Nintendo



Nintendo (Japanese: &#20219;&#22825;&#22530;; TSE: NTDOY) was originally founded in 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi to produce handmade hanafuda cards, for use in a Japanese playing card game of the same name. Over the years, it became a video game company and one of the most powerful in the industry. Aside from video games, Nintendo is also the majority owner of the Seattle Mariners, a Major League Baseball team.

Nintendo is the longest running company in the history of the video game console market and historically the most influential and best known console manufacturer. They began in the Japanese market in 1983, the U.S. market in 1985, and the European market in 1986. Over time Nintendo has manufactured five TV consoles &mdash; NES, the SNES, the Nintendo 64, the present GameCube, and the not-yet-released Wii &mdash; and many different handheld portables, including six versions of their popular Game Boy, the Game & Watch, the Virtual Boy, the PokÃ©mon Mini, and the Nintendo DS. They have also published over 250 games, developing at least 180 of them, and have sold over 2 billion games worldwide.