Column: From playing cards to “Pokémon Go,” Nintendo is celebrating its 135th anniversary

In 1889, Fusajiro Yamauchi began designing playing cards in a small shop in Kyoto. Over the next 135 years, this company would grow, evolve, and transform into one of the largest gaming companies in the world: Nintendo.

The maps created by Yamauchi became known as Hanafudameaning “flower cards”, and acted as an alternative to traditional playing cards since Japan’s isolation policy had banned cards attributed to Western influence. Hanafuda cards were originally popular in the early 19th century and subverted the ban by using nature scenes instead of numbers, but were eventually banned in the mid-19th century.

By 1889, however, isolation policies in Japan had relaxed, so Yamauchi seized the opportunity to create his own hanafuda. Its cards became very popular throughout Japan and in 1953 the company became the first to achieve success Mass-produce playing cards.

In the 1960s, the popularity of Hanafuda and playing cards in general began to wane, and in 1964 Nintendo’s stock price plummeted to 100% Record low Level. The company focused its efforts on toy manufacturing, and its most notable result was the Ultra Hand, an extendable plastic arm designed to reach out and grasp objects. It was sold over 1 Million units and is featured today in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

The company evolved over time and in 1971 Nintendo released its first motorized game, the Space ballwhich consisted of an engine that spun planet-shaped objects and could be thrown into the air. Three years later, the company released Wild Gunman, an electromechanical arcade game, but it wasn’t until 1980 that the company’s video game business began to take off. One evening, Nintendo designer Gunpei Yokoi observed a bored businessman playing with a calculator on the subway. This inspired him to develop a clock that would also serve as a miniature game to pass the time. And so the company released the aptly named Game & Watch.

The Game & Watch system was a huge success due to its affordability, long battery life and simplicity. To this day, Nintendo develops its games by using simple, well-understood technologies in innovative ways. This philosophy was described by Yokoi as “Lateral thinking with withered technology.”

Nintendo’s next major financial success was the arcade game Donkey Kong, released in 1981, which was revolutionary in that it was one of the first platform games to allow characters to jump. Jumpman, later renamed Mario The landlord who owned the warehouse where Nintendo of America had its headquarters became the company’s mascot and the protagonist of the hit “Super Mario Bros.” series. Super Mario Bros., the 1985 game for which the series is named, is widely praised as one of the best video games of all time, and the franchise was so popular that by 1990A survey found that more American children recognized Mario than Mickey Mouse.

“Super Mario Bros.” was part of the Nintendo Entertainment System or NES family, along with other hits like “The Legend of Zelda.” The NES was first released in Japan in 1983 and oversold half a million units in the first month. In 1985, the NES was released in the USA and became one of the best-selling consoles of all time. In the 1980s, Nintendo also released the Game Boy, its second handheld console after the Game & Watch, which sold 118 million units worldwide.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Nintendo found itself in one Marketing war with rival company Sega, whose Genesis Mega Drive console had better audio and graphics quality compared to the NES. In response, Nintendo released the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), which was marketed as family-friendly to appeal to a wider audience. As a result, the SNES outsold the Genesis, and Nintendo continued to dominate the video game world.

In 1995, Nintendo produced its one billionth game cartridge and the following year released the Nintendo 64, which used its 64-bit graphics to bring popular franchises like Mario and Zelda into the world of 3D.

The following year, the Game Boy games and the Pokémon trading card game came onto the market. The franchise was originally called “Pocket Monsters.” created by two game magazine writers, Satoshi Tajiri and Ken Sugimori. Despite Nintendo’s low expectations for the games and the lack of media attention they initially attracted, the original games became a huge success, selling over 1 million copies within six months. The games sparked a franchise that is one of the most successful today most successful in the world, rivaled only by Nintendo’s own Super Mario Bros.

In the early 2000s, Nintendo struggled to compete with Sony and Microsoft and their respective PlayStation and Xbox consoles. Nintendo’s GameCube, launched as a more compact, affordable and accessible alternative, achieved only one success 14% of PlayStation sales.

The company got back on its feet with the release of the Nintendo DS at the end of 2004. The dual-screen console was an overnight success, selling 2.8 million units in its first month and taking the pressure off Yamauchi said of the console: “If it succeeds, we ascend to heaven; if it fails, we sink into hell.” Today, all DS units are sold together 154 million units This makes it the best-selling handheld video game console of all time.

To avoid another flop like the GameCube, Nintendo adopted a GameCube-based tactic Blue Ocean StrategyIt describes how to capture an untapped area of ​​the market by launching a more accessible product aimed at a wider audience of “non-customers”. To this end, Nintendo launched the Wii in 2006, a console that used motion controls and targeted families. It was a huge success and sold out 100 million units worldwide from October. It successfully attracted a non-traditional gaming audience, including women and older adults.

However, its successor, the Wii U, failed in comparison, selling just 15 million units since its launch in 2012. The console suffered from one confusing startwhere Nintendo’s focus on the gamepad controller left fans confused as to whether the sequel was an entirely new console or just an expansion of the original Wii. Additionally, the console’s performance was hindered by its high price and the widespread belief that it was not worth upgrading from the original Wii.

Suddenly Nintendo was in retreat again. The Wii was an innovative success, but there was skepticism about whether the company could continue to compete with hardware from Microsoft and Sony. Enter the Nintendo Switch.

As with the Wii, Nintendo wanted to cast a wide net by giving the Switch multiple forms of play: at home, on the go, with friends or alone. The system’s launch was a bit rocky, as there were only a few games to look forward to on release day other than The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. However, those concerns were soon put to rest with the release of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which went on sale today 52 million copieshelped establish the Switch as a fan favorite. The Switch’s handheld nature captured a niche in the market that was sorely lacking: the last handheld console to launch before the Switch was Sony’s PlayStation Vita in 2011.

So what’s next? The Nintendo Switch 2 was confirmed by Nintendo on X in May and is expected to appear in March 2025. This time, however, Nintendo has no novelties on its side and the market for handheld consoles is booming. What remains to be seen is whether the Switch 2 will be another disaster successor like the Wii U, or whether it will ride the wave of handheld gaming popularity? If the last 135 years are anything to go by, it seems that the company will continue to be successful no matter what.