{"id":100666,"date":"2019-09-23T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-23T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2019\/09\/feature_nintendos_130th_birthday_comes_during_a_golden_age_for_the_company"},"modified":"2019-09-23T17:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-09-23T17:00:00","slug":"feature-nintendos-130th-birthday-comes-during-a-golden-age-for-the-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/09\/23\/feature-nintendos-130th-birthday-comes-during-a-golden-age-for-the-company\/","title":{"rendered":"Feature: Nintendo’s 130th Birthday Comes During A Golden Age For The Company"},"content":{"rendered":"
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T’was Monday 23rd September in the year 1889 – a fateful day in Kyoto, Japan – when Ian Nintendo woke up and decided to form a video game company…<\/em><\/p>\n

Okay, there may be a couple of minor<\/em> discrepancies in that opening statement, although the date and the founding of the company we now know as Nintendo are accurate. Started by Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally named Nintendo Koppai, it famously started off manufacturing Hanafuda playing cards before the founder\u2019s great-grandson Hiroshi Yamauchi diversified the company\u2019s output through the middle years of the last century. Following forays into \u2018love hotels\u2019, taxis and a variety of other business pursuits, the electronic toy market beckoned and Nintendo was gradually transformed into the company that we know and love today.<\/p>\n

Of course, there have been plenty of ups and downs along the way. When it celebrated its 125th anniversary five years ago<\/a>, the outlook was rather less rosy than it is now. However, the time since then has been a period of internal rejuvenation and sales success which has reversed Nintendo\u2019s fortunes in much the same way the Wii did back in 2006. There were tough times, though, with events both sobering and tragic along the way.<\/p>\n

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After launching Wii U in 2012, Nintendo failed to differentiate the console from its predecessor in the minds of the general public. While different messaging could have made clear that the GamePad wasn\u2019t a Wii accessory, more alarmingly Nintendo never really delivered a compelling asymmetrical game that capitalised on the tech and truly demonstrated its potential; Nintendo Land<\/a><\/strong> was a pleasant, fairground-style showcase, but certainly not the killer app Wii Sports<\/a><\/strong> had been, and looking back over the first-party releases, it\u2019s arguably only Super Mario Maker<\/a><\/strong> which made the controller feel genuinely indispensable.<\/p>\n