
Nintendo
Nintendo | |||
---|---|---|---|
Type | Public | ||
Founded | September 23, 1889 | ||
Headquarters | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | ||
Key people | Shuntaro Furukawa: President Doug Bowser: President of NOA Shigeru Miyamoto: Producer Gunpei Yokoi: Creator of Game Boy, Game & Watch, and Metroid Hiroshi Yamauchi: Former President & Chairman Reggie Fils-Aimé: Former President & COO of NOA Tatsumi Kimishima: Former President Satoru Iwata: Former President & CEO Minoru Arakawa & Howard Lincoln: Former heads of NOA Satoru Shibata: President of NOE | ||
Industry | Card games (previously) Video game developer Console manufacturer | ||
Products | Color TV-Game, NES, Game Boy, SNES, Nintendo 64, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo DS, Wii, and various video game titles. | ||
Websites | Nintendo Japan Nintendo of America Nintendo Europe Nintendo Australia (more...) |
Nintendo is a Japanese multinational corporation originally founded on September 23, 1889 in Kyoto, Japan by Fusajiro Yamauchi to produce handmade hanafuda cards. In the mid-20th century, the company tried several small niche businesses, such as a love hotel and a taxi company. Since the 1970s, Nintendo has become both a video game developer and console manufacturer, and have been a first-party longer than any of their competitors over the years.
Nintendo is credited as being the creator of several video game franchises, most notably Mario, and among them is the Metroid franchise.
Game systems
Home consoles
- Color TV-Game (1977 – 1980)
- Family Computer (Japan) / Nintendo Entertainment System (overseas) (1983 – 1994)
- Super Nintendo Entertainment System (1990 – 2000)
- Nintendo 64 (N64) (1996 – 2002)
- Nintendo GameCube (GCN) (2001 – 2007)
- Wii (2006 – 2013)
- Wii U (2012 - 2017)
- Nintendo Switch (2017 - present)
Handhelds
- Game Boy (1989 – 2003)
- Game Boy Color (1998 – 2003)
- Game Boy Advance (2002 – 2010)
- Nintendo DS (2004 – 2014)
- Nintendo 3DS (2011 – 2020 )
Other hardware
- Game Boy Camera - a monochrome camera cartridge for the original version of the Game Boy, includes a simple picture editor and ability to print pictures via Game Boy Printer
- Broadcast Satellaview - Only released in Japan, an add-on for the Super Famicom (Japanese SNES) that allowed anyone to download games by a satellite.
- Game & Watch – A series of handheld games made by Nintendo from 1980 through 1991.
- Game Boy Player – An adapter for playing Game Boy games on the GameCube.
- Game Boy Printer - An adapter designed for printing things from the Game Boy. For example, it was used for printing out Pokémon information from the Pokédex in the Game Boy Pokémon games.
- iQue Player – A version of the Nintendo 64, with double the clock speed and downloadable games, released only in the Chinese market.
- iQue DS - A version of the Nintendo DS, release only in China.
- Nintendo 64DD – Only released in Japan, this add-on system's games are on re-writable magnetic disks. Games released include a paint and 3D construction package, F-Zero X Expansion Kit, for creating new F-Zero X tracks, a sequel to the SNES version of SimCity, SimCity 64 and a few others. A complete commercial failure, many speculated that Nintendo released it only to save face after promoting it preemptively for years.
- Pokémon Mini – Unveiled in London at Christmas 2000, the Pokémon Mini was Nintendo's cheapest system ever produced; with games costing £10 ($15) each, and the system costing £30 ($45). This remains the smallest cartridge-based games console ever made. Sales of this system were rather poor, but, unlike the Virtual Boy, Nintendo made a profit on every game and system sold.
- Mobile System GB - Released in Japan, December 14, 2000. The Mobile System is an adapter to play Game Boy Color games on the cell phone. The game Pokémon Crystal was the first game to take advantage of the Mobile System. Someone can hook an adapter to their Game Boy and connect it to a mobile phone which people can receive news, trade, and battle with other players across Japan.
- Pokémon Pikachu - A handheld device similar to the popular Tamagotchi toy that allowed the user to take care of Pikachu in the manner of a pet.
- Super Game Boy – Adapter for playing Game Boy games on the Super NES, which would be displayed in color.
- Triforce – An arcade system based on Nintendo GameCube hardware, developed in partnership with Sega and Namco.
- Virtual Boy – The Virtual Boy used an array of red LED's combined with two motor-driven mirrors to display graphics in 3D. The resulting images were displayed in varying shades of red and black. Fewer than two dozen games were released for it in the United States. It is the only Nintendo game system to be a commercial failure.
- Yakuman – A handheld Mah-jong game released in 1983.
Offices and locations
Nintendo Company, Limited (NCL), the main branch of the company, is based in Kyoto, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. Nintendo of America (NOA), its American division, is based in Redmond, Washington, a suburb of Seattle, Washington. It has distribution centers in Atlanta, Georgia, and North Bend, Washington. Nintendo of Canada, Ltd. (NOCL) is based in Richmond, British Columbia, with its own distribution centre in Toronto, Ontario. Nintendo of Australia, its Australian division, is based in Melbourne, Victoria, and Nintendo Europe, the European division, is based in Großostheim, Germany. iQue, Ltd., a Chinese joint venture with its founder, Doctor Wei Yen, and Nintendo, manufactures and distributes official Nintendo consoles and games for the mainland Chinese market, under the iQue brand. Nintendo also opened Nintendo of Korea (NoK) on July 7, 2006, based in Seoul, South Korea.
In Nintendo of America's building, the "Samus" conference room is in the "Yoshi" sector, one of four.[1]
Nintendo of America has an exclusive restaurant, Café Mario, in its headquartered building. Because it is only open to staff, it has rarely been photographed and little else is known about it. A photograph of the lunch menu on November 14th, 2017 showed that it featured a "Samus Aran Supreme Pizza".[2]
External links
- Nintendo on Wikipedia
Websites
- Official Japanese website
- Official American website
- Official Canadian (English) website
- Official Canadian (French) website
- Official Latin American website
- Official Brazilian website
- Official Colombian website
- Official Argentinian website
- Official Chilean website
- Official Peruvian website
- Official European website
- Official Danish website
- Official Finnish website
- Official Norwegian website
- Official Swedish website
- Official Hungarian website
- Official Polish website
- Official Czech website
- Official Slovak website
- Official Israeli website
- Official Oceanian website
- Official Korean website
- Official Hong Kongese (Traditional) website
- Official Hong Kongese (Simplified) website
- Official Taiwanese website
- Official Singaporean website
- Official Malay website
- Official Filipino website
- Official Thai website
- Official Mainland Chinese website
References
- ^ Ronaghan, Neal (May 15, 2010). "Visiting the New and Improved Nintendo of America HQ". Nintendo World Report.
- ^ Supper Mario Broth (November 27, 2021). "Café Mario, an exclusive restaurant at the Nintendo of America HQ in Redmond, Washington, is only accessible to staff and very few photos of it exist. Here is the only known photo of its menu, featuring a variety of items named after Nintendo characters. A transcript is provided.". Twitter.