As the world's first Nintendo Museum opens its doors in Japan, offering visitors a nostalgic journey through the company’s 135-year history, we explore how Nintendo rose to become one of the world's biggest companies.
From its surprisingly risqué beginnings to the release of revolutionary consoles like the NES and Switch, read on to discover how Nintendo became a power player in the gaming industry.
All dollar amounts in US dollars.
Game Boys and the DS might spring to mind when you think of Nintendo, but the Japanese brand has actually been around for over a century.
Fusajiro Yamauchi founded Yamauchi Nintendo in 1889 in Kyoto and the now-world-famous company has been passed through generations of Yamauchis. Fusajiro’s grandson Hiroshi, the third president of Nintendo who died in 2013, is pictured here.
Nintendo started out producing Japanese playing cards called Hanafuda. In 1902, the Yamauchis expanded into Western-style cards and then into the less child-friendly realm of pin-up cards.
Nintendo continued to make money through adult-focused ventures. By 1963, the company owned several 'Love Hotels'. That same decade, they released a 'Love Tester' device (pictured), a game to determine couples' compatibility.
In another surprising twist, Nintendo was also involved in the production of a few mildly risqué games during the early days of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).
In the 1960s, Nintendo rebranded as Nintendo Co., Ltd. and focused on producing playing cards and games before eventually branching into video games in the 1970s.
The company was the first to introduce electronics into the toy industry in Japan, a move that paved the way for the company to become the biggest name in gaming.
The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) became a huge hit in the 1980s and is one of the best-selling consoles of all time.
Revolutionary games like The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. went global via NES. Nintendo sold almost 62 million of the consoles, making it the most popular gaming device of its time.
Super Mario Bros. became the best-selling Nintendo game of all time, with over 40 million copies sold worldwide. As of 2024, there are 24 games in the main Super Mario Bros. series, with over 495 million copies sold.
In total, there are over 200 games featuring Mario, including popular spin-offs such as Mario Kart and Super Mario Party. Altogether, these games have sold 900 million units globally, making Mario the best-selling video game franchise of all time.
The character now synonymous with the Nintendo brand actually has a real-life name sake. Mario Segale, who leased one of his warehouses to Nintendo in its early days, inspired the name change from "Jumpman" to "Mario," as the latter was seen as having more pesonality.
However, since Segale frequently had to chase up Nintendo’s administrators for rent payments, it’s unlikely the choice of his name was meant as a compliment!
Between 1996 and 1997, Nintendo launched the Nintendo 64 games console (pictured). Success wasn't immediate, however, as various games were delayed in their release. Meanwhile, competitors Sega and Sony saw huge uptake in their new consoles, the Saturn and the PlayStation.
It started to look as though Nintendo was losing ground to up-and-coming rivals in the market.
Enter the Wii in 2006. The new console, which was based on remote motion controls and a balance board, targeted a whole new audience as it promoted casual fitness with gaming – an until-then unexplored avenue in the market.
A must-have on every child’s Christmas list in the late 2000s, Nintendo sold over 100 million Wii consoles. The Wii’s success allowed Nintendo to regain its title as the gaming industry's top dog, and new games are still popular today. The Just Dance series, for example, originally launched in 2009 and has since released another 15 discs. The latest edition includes songs from Sabrina Carpenter and Billie Eilish.
Nintendo briefly considered launching a mobile phone that would function as a hybrid of a smartphone and a Game Boy device.
Given that the company has sold over 154 million DS units worldwide (pictured), the phone could have been a hit. However, could Nintendo have competed with smartphone giant Apple, which has sold more than 2.3 billion iPhones? We may never know.
Nintendo decided to dodge the smartphone market in the end and has since become notorious for its criticism of mobile games.
In 2011, the company's president, Satoru Iwata (pictured), was quick to attack the mobile industry’s game offerings, claiming they were “substandard” and a threat to traditional electronic entertainment companies (including his own).
Nintendo's main focus was family games, so when casual gamers turned to mobile apps, the company suffered.
The early 2010s saw a huge boom in mobile gaming, with the likes of Angry Birds and Candy Crush drawing players from their more traditional consoles towards smartphone apps.
Confident that it would see big sales of its Wii U and 3DS consoles, Nintendo refused to give in to industry pressures to develop games for smartphones. Alas, it didn't work out, and the Wii U (pitcured) became Nintendo’s worst-selling console, shifting a pitiful 13.6 million units before it ceased production.
The 3DS was a bigger hit and sold 75.8 million units, but both releases paled in comparison to the more retro consoles.
Finally, Nintendo said it would start to develop smartphone apps and games, releasing Miitomo, a smartphone social networking app, in March 2016. It also adapted some of its bigger hits like Super Mario Bros. and Mario Kart to bring them to mobile users. But its first big mobile hit came in the form of Pokémon Go...
