Mario, Zelda, Pokémon, and Nintendo Switch feel completely modern. But Nintendo's story began in 1889, many decades before electronic games existed. In Kyoto, Fusajiro Yamauchi began manufacturing and selling Japanese hanafuda playing cards.
One of the world's most famous video game companies therefore has roots in nineteenth-century card games.
What are hanafuda cards?
Hanafuda are traditional Japanese playing cards decorated with flowers and seasonal imagery. They were the product at the beginning of Nintendo's history.
Why is 1889 so surprising?
Nintendo began in a world without television, home computers, modern game consoles, or digital entertainment. The technological environment had almost nothing in common with the industry the company would later help define.
For decades, Nintendo was a card company
During the twentieth century it expanded its card business, introduced Western-style playing cards, and later experimented with toys and other forms of entertainment.
Electronic games came much later
Nintendo moved seriously into electronic entertainment in the 1970s. Game & Watch, Donkey Kong, the Famicom/Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, and later consoles transformed it into a global gaming company.
The deeper story is about adaptation
If the original business had defined itself as “a company that makes only cards,” it might not have survived in its modern form. Instead, Nintendo repeatedly changed the product while keeping a broader focus on entertainment and play.
Nintendo's history is a reminder that long-lived companies do not always survive by selling the same thing forever. Sometimes they survive by preserving the purpose while completely reinventing the product.
