Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The History of Nintendo

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

Nintendo is one of the most legendary video game companies in the world. Many of you have probably owned a Nintendo system to play video games. If you are old enough, you might have even played some of their games in a video arcade.  Even if you have never played a video game, through cultural osmosis, you are probably still aware of many of its popular characters, like Mario and Donkey Kong. Learn about the history of Nintendo and how a 19th-century company wound up making video games on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Sponsors Quince Go to quince.com/daily for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order! Mint Mobile Get your 3-month Unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com/eed Chubbies Get 20% off your purchase at Chubbies with the promo code DAILY at checkout! Aura Frames Exclusive $35 off Carver Mat at https://on.auraframes.com/DAILY. Promo Code DAILY DripDrop Go to dripdrop.com and use promo code EVERYTHING for 20% off your first order. Uncommon Goods Go to uncommongoods.com/DAILY for 15% off! Subscribe to the podcast!  https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/ -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Charles Daniel Associate Producers: Austin Oetken & Cameron Kieffer   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/  Disce aliquid novi cotidie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nintendo is one of the most legendary video game companies in the world. Many of you have probably owned a Nintendo system to play video games. If you're old enough, you may have even played some of their games in a video arcade. Even if you've never played a video game, through cultural osmosis, you're still probably aware of many of its popular characters, like Mario and Donkey Kong. Learn more about the history of Nintendo, and how a 19th century company wound up making video games

on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. is trending on TikTok. Vaccines are poison. Then your yoga teacher says that sex traffic children are being sacrificed by satanic liberals, but it's all okay. The Great Awakening is coming. What is happening? Every week on Conspiratuality Podcast, we explore the fever dreams that suck friends, family,

and wellness gurus down the right-wing cult spiral in a search for salvation. Nintendo is one of the most popular and well-known video game companies in the world. But what most people don't know is that the company actually dates back well before the advent of computers. The company's origins date back to 1889 in Kyoto, Japan. Founder of Fusajiro Yamauuchi started the business to make playing cards, known in Japan as Karuta. These cards are much like Western playing cards, but feature plants and animals instead of suits. Yamauuchi named his business Yammauchi Nintendo, and this was later shortened to just Nintendo. The word Nintendo comes from three Japanese characters.

Nin, which means responsibility, duty, or to entrust. Ten, meaning heaven or the heavens, and do, meaning hall or temple. Although exact corporate name meanings are rarely official, the conventional and widely accepted reading is, leave luck to heaven or entrusted to heaven, reflecting both the company's early identity as a maker of playing cards and the broader cultural association between games of chance and fate. However, there is no set definition as to the meaning of the word and it isn't known why it was chosen.

You might be thinking that investing in a playing card business was a weird choice, but there was high demand within Japan. This is because Japan had banned most forms of gambling, so any cards that were tolerated by the government were desirable. Many of Yamauchi's potential competitors left the card industry, not wanting to risk anything illegal. Yamauuchi's decision to remain in the market ultimately led the business to become one of the primary playing card producers in Japan. As demand increased, so did Yamauchi's business. He brought in assistance to help mass produce cards.

Despite support, the company struggled financially because the cards were expensive and time-consuming to make. This caused Yamauchi to make a difficult choice. If you wanted Nintendo to stay afloat, sacrifices needed to be made. Ultimately, the choice was made to develop cheaper, lower-quality cards, and this decision proved to be correct, as it allowed the business to expand into other Japanese cities where demand for playing cards was still high. In 1902, Nintendo branched out into the Western playing card market,

aiming to export its cards abroad. Many decks were sent from Japan, but they were also sold at home. This made Nintendo's cards popular worldwide. While expanding its product line, Nintendo and the Japanese playing card market faced turmoil. Between 1904 and 1905, Japan went to war with Russia. During the Russia-Japanese War, Japan imposed new taxes,

including one on playing cards. The Zaruta Zay, or Plane Car tax, made cards more expensive to produce. This, combined with the recovery from the Russia-Japanese War, put the business in danger. Once again, Nintendo was forced to make strategic maneuvers to stay in business. The most notable decision they made was partnering with Nihon Senai, now known as Japan Tobacco.

This partnership was more valuable than at first appeared. Nihon Senbai was owned by the Japanese government and held a monopoly over Japan's tobacco industry. By working with Japan Tobacco, Nintendo ensured its cars were in stores across the country. This move made Nintendo the last. largest playing card company in all of Japan. Yamauuchi retired from Nintendo in 1929, but Japanese law stated that the business had to be passed down to someone in Yamauchi's family. Ultimately, his son-in-law, Securo Canada, who changed his last name to Yamauchi, became the next head of the

business. Securo, as the new head of Nintendo, went to work establishing the business as a general partnership and renaming it, Yamauchi Nintendo and Company Limited. He also invested in in a new corporate headquarters, building it next to the previous one. With Securo leading Nintendo, the company soon confronted a major test. World War II. During the war, Japanese society shifted its focus to the war effort. There was less attention on leisure activities like playing cards. Additionally, foreign card games were banned, and this impacted companies like Nintendo.

While Nintendo did survive these difficult years, its wartime records are limited, leaving its operation sparse in detail. Still, a few facts are known. Nintendo was involved in the creation of propaganda during the war. They built games to promote Japanese morale, one example of which was backgammon boards. The backgammon boards were for kids, but painted with war imagery. They often showed animals dressed as soldiers. Sometimes animals held Japanese flags.

Other times they stood atop torn allied flags. Following the end of World War II, Securo founded a distribution company to sell and market Nintendo's products. This distribution company later became the modern-day Nintendo Corporation. Secura retired in 1950, leaving the company to his grandson, Hiroshi Yamauchi. When Hiroshi Yamauchi took control, he also made changes. First, he renamed the company Nintendo Playing Card Company Limited. He also decentralized the manufacturing sites, letting the company expand its offices and mass-produced cards. In 1959, Nintendo made the strategic decision to partner with Walt Disney Productions.

