Nintendo



Nintendo is a name that is synonymous with video games, being a market leader for over 20 years. Nintendo originally started off as a playing card game company in 1889, but when Hiroshi Yamauchi took control of the company in 1949, he brought a new vision to Nintendo. In 1981, Nintendo came out with its first arcade machine, Donkey Kong. Created by Shigeru Miyamoto, Donkey Kong became a cultural phenomenon, with many variations and imitations coming out within a few years after its release. With the success of Donkey Kong and the increasing sales of the Game & Watch handhelds, Nintendo was ready to make the move into the home console market.

In 1983, Nintendo came out with the Famicom (Family Computer), an 8-bit video game console, in Japan. By 1984, the Famicom was the highest selling console in Japan, and because of the success, Nintendo set its eye on the rest of the world. In 1985, Nintendo came out with the Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES, in North America, Europe, and Australia. In America, the NES quickly became a multi-million selling system, becoming the "must own" video game console of the era. Nintendo's success was due mainly to the strict policy where they were the only company that could license a game cartridge. A game would not play on the NES unless Nintendo gave them the now (in)famous "Nintendo Seal of Approval." This practice stopped third party companies to flood the market with low quality games, which is what killed the video game industry back in the mid-1970s.

By 1990, the NES was the highest selling video game console in the world (to this date, over 60 million units have been sold worldwide). But as the years progressed, new systems started to make waves in the video game community. With growing sales of the Sega Genesis Nintendo had to compete with the 16-bit rival. In 1990 and 1991, Nintendo came out with the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) in Japan and North America, respectively. In Japan, Nintendo was able to hold 85% of the video game console market share over the Genesis (or Mega Drive as it is known outside of North America). Although Nintendo easily overtook Sega in Japan, the same could not be said in North America, where it took until 1994 for the SNES to outsell the Genesis, and especially in Europe, where it never outsold Sega. Despite Europe's siding with Sega, Nintendo's second generation console became the highest selling 16-bit video game console in history, with over 49 million units sold.