What is Nintendo?

Play Station Portable

Its game is very classic.

Nintendo was founded on1September 23rd, 889. At first, it was a small company founded by Fukujiro Yamauchi, specializing in making a Japanese handmade card called Huaza. 1963 officially changed its name to Nintendo Co., Ltd., and Nintendo once developed various businesses such as hotels and video game companies. In addition, Nintendo owns the Seattle Mariners of Major League Baseball. Business gradually turned to electronic products, and then developed the influential Famicom Nintendo game console, which soon became the largest video game company in the world. Later, the advent of Super Famicom, N64, GameCube, Wii and other consoles consolidated Nintendo's position in the video game industry until today.

Nintendo is the longest-lived video game platform company in history, the most influential and well-known game platform manufacturer and the leader of portable game platform. They 1983 developed in Japan, and later developed in different regions, such as North America 1985 and the European Development Department 1986. Nintendo is headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. Today, Nintendo has sold more than 2 billion copies of game software around the world, created many famous figures in the history of games, such as Mario and donkey kong, and created the most classic games in the history of games, such as the legend of zelda and Pokémon. Nintendo produces and sells home game consoles and game software, including the world's best-selling game consoles Nintendo GameCube and Game Boy series.

Nintendo of America Inc, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nintendo, is located in Redmond, Washington, and is the operation center of Nintendo in the United States and Europe. About 40% of American families own Nintendo's home game consoles.

company profile

Company name: Nintendo Limited

Founded in 1889, it was officially renamed Nintendo Co., Ltd. in 1963.

Company address: Shangniao Gao Qiao Town, Shinan District, Kyoto 1 1- 1

Official website:

Nintendo official home page

Japanese www.nintendo.co.jp

Www.nintendo.com, USA.

Www.nintendo-europe.com, Europe.

Nintendo China Partner Shen You Company

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history

1889- 1968

Nintendo, formerly known as Nintendo Koppai, was founded in late 1889 by Fujijiro Yamauchi. Nintendo's explanation is "Man proposes, God disposes". They produce and sell a card game called Hanafuda in Kyoto, Japan. This card was made by hand and soon became popular. Later, in order to meet the large demand, Yamauchi hired an assistant to make a large number of cards.

1929, Fukujiro Yamauchi retired, and he asked his son-in-law Yamauchi to take over the company and become the president. 1933, Yamauchi Jilianglian invested with other companies and renamed the company Yamauchi Nintendo Company. 1947, Yamauchi Ji Liang established Marufu Company to sell Huazaka and several other cards that have been introduced into Nintendo.

Yamauchi's grandson, Yamauchi, became the president of Nintendo in 1949. He renamed the company Nintendo Card Company, and at 195 1, he also renamed the sales company Nintendo Caruta Company.

From 65438 to 0959, during the Tokyo Olympic Games, Nintendo seized this opportunity to vigorously promote their card products, which attracted the attention of Disney Company and established a cooperative relationship with Disney to produce playing cards with Disney cartoon images for global sales. This cooperation contributed to the success, and at least 600,000 greeting cards were sold in one year.

Subsequently, 1963, Nintendo Card Company was renamed Nintendo Company again and began to try other business fields. From 1963 to 1968, Nintendo established a "sex hotel" to produce toys, games and other items (including vacuum cleaners).

1969- 1980

1969, Nintendo established the game department. In the following years, Nintendo produced several successful toys and games, the most famous of which were the light gun and the super strange hand (an auxiliary arm toy). Most innovative concepts come from Junping Yokoi, an employee of Nintendo.

1973, Nintendo once again expanded the concept of light gun, developed a laser human body shooting system, and used solar cells to simulate "virtual pigeons" to shoot. The laser human body shooting system has also contributed to another great success. In 1974, they used the same concept and re-applied it to wilderness gunmen. It is also a laser gun game. Wild gunmen have also been exported to the United States and Europe.

During 1975, Yamauchi began to study some new trends in the United States and some devices that can be connected to TV to play simple games, that is, electronic games. Some companies, such as Atari, have achieved some success in this field, which Yamauchi thinks will be a good business for Nintendo. In the same year, he reached an agreement with Magnavox to allow Nintendo to produce and sell Magnavox Odyssey, a simple video game platform. Since Nintendo didn't have the necessary equipment to make these machines, they signed an agreement with Mitsubishi, hoping that it would assist in the manufacture.

