In The Beginning
Fusajiro Yamauchi, Hiroshi Yamauchi’s grandfather, founded Nintendo in 1889 as a playing card company. Back then it was called Nintendo Koppai. Nintendo meaning something along the lines of, “We do what we can, the best that we can, and await the results.” The cards had symbols on them representing wind, fire, mountains etc and they were grouped for each month of the year. The playing cards that were carefully hand-made with bark from special trees are called Hanafuda cards and they were sold in Kyoto and Osaka, but they became especially popular in Kyoto. Fusajiro didn’t hit it big with his cards until the Japanese Mafia, or Yakuza, began to use them in their high stakes games. All the professional high rollers wanted to start their games with a new deck of Hanafuda cards so the cards were really in demand, Fusajiro was more than happy to have to start training new workers to keep up with sales!
Fusajiro Yamauchi, Hiroshi Yamauchi’s grandfather, founded Nintendo in 1889 as a playing card company. Back then it was called Nintendo Koppai. Nintendo meaning something along the lines of, “We do what we can, the best that we can, and await the results.” The cards had symbols on them representing wind, fire, mountains etc and they were grouped for each month of the year. The playing cards that were carefully hand-made with bark from special trees are called Hanafuda cards and they were sold in Kyoto and Osaka, but they became especially popular in Kyoto. Fusajiro didn’t hit it big with his cards until the Japanese Mafia, or Yakuza, began to use them in their high stakes games. All the professional high rollers wanted to start their games with a new deck of Hanafuda cards so the cards were really in demand, Fusajiro was more than happy to have to start training new workers to keep up with sales!
In the year 1907 Nintendo begins to manufacture western style playing cards and become the first Japanese company to successfully sell them in The Land of the Rising Sun. Also, Fusajiro gets more stores to sell his cards. Things sure seem to be going well for Nintendo and their cards!
In the year 1907 Nintendo begins to manufacture western style playing cards and become the first Japanese company to successfully sell them in The Land of the Rising Sun. Also, Fusajiro gets more stores to sell his cards. Things sure seem to be going well for Nintendo and their cards!
New Management
Around the early 1930′s Fusajiro’s daughter, Tei Yamauchi, married Sekiryo Kaneda. Sekiryo took the Yamauchi surname and Fusajiro retired, handing over Nintendo Koppai to Sekiryo Yamauchi, who would be Hiroshi Yamauchi’s grandfather. Fusajiro Yamauchi had been president for 40 years.
Not much happened during the time of the World Wars regarding Nintendo. Shortly after World War II Nintendo established a distribution company by the name of Marufuku Co. Ltd. During this time, Sekiryo stepped off his position in 1949 after 20 years of being president of Nintendo. Shikanojo was supposed to take his place but the responsibility was too much for him and he ran away from his 5 year-old son Hiroshi, and his mother Kimi Yamauchi. Hiroshi Yamauchi was 5 years old when he took over Nintendo in 1949! Of course, Hiroshi had to receive advice and help from others on running Nintendo until he was old enough to deal with it himself. That doesn’t mean that he wasn’t a young genius. Hiroshi knew that his employees did not like him so he started to fire all of the older workers to ensure that nobody would stand to question him! In 1951 the name was changed to Nintendo Playing Cards Co. Ltd.
Nintendo Strikes A Deal With Disney
In 1959, Walt Disney allowed Nintendo to produce playing cards with Disney characters on them. These cards with familiar Disney characters were an instant hit and over half a million packs were sold that same year! Who would have thought that when Nintendo started in the video game business, Mario would be more familiar to kids than Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters!
Nintendo Searches For A Purpose
Probably what was the most drastic change in what Nintendo did happened in the eras of the 60′s. Nintendo listed in the stock market for Kyoto and Osaka. In 1963, Hiroshi changed the name of Nintendo Playing Cards Co Ltd. to what it is today, Nintendo Co. Ltd. since they would no longer specialize on the Hanafuda cards. Nintendo made a whole lot of different stuff since they didn’t really know what to do yet. They made stuff ranging from instant rice to managing a love hotel in which you had to pay by the hour. Yes there were prostitutes, and Hiroshi loved going there even though he was married. Another failure they did was start a taxi company. It was forced to close down since the drivers wanted higher salaries.
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