peripherals|

| Lists|

* NES
* Super NES
* N64
* Game Boy
* GCN
* DS
* Wii Remote

|

Add-ons|

* Famicom Data Recorder
* Famicom Disk System
* Famicom 3D System
* Super NES CD-ROM
* Super Game Boy
* Rumble Pak
* Game Boy Camera
* Game Boy Printer
* Transfer Pak
* 64DD
* e-Reader
* Game Boy Player
* Wii MotionPlus

Connectivity|

* NES Satellite
* NES Four Score
* Game Link Cable
* Mobile Adapter GB
* GCN – GBA Link Cable
* GBA Wireless Adapter

Controllers|

* NES Zapper
* Family BASIC
* R.O.B.
* NES Advantage
* Super NES Mouse
* Super Scope
* Nintendo 64
* GameCube
* WaveBird Wireless
* Wii Remote
* Classic Controller
* Wii Zapper
* Wii Balance Board
* Wii U GamePad
* Wii U Pro
* Joy-Con
* Nintendo Switch Pro
* Poké Ball Plus

Networking|

* Family Computer Network System
* Satellaview
* Nintendo Wi-Fi USB Connector

Other|

* Nintendo Power
* Wii Speak
* Amiibo

Arcade|

* VS. System
* PlayChoice-10

Integrated circuits|

* 2A03
* CIC
* 5A22
* Super NES enhancement chips
* Super FX
* GameCube technical specifications
* Gekko
* Broadway
* Hollywood
* PICA200
* Espresso
* Tegra X1

Media|

* Game Pak
* NES
* Super NES
* Game Boy
* N64
* Game Boy Advance Video
* Play-Yan
* Nintendo optical discs
* Nintendo Game Card

* v
* t
* e

Nintendo franchises

Mario|

* Super Mario
* Mario Kart
* Mario Party
* Mario Golf
* Mario Tennis
* Dr. Mario
* Paper Mario
* Mario & Luigi
* Donkey Kong
* Yoshi
* Luigi
* Wario

Other|

* Animal Crossing
* Art Academy
* Art Style
* Big Brain Academy
* Bit Generations
* BoxBoy!
* Brain Age
* Chibi-Robo!
* Cruis'n
* Custom Robo
* F-Zero
* Fire Emblem
* Fossil Fighters
* Golden Sun
* Kid Icarus
* Kirby
* The Legendary Starfy
* The Legend of Zelda
* Metroid
* Mother
* Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan
* Picross
* Pikmin
* Pilotwings
* Pokémon
* Mystery Dungeon
* Punch-Out!!
* Puzzle League
* Rhythm Heaven
* Splatoon
* Star Fox
* Super Smash Bros.
* Wars
* Wii
* Xenoblade Chronicles

* Category

* v
* t
* e

Electronics industry in Japan

Companies|

| Current|

* Aiwa
* Alaxala Networks
* Alinco
* Alps
* Alpine
* Anritsu
* AOR
* Audio-Technica
* Bandai Namco
* Brother
* Canon
* Casio
* CatEye
* Citizen Watch
* Cosina
* D+M Group
* Denon
* Marantz
* Daikin
* Denso
* Denso Ten
* DNP
* Eiki
* Eizo
* Elecom
* ESP Guitars
* FANUC
* Fostex
* Fuji Electric
* Fujifilm
* Business Innovation
* Fujitsu
* Furuno
* Futaba
* Hamamatsu Photonics
* Hirose Electric
* Hitachi
* Clarion
* Maxell
* Hoya
* Ibanez
* Ibiden
* Icom
* Ikegami Tsushinki
* Iwatsu
* Japan Display
* JEOL
* JRC
* JR Propo
* JVCKenwood
* JVC
* Kenwood
* Kawai
* Keyence
* Kioxia
* Kiramek
* Konami
* Konica Minolta
* KO PROPO
* Korg
* Kyocera
* Luxman
* Mabuchi Motor
* Mamiya
* Maspro
* Melco
* Micron Memory Japan
* MinebeaMitsumi
* Mitsumi
* Mitsubishi Electric
* Murata Manufacturing
* Mutoh
* Nakamichi
* NEC
* Mobile Communications
* Nichia
* Nichicon
* Nidec
* Nidec Copal Corporation
* Nihon Dempa Kogyo
* Nikon
* Nintendo
* Nippon Chemi-Con
* Nitto Denko
* NKK Switches
* Oki
* Olympus
* Omron
* Onkyo
* Integra Home Theater
* Orion Electric
* Panasonic
* Sanyo
* Technics
* Pioneer
* Pixela
* Plextor
* Renesas Electronics
* Ricoh
* Pentax
* Riso Kagaku
* Rohm
* Roland
* Rubycon
* Sanwa Electronic
* SCREEN
* Sega Sammy
* Sega
* Seiko Group
* Pulsar
* Seiko
* Epson
* Orient Watch
* Seiko Instruments
* Sharp
* Shimadzu
* Shindengen Electric Manufacturing
* Sigma
* Sony
* SNK
* Square Enix
* Taito
* Stanley Electric
* Star Micronics
* Stax
* Sumitomo Electric
* Taiyo Yuden
* Tamron
* TDK
* TEAC
* Tiger
* TOA Corporation
* Tokyo Electron
* Topcon
* Toshiba
* Uniden
* Ushio
* Wacom
* Yaesu
* Yamaha
* Yaskawa
* Yokogawa
* Zojirushi
* Zoom
* Zuken

|

Defunct|

* Aiwa
* Akai
* Bronica
* Chinon
* Contax
* Funai
* JOLED
* Konica
* Minolta
* National
* Norita
* Okaya Optical
* Sansui

Other|

* Electronic Industries Association
* INCJ
* Japan Electronic Industries Development Association
* Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association
* Yagi–Uda antenna

* Category

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