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The History of Nintendo...
What year would you guess the company that we now know as Nintendo began? Well, Nintendo actually began way back in 1889. That's well over 100 years ago! For one, when I first found this out, I was really surprised. I didn't think that Nintendo had been going anywhere near that long so that's why I decided to write this topic.
Between the years of 1889 and 1929, the company produced hand-made Japanese playing cards called Hanafunda. A man named, Fusajiro Yamauchi was in charge of the company. Back in this time though, Nintendo was established as Koppai and the company was situated in Kyoto, Japan. These cards eventually became incredibly popular and led to Koppai having to hire more staff to produce them.
Fusajiro retired in 1929 and his son in law, Sekiryo Kaneda, took over the company. By this time, Koppai had become the biggest producer of playing cards in the whole of Japan.
In 1949, the current president of Koppai, Hiroshi Yamauchi, took over the company. Ten years later, Hiroshi made a deal with Disney to produce cards with their characters on them. These sold over 600,000 packs per year.
Between the years of 1959 and 1970, the name of the company was changed from Koppai to Nintendo (the name of which it is known as today), and Hiroshi moved the production of Nintendo away from cards and towards none other than games and toys. In 1970, Nintendo employed a man called Gunpei Yokoi. He was asked to come up with something new and exciting for the Christmas market. He developed the Ultra Hand (an extending arm which is used to pick up coloured skittles), which sold millions (believe it or not!).
After making the "Ultra" successful, Ultra Hand, Gunpei went on to develop such things as the Ultra Machine (a baseball throwing contraption), the love tester (a machine where the girl and boy hold hands and see how much they love each other) and he also created the Beam gun games (consists of simple guns and targets with sensitive solar cells) all between the years of 1970 and 1972.
Hiroshi came up with a great idea in 1972. He said that Nintendo should create their beam games further and create virtual skeet shooting ranges. He went on to say, Bowling is no longer a popular sport in Japan and there are many unused alleys. The shooting ranges could be placed in these unused bowling alleys. The Laser Clay Shooting System was created by 1975 and became a popular evening pastime in Japan.
In 1975 as Hiroshi was having dinner with a friend, their conversation soon turned to how Magnavox and Atari had created consoles in which you could play games on your TV. Hiroshi began to see this as the future of Nintendo and in 1977, Nintendo released the Color TV Game 6. This featured six different versions of tennis. Also, in 1977 one of today's most talented and well-known games designers joined Nintendo. His name is Shigeru Miyamoto...
At this time, Calculators were popular because of them being small and cheap so Gunpei came up with the idea of Game and Watch (handheld LCD units featuring a game and a clock). Game and Watch was a hit across not only Japan, but the world. Miyamoto was asked to work on a blaster called Radarscope but he ditched it and started to work on the world's first platform game, Donkey Kong. DK sold over 65,000 units in the States. In 1980, Hiroshi decided it was time to work on bringing videogames to people's own TVs.
***Now here's the start of Nintendo as we know it!***
In 1981, work began on the Famicom (NES in this country). It was released in Japan in 1983 and sold 500,000 in its first two months on the market, but Nintendo soon discovered that many of the machines had faulty chips which caused some games to freeze. Nintendo was then forced to spend millions recalling faulty machines to fix them.
In 1983, Nintendo began to plan to bring Famicom to the West, so it established the seal of quality to try and stop rubbish games appearing on the console. In 1986, the NES was released across the world, outselling its competitors ten to one (amazing, eh?!). Also in 1986, Metroid was sold in Japan but eastern gamers didn't take to the space adventure game although, Metroid went on to be much more successful in the States and Europe (obviously, or the game wouldn't be around today!).
In 1987, the NES was the biggest selling toy in America and Zelda was the first stand alone game to sell over 1,000,000 copies. Also, Gunpei shows Hiroshi a prototype of the Game Boy.
In 1989, the Game Boy was released in Japan with Tetris and Super Mario Land. Also in 1989, the Super NES was announced.
The Super NES was released in Japan in 1990 and sold out in only three days! Also in 1990 the Game Boy was released in America. The Super NES got released in the States in 1991 and was a massive success. The Super NES finally came to Europe in 1992. Also in 1992 was the introduction of Mario's arch nemesis, Wario.
Soon after all this, work began on the Virtual Boy, and Nintendo announced the Super FX Chip, which was made to make the Super NES more powerful (in 1993, used on Star Wing in the UK). In 1993, Nintendo sold its millionth Mario game an announced the Nintendo 64 under the name of Project Reality. The Super Mario Bros movie was released and so was Mortal Kombat on the Super NES...only without blood so the gory Sega version sold loads more.
In 1994, the final NES game was released, "Wario's Woods". In 1995, the Virtual Boy in Japan but it became Nintendo's biggest disappointment yet as people complained the games were rubbish and the system gave you headaches. It was a failure! Development finished on the newly named, Nintendo 64, and the 3D stick was unveiled.
