Wednesday, March 21, 2012

A short history of Nintendo | Another Video Game Blog

A short history of Nintendo

Mar 20, 2012

Now a world-famous brand, Nintendo began in 1889 as a small Japanese playing card company. The cards were all handmade and very popular in Kyoto and throughout Japan. Production continued in this way until the 1950s, when Nintendo began producing cards made from plastic and imprinting Disney characters on them, having struck a deal with the US company in 1959. Demand dwindled in the 1960s however and Nintendo found itself searching for a new path.

Toyland

Hoping to pay off some of its enormous debts, Nintendo began producing electric toys. Still a small company, it struggled to compete with other, better-established manufacturers and keep up with the limited life cycle of toys. Despite this, some of the products that emerged during this time included the Ten Billion Barrel puzzle, the Ultra Machinen, which threw baseballs; and a Love Tester, as well as an early version of the NES Zapper.

Video games

By the 1970s, Nintendo was looking for a way to get into the embryonic video games market. At this time, home video game consoles were all-but non-existent, with even the recognisable Atari Pong console not yet on the scene.

After dabbling in the home console area, Nintendo began producing arcade games, including EVR Race, Radar Scope and Donkey Kong. A legend, even in its own time, Donkey Kong was released into the arcades and for the popular gaming consoles of the time, including the Atari 2600, Intellivision and ColecoVision. Nintendo did this same type of dual release with many games of the period, including the original Mario Bros.

The first Nintendo home console system was the Nintendo Entertainment System or NES. Introduced in 1985, it enabled people to play the popular Mario and Zelda games in the privacy of their own homes and sold more than 60 million units worldwide. In 1991, Super Nintendo was released, featuring 16-bit technology, more processing power and more entertaining games.

Game Boy was the Nintendo handheld; it was introduced in 1989 and was always closely associated with the Tetris game. Game Boy has sold more than 150 million systems worldwide, making it the most successful video game system ever released. Other versions of Game Boy include the Game Boy Pocket, Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Advance SP.

Super Mario 64 was the spotlight game for the Nintendo 64 system when it debuted in 1996 and featured amazing 3-D graphics. The Nintendo GameCube was the next step up from the N64 and used the then new optical disc technology, rather than game cartridges.

Recent systems include Nintendo 3DS, which offers 3-D content, complete with special glasses and the Nintendo Wii system, with its remote controllers, Wi-Fi capability and many other revolutionary features.

Here?s to the future ? Nintendo Wii U

Scheduled to be released in 2012, the Wii U is an entirely new console system that reinforces Nintendo?s reputation for creative development. Amongst its new features is a controller with a six-inch touchscreen, which displays the game and gives players game feedback as well as displaying status messages. In addition, easy access to the internet, with the Wii U, enables players to make use of a party poker bonus code.

The continued popularity of the original Wii system and the new features, which are standard on the Wii U, should ensure that Nintendo can embrace the future with confidence.

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Source: http://anothervideogameblog.com/2012/03/20/a-short-history-of-nintendo/

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