History of Nintendo - 1889 to 1965

Although there is not much historical information on the company's doings during this time period, it is specifically known that they were a very popular Japanese playing card company. As stated on the HomePage, they had produced a well-known Japanese playing card deck called, Hanafuda. The name of these playing cards when translated from Japanese to English means, "flower cards". These were similar to the ones used still in North America, and had many different uses and games.

In 1949, the well-known Chairman of Nintendo, Hiroshi Yamauchi had taken the helm of the company after his grandfather had died. Some of his changes and decisions for the company during this time period have helped to change the company to what it is today. Yamauchi was instrumental in the change of Nintendo being just a card company, to being one that went on to try other ventures until they had started prducing video games.

During this time period, Yamauchi had:

In 1956, gone to the US to engage in talks with the US Playing Card Company; he then realized the limitations of how big a playing card company can possibly get, which was not very large.
In 1959, struck a deal with Disney to allow the use of Disney's characters on Nintendo's playing cards. Previously, Western playing cards were regarded as something similar to hanafuda and mahjong: a device for gambling. By tying playing cards to Disney and selling books explaining the different games one could play with the cards, Nintendo could sell the product to Japanese households. The tie-in was a success and the company sold at least 600,000 card packs in a single year.
In 1962, taken the company public on the Osaka Exchange Division.
In 1963, he had renamed the company from Nintendo Playing Card Co. to just Nintendo.
Started to experiment with other areas of business. This included setting up a taxi company, "love hotel" chain, food company selling instant noodles, and several other things.
In 1965, hired a well-known Nintendo designer, Gunpei Yokoi as a maintenance engineer for the company's assembly lines.

Nintendo's First Headquaters in Kyoto, Japan

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