In 1996, the N64 and re-designed Game Boy Pocket were both released in Japan. Over 500,000 N64s were sold on the first day of its release (That's six every second!). The N64 also went on sale in the States in 1996 and was also a big success.
The N64 was finally released in the UK in 1997. The same year Pocket Monsters (Pokemon) were unleashed on Japan. Also, sadly, the Game Boy creator, Gunpei Yokoi, was killed in a tragic car accident.
In 1998, the long awaited Game Boy Color was released across the world and Pokemon hit the US! Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of time, was released in the UK and was hailed Miyamoto's finest gaming moment. The Pokemon craze hit the UK toward the end of 1999 and quickly became one of Nintendo's biggest hits ever.
In 2000, Nintendo unveiled both the Gamecube and Game Boy Advance at the Space World show.
Throughout 2001, the 32bit GBA was released all over the world and was and still is a big hit. Toward the end of 2001, the Gamecube was released to the Japanese public with the line up of Luigi's Mansion, Super Monkey Ball and Wave Race Blue Storm (Three brilliant games!). 300,000 Gamecubes were shifted in just three days from its release date. Toward the end of 2001 (18 November), the Gamecube was released in the US. A whopping 330,000 Gamecubes were sold on the day of its release.
Early 2002, the Gamecube was finally released in the UK and we have been praising Nintendo ever since. "Keep up the good work, Nintendo!"
The future of Nintendo...
What do we have to look forward to from Nintendo in the future? Well, this can only be revealed by Nintendo, themselves. All we know, is what Nintendo have told us and basically all they have told us, is that we have many top class Gamecube and Game Boy Advance games to look forward to. For example, on the Gamecube; Super Mario Sunshine and Zelda, and on the GBA; Metroid Fusion and Kirby. You never know when Nintendo might reveal plans for another future classic computer game or another future great console...
Thanks for reading,
Jericho15.
What year would you guess the company that we now know as Nintendo began? Well, Nintendo actually began way back in 1889. That's well over 100 years ago! For one, when I first found this out, I was really surprised. I didn't think that Nintendo had been going anywhere near that long so that's why I decided to write this topic.
Between the years of 1889 and 1929, the company produced hand-made Japanese playing cards called Hanafunda. A man named, Fusajiro Yamauchi was in charge of the company. Back in this time though, Nintendo was established as Koppai and the company was situated in Kyoto, Japan. These cards eventually became incredibly popular and led to Koppai having to hire more staff to produce them.
Fusajiro retired in 1929 and his son in law, Sekiryo Kaneda, took over the company. By this time, Koppai had become the biggest producer of playing cards in the whole of Japan.
In 1949, the current president of Koppai, Hiroshi Yamauchi, took over the company. Ten years later, Hiroshi made a deal with Disney to produce cards with their characters on them. These sold over 600,000 packs per year.
Between the years of 1959 and 1970, the name of the company was changed from Koppai to Nintendo (the name of which it is known as today), and Hiroshi moved the production of Nintendo away from cards and towards none other than games and toys. In 1970, Nintendo employed a man called Gunpei Yokoi. He was asked to come up with something new and exciting for the Christmas market. He developed the Ultra Hand (an extending arm which is used to pick up coloured skittles), which sold millions (believe it or not!).
After making the "Ultra" successful, Ultra Hand, Gunpei went on to develop such things as the Ultra Machine (a baseball throwing contraption), the love tester (a machine where the girl and boy hold hands and see how much they love each other) and he also created the Beam gun games (consists of simple guns and targets with sensitive solar cells) all between the years of 1970 and 1972.
Hiroshi came up with a great idea in 1972. He said that Nintendo should create their beam games further and create virtual skeet shooting ranges. He went on to say, Bowling is no longer a popular sport in Japan and there are many unused alleys. The shooting ranges could be placed in these unused bowling alleys. The Laser Clay Shooting System was created by 1975 and became a popular evening pastime in Japan.
In 1975 as Hiroshi was having dinner with a friend, their conversation soon turned to how Magnavox and Atari had created consoles in which you could play games on your TV. Hiroshi began to see this as the future of Nintendo and in 1977, Nintendo released the Color TV Game 6. This featured six different versions of tennis. Also, in 1977 one of today's most talented and well-known games designers joined Nintendo. His name is Shigeru Miyamoto...
At this time, Calculators were popular because of them being small and cheap so Gunpei came up with the idea of Game and Watch (handheld LCD units featuring a game and a clock). Game and Watch was a hit across not only Japan, but the world. Miyamoto was asked to work on a blaster called Radarscope but he ditched it and started to work on the world's first platform game, Donkey Kong. DK sold over 65,000 units in the States. In 1980, Hiroshi decided it was time to work on bringing videogames to people's own TVs.