After the cooperation between Nintendo and Mitsubishi, in 1977, they jointly launched the TV game platform color TV Game 6, and collected six simple versions of tennis games, which sold millions. Shigeru Miyamoto also joined Nintendo that year, taking charge of the art design of arcade.

Soon, Nintendo launched several successful video game platforms, including advanced versions of color TV game 15, including racing game, Kusure and Blockbuster.

1979, Nintendo began to design portable device games &; Watch, a concept from Junping Yokoi, was introduced in 1980. In the same year, Nintendo announced the opening of a subsidiary in new york, named Nintendo of America. Games & watches prove popular innovations and more successful adventures than before.

1980- 1982

Also in 1980, Nintendo began to produce arcade game. Most of these arcade game are equipped with light guns, such as Fire in Purgatory and Shriver. However, when a special-shaped arcade game Radar Scope failed in business, Shigeru Miyamoto changed this trend. Miyamoto completely changed his direction and began to develop donkey kong. With the help of Junping Yokoi, the craftsman in this game tries to save his girlfriend who is controlled by an ape. Although Nintendo's colleagues expressed their dissatisfaction at first, donkey kong was a great success after its release, selling 65,000 pieces and becoming the most popular game of the year.

In the same year, Nintendo was inspired by other successful companies, such as Atari, and set new work goals and a more advanced video game platform. They know that other companies have developed integrated belt systems and achieved success. This platform is better than before, and the price is reasonable.

1982, Nintendo released donkey kong's sequel "Little King Kong of donkey kong", which is also arcade game. Although not as good as donkey kong, it sold well, selling about 35,000 yuan. This year, they also set up an American branch of Nintendo in Redmond, Washington, and merged its new york branch.

1983- 1989

1In July, 983, Nintendo launched FC game machine (commonly known as red and white machine in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) in Europe and America), which was the first attempt of a cassette video game platform. This system was very successful, with more than 500,000 units sold in two months. The platform has high technology content and low price, about 100 USD. However, after several months of best-selling, Nintendo has received complaints one after another, saying that FC game consoles are prone to collapse when players play certain games. This problem occurs on a defective chip. Nintendo decided to recycle all the stores' inventory. Although the loss was great, it gained a good reputation.

FC game consoles are also planned to be listed in the United States in 1983. However, there are many low-quality games in the American TV game market, which makes the American market completely unable to survive. Nintendo decided to avoid this situation. They only allow FC games, use the 10NES locking system, and add their quality mark "Seal of Quality" to prevent some unregistered FC games.

1984, the great success of FC game consoles continued. However, Nintendo also encountered a new problem:' They don't have the resources to develop FC games, and they are also responsible for their distribution.' In order to improve this situation, Yamauchi decided to divide employees into three groups: the first development department (R&; D 1), the second development department (r&; D 2) and the third development department (R&; D 3).R& ampD 1 led by Junping Yokoi, R&; D 2 is led by Uemura Masaya, while R&; D 3 is led by takeda Hiroshi. Using these groups, Yamauchi hopes Nintendo can produce low-cost and high-quality games.

1985, Nintendo announced that they will launch FC game consoles around the world. High-quality games developed by third-party developers ensure localization. Nintendo of the United States limits third-party developers to only launch five games a year. The first third-party developer was Konami, which was allowed to make box games for FC game consoles. Subsequently, its subsidiary Ultra Games challenged this rule and increased the number of launches every year. Other developers, such as Konami, also adopt the same method. At the same time, this year's FC game "Super Mario" was also launched in the Japanese market and achieved unprecedented success.

Nintendo launched NES in new york on June1985+1October 18 for market testing, and it was quickly successful. Soon after, they began to sell NES and other 15 games by mail nationwide. In the United States and Canada, its sales exceeded other competitors. This year, Space Hunter and Super Mario 2 were also released.

1988, Nintendo Power magazine of Nintendo in the United States was unveiled, which included news and game promotion of Nintendo every month. The first issue is July/August, and the theme is NES game Super Mario 2. Nintendo Power is still being published, and February 2006 will be the 200th issue. 1989, after 10 years of operation, Nintendo introduced Game Boy with Tetris cassette (still the most popular game). Game Boy sells very well and remains the best-selling portable game machine. Super Mario World was also released later, with global sales exceeding 654.38+0.4 million. 1989 is also the year when Nintendo released Super Nintendo, the offspring of FC game consoles.

