Nintendo
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Nintendo (Japanese: 任天堂; Rōmaji: Nintendō) is a company in Japan which develops and manufactures its own line of video games and consoles. They are the creators of many popular series, including The Legend of Zelda, Pokémon, as well as their most popular series, the Mario franchise, plus many more. Nintendo's mascot is Mario himself. Nintendo is often credited with reviving the North American video game industry after the video game crash of 1983. Currently, Nintendo's highest-selling home and handheld consoles are the Wii and Nintendo DS respectively.  Nintendo's regions (headquarters) in the world. This country selector, as well as this customer support selector, show each country that has a website on Nintendo products. ContentsHistoryThe company was originally founded on September 23rd, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi to produce handmade Hanafuda cards for use in a Japanese playing card game of the same name. Eventually, in 1929, the company was passed on to Yamauchi's son-in-law, Sekiryo Kaneda. He took up the Yamauchi name when he married Fusajiro's daughter, Tei Yamauchi. The company continued on to make Hanafuda cards. However, Kaneda decided to retire in 1949 and passed Nintendo down to his grandson, Hiroshi Yamauchi. Little did he know that Hiroshi would change the focus of Nintendo for the best. In the late '70s, Yamauchi decided to expand Nintendo into the United States, as arcade machines were becoming very popular. However, his plan did not go over as well as he had hoped. Many children in the U.S. did not show much interest in Nintendo's products, like Sheriff or Radar Scope. Nintendo started to lose money, so in desperation, Yamauchi turned to one of his employees, Shigeru Miyamoto, for help. He called only Miyamoto in because he was the only employee who had any time on his hands. Yamauchi asked Miyamoto to make a product for the arcade machine that would become a best-seller. Shigeru Miyamoto worked on the project he was thinking of for a while: Donkey Kong. When it entered the North American market, it became a best-seller. Nintendo started moving into video games and assigned Gunpei Yokoi to make a handheld console for enjoyment while traveling. Thus, Yokoi made the Game & Watch, which became popular in both Japan and the United States. Nintendo then made the Nintendo Entertainment System, which grew very popular among children, the most successful game being Super Mario Bros. The release of the system forever changed the focus of video game development from quantity to quality and cemented the company's place in history. Aside from video games, Nintendo was also the majority owner of the Seattle Mariners, a Major League Baseball team from 1992 to 2016. In 2002, Hiroshi Yamauchi stepped down from office, giving the position to Satoru Iwata, who later became CEO of Nintendo's American branch and held both posts until his death in July 2015. After which, Tatsumi Kimishima was appointed Iwata's successor in September 2015, until he stepped down on June 28, 2018 and was succeeded by Shuntaro Furukawa. Results of their workNintendo is the longest running company in the history of the video game console market and historically the most influential and best known console manufacturer. However, they do have business rivalry in Sony, Microsoft, and formerly their biggest rival, Sega (which is now reduced to third-party work). Nintendo, as a video game company, began in the Japanese market in 1983, the American market in 1985, and the European market in 1986. Over time Nintendo has manufactured seven TV consoles and nine handheld portables. They have also developed, and published over 300 games, and have sold over 2 billion games worldwide. Nintendo has also sold very well among other consoles. Yamauchi, when he announced the Nintendo GameCube, stated that people do not buy a console for the console, they buy it for the game they want. He also believed that a video game console should be solely for video games, never anything else, in opposition to PlayStation 2's built-in DVD Player. These are the reasons why Nintendo's consoles are always the cheapest compared to other consoles. All recent official Nintendo merchandise are marked with the Official Nintendo Seal. Originally, the seal was applied only to video games. Some games sold so well that Nintendo made more prints under the labels Player's Choice and Nintendo Selects, under reduced prices. Appearances in the Mario universe  The Nintendo logo appearing on Diddy Kong's cap, and on the walls at Nintendo GameCube in Mario Kart: Double Dash!!.
Home consoles
Attachments and remodels
These consoles may have different names in different markets. The NES is known as Famicom in Japan, the SNES subsequently as Super Famicom. In China, the Nintendo 64 was released under the name iQue Player. 1 - Although the Nintendo Switch can also function as a handheld console, it is primarily marketed as a home console by Nintendo. Handheld consoles
Remodels
Releases of these consoles in China usually replace "Nintendo" in the name with "iQue". Examples are the iQue DS and the iQue 3DS XL. GalleryIt has been requested that additional images be uploaded for this section. Remove this only when the image(s) have been uploaded for this section.
See also
Names in other languages
Trivia
External linksNintendo's page on other NIWA wikis:
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