Brief History

Nintendo is a multinational japanese video game company founded in 1889. It started as a small company that developed "Hanafuda" (A set of playing cards the Japanese origin) becoming successful. As a result, in 1956 some Disney's characters where included in the cards to enter the U.S market. Then in 1963 its name change from Nintendo Playing Card Company Limited, to Nintendo Company Limited, with the idea to develop more products and services; such as a taxi company, a hotel chain, a TV network and even a food company. But all of these attemps failed and Hanafuda sales dropped.

In 1966, Nintendo join the toy industry and succeed with several creations, but still struggled to accomplish the toy's market's goals. But in 1973, with the "Layser Clay Shooting System"; a light gun game that introduced the company into the electronic development of products.The seventies were a very succesful tim for the company. Nintendo got the rights to distribute in Japan the world's first video game console: The Magnavox Odyssey. Then they started producing their own “Color TV video game consoles”. Also, with the participation of Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of many of the most successful videogames, in 1981 Nintendo released “Donkey Kong”, a game that incremented dramatically the profit of the company. Having now a worldwide recognition and success, Nintendo launched in North America the Nintendo Entertainment System along with the well-known Super Mario Bros.

In 1989, the Game Boy, a portable video game console, is developed; followed by the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) in 1990, then by the Nintendo 64 in 1996, which was recognized for its 3D graphics. Then the Nintendo GameCube was created in 2001 being the first of their consoles to have an optical disc. And finally their most recent creation, the Nintendo Wii in 2006, which provides motion sensing controllers and internet connection .