1990- 1995

Super Nintendo (SFC) is released in Japan1990165438+1February 2 1. This game machine was a great success and sold out in three days. 1991August, Super Nintendo was launched in the United States and named "SNES", while 1992 was also launched in Europe.

Super Nintendo follows the previous generation, with low price and high technical specifications. The controller has also improved several new buttons.

In Japan, Super Nintendo easily controlled the market. In North America, SNES finally defeated SEGA's Genesis game console with Super Mario World and Legend of Salda. In the United States, the sales of Genesis game consoles are only a little more than SNES game consoles, but the global sales of SNES game consoles are higher than it.

1992, Nintendo's R & amp(R & amp；; D 1) began to plan a virtual reality platform called Virtual Boy. In the same year, President Yamauchi also bought shares in the Seattle Mariners.

1993, Nintendo released a project code-named Project Reality, which is a 64-bit platform, providing a full three-dimensional cg animation environment and role capabilities. 1994, Nintendo also proposed that Project Reality in the United States would be renamed Ultra 64. The name Ultra 64 comes from Nintendo's arcade fighting games "Killer Elegy" and "American Racing Game". "Elegy of the Killer" was later released on the SNES game console. Soon after, Nintendo realized that they had chosen the wrong name for this platform, because Konami had the copyright of this name for a long time, and Konami owned a series of systems named after Ultra by virtue of copyright, such as Ultra Football and Ultra Tennis. So in 1995, Nintendo finally changed its name to Nintendo 64 and announced that it would be launched in 1996; Later, they also showed previews of some systems and games to the media and the public, including Super Mario 64.

1995, Nintendo purchased some rare assets.

In the mid-1990s, Nintendo's North American branch relaxed its strict policies that led to bloodshed and violence. After SEGA developed its 16-bit platform Mega CD, Nintendo initially discussed with Sony to design an optical disk drive for SNES game consoles, but they also got all the benefits of optical disks for Sony and were worried about the failed SEGA Mega CD. Therefore, Nintendo terminated its cooperation with Sony and cooperated with Philips instead. Nintendo announced that they had formed an alliance with Philips. Although the SNES game machine has joined the optical drive, the public has not paid much attention. On the other hand, Sony began to research and launch a new product-PlayStation.

1995, Nintendo launched a virtual boy in Japan. The sales of this game machine is not ideal, but Nintendo still hopes to continue to launch several different games and launch them in the United States, but it is still not ideal. In the same year, Nintendo found itself in a competitive situation, such as Sega's 32-bit game console Sega Saturn and Sony's 32-bit game console PlayStation. Sony's aggressive market camp followed and began to eat into the market share of Nintendo and Sega.

1996-200 1 year

1On June 23rd, 996, Nintendo 64(N64) went on the market in Japan, which brought great success, with the first day sales exceeding 500,000 units. However, due to the lack of game software (only three were released with the console), the smooth release of N64 was terminated after several weeks, and the new game would have to wait for several months to be launched. 65438+1On September 29, 1996, Nintendo also launched Nintendo 64 in the United States and Canada, and sold 1.7 million units in just three months. Some skeptical third-party game makers have made considerable income by using media hype.

Nintendo followed suit and introduced a smaller Game Boy pocket than Game Boy. A few months after the launch, all the development plans of the virtual boy were finally stopped in just one year because of the failure of the virtual boy. This game machine brought them a complete failure. Nintendo later blamed all the responsibilities on designer Junping Yokoi. After working in Nintendo for 30 years, Junping Yokoi, who once designed the Game Boy game console, resigned as the team leader. Later, Junping Yokoi used his own experience in designing Game Boy to participate in the design of Wonderswan, the game console of competitor Bandai.

1997, Pokemon (translated as Pokemon and Poké mon by Hongkong and Taiwan Province respectively) was released in Japan, which received great response. Pokemon got permission in a short time, which made Nintendo once again show its position in the game world. Later, just four months ago, Nintendo announced that it would stop the development of open 16-bit game consoles, and then launched a simplified version of SNES game console (SFC Jr), which surprised many players.

1997101On October 4th, Junping Yokoi was killed in a car accident; At that time, because his car broke down, he got off to check the damage. During the inspection, he was knocked down by another car and died.

