Nintendo

Founded in 1889 to produce karuta (Japanese playing cards)—primarily hanafuda—Nintendo quickly became the primary producer. Though WWII hit the company hard, restructuring under Hiroshi Yamauchi (the founder's grandson) and financing from Hiroshi's wife Michiko Inaba helped the company grow. In 1959, they partnered with Walt Disney Productions, incorporating the characters in their playing cards. In the late 60s to early 70s, the company began producing classic tabletop games, as the market for playing cards was decreasing.

In 1970, it created the Beam Gun, Japan's first electronic toy, quickly followed by a myriad of others. In 1979, a department focused on arcade gaming was created, and in 1980, Gunpei Yokoi created the Game & Watch—the first handheld video game system. In 1983, the Family Computer (Famicom) was released in Japan, and in 1985 it came to the US as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Nintendo created strict copyright infringement policies and regional lockouts so as to deal with the video game recession in 1983.

In 1989, Nintendo released the Game Boy, which became a major success. Nintendo Power—a gaming magazine—launched in 1988 in the US. The Super Famicom/Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) launched in 1990 in response to sales slipping, quickly dominating the market. This was followed by the Virtual Boy (1995), Nintendo 64 (N64, 1996), Game Boy Color (GBC, 1998), Game Boy Advance (GBA, 2001), GameCube (GC, 2001), Nintendo DS (NDS, 2004), Wii (2006), Nintendo 3DS (2011), and Wii U (2012). Struggles in 2015 with Wii U financial losses and Satoru Iwata's death led to Nintendo dipping into the mobile market as well as creating home emulation consoles based on old systems. The Nintendo Switch launched in 2017 and Shuntaro Furukawa took over as president in 2018. Super Nintendo World opened at Universal Studios Japan in 2021 and Universal Studios Hollywood in 2023. The Nintendo Switch 2 was announced for 2025.