Nintendo is one of the biggest company names in the gaming world. It is a company credited with designing many of the best game titles and consoles throughout the history of the gaming industry from the 1980s up to the present day. Nintendo has a gaming empire that few other companies (except perhaps Sony and Microsoft) can match. That empire is based on the many great Nintendo game series the big N has extended to more advanced consoles over the decades. The history of Nintendo dates back to the 19th century, and this is how the big N became the gaming giant it is today.
Read also: Nintendo’s Questionable Decisions That Shaped the Gaming Industry
The Founding of Nintendo in 1889
Some readers may be surprised to hear Nintendo was established a long time ago before the gaming industry existed. Fusajiro Yamauchi founded Nintendo as a card shop in Kyoto. Nintendo’s first product was Hanafuda (flower) playing card sets that became popular in Japan. The big N returned to its historic roots by re-releasing new Hanafuda card game sets in 2021.
A Hanafuda news page on the Nintendo site
Nintendo primarily designed playing card sets for decades after its founding throughout the first half of the 20th century. The big N became a public company when it floated on the Osaka and Kyoto stock exchanges in 1962. The company’s name changed from Nintendo Playing Cards to Nintendo Co in 1963.
Nintendo Enters the Gaming Industry With EVR Race
Nintendo gradually expanded into emerging new entertainment industries, among which was video gaming. The big N released the EVR Race horse race betting arcade game in 1975. Players inserted a few coins and selected horses to bet on, which they could watch on EVR Race’s pre-recorded motion reels. Although EVR Race was not a sprite-based game, it is still considered Nintendo’s first video game.
Miyamoto Joins Nintendo and Creates Mario
The game designer and artist Shigeru Miyamoto joined Nintendo in 1977. He rose to prominence as one of Nintendo’s foremost game designers after designing the Donkey Kong platform game. That was the first Nintendo game to include Mario, a character created by Miyamoto, who had to save Princess Peach by jumping over barrels tossed down by Donkey Kong.
The original Donkey Kong game on an emulator site.
Donkey Kong was a big hit in the arcades and inspired the creation of the first Mario Bros title in 1983. Mario Bros was an arcade platform game that included Luigi, Mario, turtles, crabs, fireballs, spinning coins, and sewage pipes. It laid the foundation for the Super Mario Bros series that followed.
Nintendo Launches Its First Game Console
In 1983, the video game industry crashed, with gaming sales plummeting until 1985. During that period, Nintendo released its Famicom console (more widely known as the NES in the Western world) in Japan, the United States, and Europe. The NES was an 8-bit gaming console that almost single-handedly saved the gaming industry during the second half of the 1980s. Nintendo’s first gaming console eventually shifted more than 60 million units worldwide.
The NES was a big hit primarily because of the numerous great games Nintendo released for it. Super Mario Bros was the killer NES title that began the biggest game series in the history of Nintendo. The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, and Fire Emblem are other notable Nintendo game series that began on the NES. Third-party titles like Mega Man, Contra, Final Fantasy, and Castlevania were also popular games on the NES. You can play many of the original NES games in your browser at the 88bit site.
The Game Boy Revolution
Portable gaming became the new big thing in the gaming industry when Nintendo released the handheld Game Boy in 1989. The Game Boy was one of the most primitive consoles released from a graphical perspective because of its very limited color display palette. Yet, most players snubbed the somewhat more colorful Atari Lynx and Sega Game Gear handheld alternatives in favor of the Game Boy. The Game Boy completely outsold its handheld rivals and is among the best-selling consoles in history, eclipsing 100 million units sold.
The granting of licensing rights for Tetris to Nintendo after a legal battle with Atari was undoubtedly a big factor in the Game Boy’s popularity. Tetris on the Game Boy was one of the most addictive games ever released. That, coupled with Nintendo game titles like Super Mario Land, Link’s Awakening, and Wario Land, made the Game Boy the portable console of choice for many years.
Tetris on the Game Boy
Nintendo Embraces 3D Gaming
The 1990s was a decade of considerable change in the gaming industry and for Nintendo. During that decade, games transitioned from 2D to 3D graphics with 64 and 32-bit consoles replacing the 16-bit Super NES and Sega Mega Drive. However, Nintendo’s Super NES console, the successor to the NES, did have limited 3D graphical capabilities thanks to its Super FX chip for polygon rendering. This enabled Nintendo to release its first 3D game titles on the Super NES, such as Star Fox and Stunt Race FX.