That spring, the long-awaited 64DD main game "Legend of Salda 64" will be released on cassette first, which makes many people believe that 64DD will never be released. Later, Nintendo denied this rumor and said that it would launch the cassette version and the 64DD version of the game at the end of 1997. A few weeks later, Nintendo announced that it would postpone the release date of 64DD to1March 1998, and the Salda Legend 64 cassette version was released as scheduled. In June of the same year,165438+1October, Nintendo displayed the trial legend of Salda 64 at its own Nintendo Space World Exhibition, but at the same time announced that the release date of 64DD was postponed to June again. 1998.

1998 10 10/3, Game Boy Color was listed in Japan, and it was listed in Europe and America a few months later.

1 99965438+February1,Nintendo 64DD was launched after many delays.

Later, the European Council passed a law stipulating that Nintendo could no longer issue licenses to European software companies to produce Nintendo-compatible games, and developers of N64 games no longer had to make games specifically for N64. The law also prohibits Nintendo from monopolizing the production rights of the cassette game market.

1999, Nintendo announced a new game machine code-named Dolphin. This machine is based on IBM and its CPU speed is 400MHz. This is a kind of copper microchip called Gekko, which they hope to launch before Christmas 2000. Nintendo also announced the improved Game Boy project, which is a 32-bit portable system that can contact mobile phones and log on to the Internet, and promised that it will use backwards compatibility Game Boy and Game Boy color game software.

1999 April 14, Nintendo launched the game Boy Light, which has the function of illuminating the background and can be played in places with insufficient light. Soon after, Nintendo also launched the first batch of peripheral products of Game Boy-cameras and printers. Although its resolution is not high, these two products are still very popular.

On February 14, 2000, Howard Lincoln resigned as CEO of Nintendo America.

On 2001March 2 1 day, Nintendo launched Game Boy Advance, which was launched in North America on June1day and in Europe on June 22. Nintendo also launched GameCube in Japan on September 14, 2006. This game machine was later sold in North America (200 1 10, 18) and Europe (May 5, 2002).

2002-present

In 2002, Pu Yamauchi retired and was replaced by Satoru Iwata. In the same year, Nintendo and Chinese-American scientist Yan founded a technology company, which is responsible for manufacturing and selling Nintendo iQue brand game consoles and game software.

In May, 2004, Nintendo announced a new portable game machine plan-Nintendo DS (NDS), which has nothing to do with Game Boy. It has dual screens (the touch screen is below). It was officially launched in June 2004165438+1October 2 1 and received more than 300 orders. In addition to the touch screen, NDS also has the ability to display 3D cg animation. Although its hardware does not support material filtering, it is still better than N64 in graphics.

President Satoru Iwata merged all Nintendo software designers into EAD department, which can allocate more resources to Shigeru Miyamoto. Until 2005, Nintendo's internal development department included the following four departments:

Nintendo intelligent development headquarter

Nintendo zonghe development headquarters

Nintendo software development headquarters

Nintendo technology headquarters

On May 14, 2005, Nintendo opened its first retail store in Rockefeller Center, new york, and named it Nintendo World. The building is two stories high and contains many related things, such as GameCube, Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Micro and Nintendo DS. In addition, there are items before Nintendo, such as the first product of Nintendo-Huazaka. They plan to open more stores in the United States. They have already opened branches in Los Angeles, Dallas, Boston and Philadelphia, and they also plan to open branches in San Francisco, St. Louis, Washington and Chicago.

At the E3 exhibition in May 2005, Nintendo showed the prototype of their "next generation" system, code-named Nintendo Revolution. Its controller has been hidden until the Tokyo game show, and the handle of the TV remote control immediately caused great repercussions.

On June 26th, 2006, Nintendo Lightning released an improved version of Nintendo DS Lite. The size of NDS Lite is133.0x73.9x21.5mm, which is smaller than the existing NDS148.7x84.7x28.9mm. The total volume is reduced by 42%, and the weight is reduced from 275g to 2 18g, which only accounts for the original NDS weight. According to official sources, Nintendo DS Lite was released in Japan on March 2, 2006.

On April 28th, 2006, Nintendo officially announced that its new console name "Nintendo Revolution" was called "Wii".

In 2006,165438+1October 19, the Wii was officially released in the United States at a price of $250.

On February 2, 2006, the Wii was officially released in Japan at a price of 25,000 yen.

On February 8, 2006, 65438, the Wii was officially put on sale in Europe at a price of 250 euros, which was 179 pounds (about 265 euros) in Britain.