***Now here's the start of Nintendo as we know it!***
In 1981, work began on the Famicom (NES in this country). It was released in Japan in 1983 and sold 500,000 in its first two months on the market, but Nintendo soon discovered that many of the machines had faulty chips which caused some games to freeze. Nintendo was then forced to spend millions recalling faulty machines to fix them.
In 1983, Nintendo began to plan to bring Famicom to the West, so it established the seal of quality to try and stop rubbish games appearing on the console. In 1986, the NES was released across the world, outselling its competitors ten to one (amazing, eh?!). Also in 1986, Metroid was sold in Japan but eastern gamers didn't take to the space adventure game although, Metroid went on to be much more successful in the States and Europe (obviously, or the game wouldn't be around today!).
In 1987, the NES was the biggest selling toy in America and Zelda was the first stand alone game to sell over 1,000,000 copies. Also, Gunpei shows Hiroshi a prototype of the Game Boy.
In 1989, the Game Boy was released in Japan with Tetris and Super Mario Land. Also in 1989, the Super NES was announced.
The Super NES was released in Japan in 1990 and sold out in only three days! Also in 1990 the Game Boy was released in America. The Super NES got released in the States in 1991 and was a massive success. The Super NES finally came to Europe in 1992. Also in 1992 was the introduction of Mario's arch nemesis, Wario.
Soon after all this, work began on the Virtual Boy, and Nintendo announced the Super FX Chip, which was made to make the Super NES more powerful (in 1993, used on Star Wing in the UK). In 1993, Nintendo sold its millionth Mario game an announced the Nintendo 64 under the name of Project Reality. The Super Mario Bros movie was released and so was Mortal Kombat on the Super NES...only without blood so the gory Sega version sold loads more.
In 1994, the final NES game was released, "Wario's Woods". In 1995, the Virtual Boy in Japan but it became Nintendo's biggest disappointment yet as people complained the games were rubbish and the system gave you headaches. It was a failure! Development finished on the newly named, Nintendo 64, and the 3D stick was unveiled.
In 1996, the N64 and re-designed Game Boy Pocket were both released in Japan. Over 500,000 N64s were sold on the first day of its release (That's six every second!). The N64 also went on sale in the States in 1996 and was also a big success.
The N64 was finally released in the UK in 1997. The same year Pocket Monsters (Pokemon) were unleashed on Japan. Also, sadly, the Game Boy creator, Gunpei Yokoi, was killed in a tragic car accident.
In 1998, the long awaited Game Boy Color was released across the world and Pokemon hit the US! Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of time, was released in the UK and was hailed Miyamoto's finest gaming moment. The Pokemon craze hit the UK toward the end of 1999 and quickly became one of Nintendo's biggest hits ever.
In 2000, Nintendo unveiled both the Gamecube and Game Boy Advance at the Space World show.
Throughout 2001, the 32bit GBA was released all over the world and was and still is a big hit. Toward the end of 2001, the Gamecube was released to the Japanese public with the line up of Luigi's Mansion, Super Monkey Ball and Wave Race Blue Storm (Three brilliant games!). 300,000 Gamecubes were shifted in just three days from its release date. Toward the end of 2001 (18 November), the Gamecube was released in the US. A whopping 330,000 Gamecubes were sold on the day of its release.
Early 2002, the Gamecube was finally released in the UK and we have been praising Nintendo ever since. "Keep up the good work, Nintendo!"
The future of Nintendo...
What do we have to look forward to from Nintendo in the future? Well, this can only be revealed by Nintendo, themselves. All we know, is what Nintendo have told us and basically all they have told us, is that we have many top class Gamecube and Game Boy Advance games to look forward to. For example, on the Gamecube; Super Mario Sunshine and Zelda, and on the GBA; Metroid Fusion and Kirby. You never know when Nintendo might reveal plans for another future classic computer game or another future great console...
Thanks for reading,
Jericho15.
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I never knew it'd been done before but anyway, you've got new people entering the forums all the time that might want to know about Nintendo...
Been done before, but it was well written and researched, so well done.
Well, there ya go then.
Thanks Jericho, i have recently bought a GC and wasn't really sure of Nintendo's background. I knew that they were created around the 1880 point and i knew that they started to make cards, but i didn't have a clue about any of the other facts.
http://ukchatforums.reserve.co.uk/ display_messages.php?threadid=47539&forumid=416
Mine took me roughly one and a half when I posted it, I type fast. ;)
Reminds me I was going to do one for Sega too... suppose I still will, whenever I get around to it. ;)
Mine took me roughly one and a half when I posted it, I type fast. ;)
Reminds me I was going to do one for Sega too... suppose I still will, whenever I get around to it. ;)
yeah, it did, a whole 3 hours!
Thanks Ultima.
It took about 3 hours out of my precious time...
It took about 3 hours out of my precious time...
Hey J15
How long did u say it took u
How long did u say it took u
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