Nintendo Co., Ltd is a Japanese Multinational consumer electronics and video game company headquartered in Kyoto. The company was founded in 1889 as Nintendo Karuta by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade hanafuda playing cards.
According to TIME, Nintendo is arguably stronger than ever and is now looking for more ways to tap into its deep bench of intellectual property (IP). These range in diversity from a theme park to a feature length film (Fitzpatrick 2019).
Nintendo’s central focus is the research, development, production and distribution of entertainment products, which are primarily video game software and hardware, plus card games. The main markets for Nintendo are Japan, America, Europe. More than 70% of its total sales come from the latter two categories. As of 2020, Nintendo generated a revenue of 1.309 trillion Japanese Yen. The divisions that Nintendo deals in are Entertainment Planning and Development, Platform Technology Development and Business Development.
A brief history on videogames and the role Nintendo has played in the growth of the gaming industry.
The ability for games to be played on a portable system was made possible by a man named Ralph Baer in 1972 (Lesser 2019). Working with Magnavox, he created the Odyssey console. Following the moderate success, the video game industry achieved widespread acclaim when developer and entrepreneur Nolan Bushnell founded the Atari Corporation the same year.
One of Bushnell’s programmers, Allan Alcorn, who was one of the programmers designed a table tennis simulator named Pong, which along with games such as Taito’s Space Invaders (Nishikado, 1978), Atari’s Asteroids (Rains, Logg, Walsh, 1979), and Sega’s Frogger, fueled the consumer market and made video gaming a multimillion- dollar industry.
A good number of companies flooding the gaming market during that time resulted in hundreds of substandard games being produced and eventually recalled for lack of demand (Egenfeldt- Nielsen et al., 2016). This was referred to as the video game market crash of 1983.
History of Nintendo: Pre and Post Video Game Market Crash of 1983
In 1951, after founder Fusajiro Yamauchi’s death, under the new leadership of Hiroshi Yamauchi (Fusajiro Yamauchi’s grandson), the company’s name was changed to Nintendo Playing Card Co., Ltd. (Nintendo Co., Ltd., 2020).
During that time, the direction in which the company was heading began to change, because of the extent at which playing cards were being manufactured (Wagner 2019). In 1963, the company had its final name change to Nintendo Co. Ltd., (Diskin 2004), the shift started to gradually go from cards to other business tactics such as toys and games.
Japan began to collaborate with overseas businesses in the 1970’s as the production of consoles and computer based games began to rise slowly again. Nintendo built alliances with countries in North America (Picard 2013).
Around 1977, Nintendo launched their first home video game machines, TV Game 15 and TV Game 6 (Picard 2013), which became very successful. The video game market crash of 1983, also known as “the atari shock” affected the development of Nintendo home video game consoles and quality control systems for game products (Suominen 2012).
However, the company’s Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), released in 1985, brought back video games from the brink of extinction with games including Super Mario Bros (Miyamoto 1985) and The Legend of Zelda (Miyamoto 1986). Over the next decade, other companies began to slowly follow suit, such as Sega, Sony and Microsoft.
Nintendo set a high bar that catalysed a competition for dominance among video game producers that increased the sophistication of each party’s console’s hardware capabilities and the quality of games produced by both large and independent developers. As of 2020, video game consoles are considered to be in the eighth generation- the three most dominant being Nintendo (Nintendo Switch), Sony (Playstation 4), and Microsoft (XBox One) (ESA 2018).
Nintendo In North America
Through many partnerships, collaborations and connections within the United States, Nintendo expanded their company, opening a subsidiary in New York, Nintendo of America Inc, in the early 1980’s. Within a year, Nintendo developed and began distributing the arcade game Donkey Kong, which became a popular coin-operated machine in the video game business (Nintendo of America, 2020). Nintendo of America was officially established in Redmond, Washington and eventually merged with the New York subsidiary. Today, Nintendo of America is one of the key players in video game production and development.
The key to Nintendo’s success is the incorporation and constant improvement of top notch hardware and software needed to develop their products. Aside from this, different factors exist that makes the Nintendo company successful, three out of all are discussed as follows: Below are the usually overlooked factors that led to the success of Nintendo:
(1) Innovation and Technology
(2) Good Customer Relationship Management
(3) A good working environment
CONCLUSION
Nintendo Co. currently dominates a large market share of the video game industry. Since the company’s early days, perseverance and innovation have been core values leading new ventures and the constant incorporation of suitable technology within their products. Nintendo has been acclaimed for being one of the forerunners of the market crash recovery in the early phases of the video game industry. As a company, Nintendo continues to act as one of the major game players and innovators, spearheading the industry of gaming into the future.
Works Cited
Barr, M 2017. Video games can develop graduate skills in higher education students: A randomized trial. Computers and Education, 113, 86-97.
LESSER, J.A. Video Game Technology and Learning. 2019. Print.
Diskin, P., 2004. Nintendo Entertainment System Documentation. Tokyo: Nin-tendo.
Egenfeldt- Nielsen, S., Smith., J., Tosca, S., 2016. Understanding video games: The essential introduction. New York, NY: Routledge.
Suominen, Jaakko. “Mario’s legacy and Sonic’s heritage: Replays and refunds of console gaming history.” Proceedings of Nordic DiGRA 2012 conference. 2012.
TAKEDA, L., 2020. The history of Nintendo: the Company, Consoles and Games. San Jose State University.
Wagner, Emily. “A Strategic Audit of Nintendo Co., Ltd.” (2019)
Lawler, Richard. “Super Nintendo World Theme Park Is a ‘Life-Size, Living Video Game'”. Entrepreneur, 2020. Online. Internet. 24 Nov. 2020. . Available: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/344998?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_mediu m=social&utm_campaign=super-nintendo-world-theme-park-is-a-li&utm_content=363 71241. “Nintendo History”. Nintendo UK, n.d. Online. Internet. 24 Nov. 2020. . Available: https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Corporate/Nintendo-History/Nintendo-History-625945.htm
©Keren Obara Mar 2021