This partnership enabled Nintendo to include Disney characters on its cards, helping the company to expand into the children's market. After partnering with Disney, Nintendo grew even more. They ran television ads to draw more attention to the brand. They expanded their product line, adding more games and cards. The company also went public, listing on the Kyoto and Osaka Stock Exchanges. and its name changed for the last time to Nintendo and Company Limited. Despite this growth, Nintendo realized a problem. They depended too much on the children's market now.

This was worsened as adults picked up other hobbies and Disney cards lost popularity. Their company was stuck. To stay afloat, they needed a quick new solution. Yamauchi invested in a research and development department. At first it was meant to mass manufacture a classic table. top games, but it also notably developed Nintendo's first electronic toy, the Beam Gun in 1970. The Beam Gun inadvertently started the company's shift towards video games. They used the guns in partnership with Magnovox. Magnovox made the Magnovox Odyssey, the first at-home video game

console, and the Beam Gun was used in one of its games. Nintendo continued to introduce new, exciting toys, driving up demand for its products. Specifically, the company invested in technologically advanced toys similar to the beam gun. Nintendo created arcade games using similar light gun technology, but they faced competition. They produced products more slowly and at higher prices than competitors, leading to the discontinuation of some light gun products. Seeing the success of home video game systems, Hiroshi Yamauchi chose to invest more in video game development. His first move was to get the rights to distribute the Magnovox Odyssey in Japan, but he also took steps to start developing a Nintendo system. Despite making these changes,

the company remained at risk of insolvency until the late 1970s. Then two major decisions changed everything. One, they opened a U.S. subsidiary in New York City. And two, they opened a new department dedicated solely to developing arcade games. As the result of these decisions, Nintendo on to release one of the first handheld video game systems, The Game and Watch, in 1980. The Game and Watch quickly became one of Nintendo's most successful products and prompted the company to shift development to more electronics. Although Nintendo had released arcade products before, its first original video games appeared in 1979 in 1980. The game's Radar Scope and Sheriff did well in Japan, but overseas they struggled causing financial difficulties for

Nintendo. Their next game had to succeed. The company found success with 1981's Donkey Kong, which not only became a smash hit in Japan, but also broke through in the United States right when the American arcade market was booming. This era introduced the fame game developer Shigero Miyamoto, whose creative approach to game design helped distinguish Nintendo's titles from competitors. Simultaneously, Nintendo began building a library of game and watch handhelds, establishing the company's reputation for simple, elegant, and highly marketable electronic entertainment. These successes gave Nintendo the financial strength and confidence to pursue a dedicated

home console product. This culminated in the release of the Family Computer, also known as Famicom in Japan in 1983. Famicom was more powerful than most contemporaries and was designed to be expandable with a long product life. Its launch, however, was rocky. Early units experienced hardware instability that forced a recall. Once corrected, the FAMI-Con became a massive hit in Japan, but the American market posed a challenge after the devastating 1983 video game crash, which was caused by overproduction and poor quality games. To overcome retailer skepticism, Nintendo redesigned the FAMIcon aesthetically and strategically for North America, presenting it as an entertainment system rather than as a traditional. console. Bundled with Super Mario Brothers, and innovative peripherals like the robot operating

buddy, the system was introduced regionally in 1985 and rolled out nationally in 1986 as the Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES. This marked Nintendo's full emergence as the home console leader of the era. The NES gave birth to some of the most famous games in history, such as Super Mario Brothers and the Legend of Zelda. Following the release of the NES, Nintendo continued to develop new and modern video game systems. These systems proved incredibly popular with the public and contributed to the company's growth. Fully describing how each and every Nintendo system came into being would honestly make for its own episode. But suffice to say, some of the most notable systems developed included the Game Boy in 1989,

the Super NES in 1991, the Nintendo 64 in 1996, the GameCube in 2000. the Nintendo DS in 2004, the Wii in 2006, and the Nintendo Switch in 2017. It would be remiss not to end this episode discussing Nintendo's most beloved character and mascot, Mario. Mario was actually born as a secondary character in Donkey Kong, where he was trying to save his girlfriend from the giant barrel-throwing gorilla. He was initially just known as Jump Man in Japanese. Mario was seen again in the game Donkey Kong Jr. In this game, Mario served as the villain, with Donkey Kong Jr. trying to rescue Donkey Kong after Mario kidnapped him.

In 1983, Mario returned to his heroic status and became the main character in the new arcade game, Mario Brothers. This game saw Mario and his brother Luigi trying to defeat the creatures that were breaking into the city. Shortly after, the game was released for the Famicom, and the game was so successful on that, system that Nintendo opted to create a second version, Super Mario Brothers. Mario and Super Mario became so successful that Nintendo dominated American console sales,

mainly because of the strategic decision to include Super Mario in its new systems. However, the love of Mario wasn't necessarily natural. Nintendo pushed Mario by putting him into almost every video game they released. He was in every game, in every genre, making him a star and symbol of the company. Since his debut, Mario has appeared in over 200 different games. Super Mario Brothers games have sold over 240 million units. As a result, Mario has become one of the best-selling and most famous characters of all time. As of this recording, the Nintendo Corporation is valued at over $98 billion.

It has become a powerhouse in the entertainment world, creating systems and characters that people have enjoyed for decades. Its success has led to the creation of amusement parks, movies, stores, and tournaments, all designed for people who love their products. Which is not too shabby for a 19th century Japanese company that made playing cards. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kiefer. My big thanks go to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon. Your support helps make this podcast possible.

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