Over 20 years after the first Pokémon game was released, the new Pokémon Go smartphone game came onto the scene and took the world by storm.
The augmented reality game uses a phone’s camera to superimpose animated Pokémon creatures onto the real world, encouraging people to travel around and catch them, just as in the original game.
Pokémon Go is estimated to have brought in a record-breaking revenue of $207 million (£160m) in its first month alone, which is more than any other mobile game. As of 2024, Pokémon Go's estimated lifetime gross revenue is a remarkable $7.9 billion (£6.1bn).
That said, Nintendo is only indirectly involved with the game, but it does own 33% of the Pokémon company, which develops it. It also has a stake in Niantic, the former Google subsidiary that developed Pokémon Go, so the game's success can only mean good things for the company, despite its initial aversion to all things smartphone.
While Nintendo may have given in and dipped its toe in the waters of mobile app gaming, it didn't completely abandon what it does best and released a new console in 2017. The Nintendo Switch is a hybrid console that allows both home gaming and playing on the go, filling a gap in the market that some gaming experts have dubbed "the best of both worlds."
The Switch has been such a success that Nintendo introduced two additional models. The Nintendo Switch Lite is a more affordable, handheld-only version without the ability to connect to a TV, while the Nintendo Switch – OLED Model offers a premium experience with a larger, brighter OLED screen.
Nintendo is gearing up for the launch of its highly anticipated Nintendo Switch 2. While official details about the new console remain tightly under wraps, a recent data hack at Game Freak, the developer behind Pokémon, revealed that its upcoming title Pokémon Legends: Z-A is being developed for the Switch 2.
Originally, both the Switch 2 and the Pokémon game were slated for a late 2024 release. However, Nintendo has pushed the console's launch to 2025, reportedly to focus on developing strong first-party titles and to prevent console supply shortages that have impacted recent launches, like the PS5 and Xbox Series X.
Nintendo Switch game Animal Crossing: New Horizons hit shelves in March 2020. The game sold over 12.6 million copies within six weeks of its launch, a feat that took its predecessor, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, six years to accomplish. The release even boosted sales of the Switch console itself, with sales more than doubling in March 2020 compared to the same month the previous year.
Animal Crossing is a social simulation game. Players take on the role of a human character who lives on an island with anthropomorphic animals and partakes in gamified versions of everyday activities, such as going to the shop and fishing.
In 2015, Nintendo and Universal announced a partnership to launch Nintendo theme parks. After delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the first Super Nintendo World (pictured) opened at Universal Studios Japan in 2021. This was followed by a second location at Universal Studios Hollywood in 2023, with two more parks set to launch in Orlando and Singapore in the near future.
The inaugural park in Japan reportedly cost over $575 million (£443m) to build. It features life-sized video game landscapes, interactive games, rides, and themed restaurants. Standout attractions include the augmented reality game Mario Kart: Koopa's Challenge and the Yoshi's Adventure rollercoaster.
Last year, The Super Mario Bros. Movie (pictured) hit the silver screen. The project was a collaboration between Nintendo and the film production studios Illumination and Universal, with Nintendo financing 50% of the movie's $100 million (£77m) production budget.
The family-friendly flick was a huge hit, grossing over $1.3 billion (£1bn) at the box office, making it one of the highest-grossing animated films of all time. Nintendo reported a 52% increase in net profit for the first financial quarter of 2023, largely attributed to the success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Unsurprisingly, a sequel is already in the works.
Nintendo's latest milestone was the grand opening of the world's first Nintendo Museum in October, located in the company's former production factory in Uji, Japan (pictured).
Spread across three main buildings, the museum takes visitors on a nostalgia-packed journey through Nintendo's 135-year history. It showcases rare consoles and prototypes, features interactive games, and even includes a themed burger restaurant, making it a must-visit destination for die-hard Nintendo fans.
As of October 2024, Nintendo's market cap stands at an impressive $61.19 billion (£47), making it one of the world's most valuable companies.
Nintendo is a publicly traded company, which means its ownership is divided among shareholders who hold the company's stock. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) is the largest external shareholder, owning an 8.58% stake as of June 2024. Recently, the PIF expressed interest in increasing its share in Nintendo, an announcement that caused Nintendo shares to rise by 4%.
Since the launch of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1983, Nintendo has sold more than 5.5 billion video games globally and over 800 million consoles.
The best-selling console is the Nintendo DS, which has shifted over 154 million units and has achieved sales of more than 948 million games. This is closely followed by the Nintendo Switch, with 142.5 million consoles sold since its launch. And with the highly anticipated release of the Nintendo Switch 2 set to take the gaming industry by storm next year, it looks like Nintendo will remain one of the world's leading gaming companies for years to come.
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Updated by Danielle McAdam