Yet, the Super NES could not compete with the Sony PlayStation that shook up the gaming world in the mid-1990s. The 64-bit N64 was Nintendo’s response to the PlayStation and the big N’s first console with full 3D graphical capabilities. Nintendo released that console to the world in 1996-1997, and players fell in love with the first fully 3D Mario and Zelda games on the N64. GoldenEye 64, Perfect Dark, and Paper Mario were also among the best N64 titles.
Mario 64
However, Nintendo’s controversial decision to stick with game cartridges for the N64 didn’t pay dividends. Higher cartridge manufacturing costs reduced third-party game support for the console. Such costs were also passed on to the players, making N64 games generally more expensive than those CD ones available for the PlayStation. Sony’s PlayStation emerged as the clear winner in the fifth-generation console war.
Nintendo also released a 3D Virtual Boy console during the 1990s. However, releasing that shabby console was a low point in the history of Nintendo. The Virtual Boy was a poorly designed 32-bit VR headset with a very dull monochrome red display. Nintendo discontinued that console little longer than a year after its release.
Nintendo Releases its First Touchscreen Console
Nintendo’s GameCube struggled to compete with the PlayStation 2 in the early 21st century. However, the big N remained at the forefront of the handheld gaming industry thanks to the Nintendo DS. The Nintendo DS, released in 2004, was a massive hit for the big N. Nintendo’s official financial data shows the DS has had unit sales amounting to 154.02 million, making it the highest-selling Nintendo console.
New Super Mario Bros DS
This was Nintendo’s first touchscreen console that boasted a couple of LCDs. Its touchscreen gave players an entirely new way to play games. The backward compatibility of the Nintendo DS with older handheld consoles like the Game Boy Advance also expanded its gaming library, which further enhanced the console’s appeal. Games like New Super Mario Bros DS, Mario Kart DS, Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, and Animal Crossing were among the biggest highlights of the DS.
The Wii Wins the Seventh Generation Console War
Nintendo released the curiously named Wii console in 2007 to go head-to-head with the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Some laughed at that console’s title, but the Wii gave the PlayStation 3 a run for its money in the seventh-generation console war. The Wii’s innovative motion-sensor controller was ultimately its trump card, giving players an exciting, more active new way to play games.
Nintendo treated players to a new generation of enthralling games that made the most of the console’s motion-sensor controller. The two Super Mario Galaxy games on the Wii are among the best in the Mario series, with exciting gravity gameplay mechanics. Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword were great additions to the Zelda franchise that got players sword-swinging with the Wii Remote. Wii Sports Resort, Metroid Prime Trilogy, and Donkey Kong Country Returns were other hits on the Wii. Fitness games like Wii Fit even gave players some serious exercise.
Super Mario Galaxy 2
Nintendo Launches the Switch
The Wii U that succeeded the Wii in 2012 was among the biggest console flops in the history of Nintendo, only eclipsed by the Virtual Boy debacle of the 1990s. Yet, Nintendo bounced back with the release of the Switch in 2017. The Switch was a new kind of handheld console that players could also play on TVs. This unmatched versatility made the Switch an almost immediate hit, and the console continues to go strong six years after launch.
Sure, the Switch is starting to get a little dated now compared with the latest Sony and Microsoft consoles, but it has a massive library of games for players to enjoy. Nintendo has extended many of its foremost game franchises on the Nintendo Switch. Switch games like Super Mario Bros Wonder, Mario Odyssey, Metroid Prime Remastered, Zelda Tears of the Kingdom, Breath of the Wild, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe have shown again that nobody makes better games than Nintendo.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=4mHq6Y7JSmg
It cannot be doubted Nintendo has been the most influential company in the gaming industry. Throughout the long history of Nintendo, the big N has always delivered top-notch gaming on its many consoles from the 1980s to the present day. It will be interesting to see what Nintendo now has in store for the gaming industry with whatever next-generation console the big N has up its sleeve.
