Nintendo: Pioneers in the Video Game Market

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Nintendo started as a small Japanese business by Fusajiro Yamauchi near the end of 1889 as Nintendo Koppai. Based in Kyoto, Japan, the business produced and marketed a playing card game called Hanafuda. In 1956, Nintendo’s president Hiroshi Yamauchi began to realize the limitation of playing cards business because it was viewed as a mere tool of gambling. In order to overcome the limitation, Nintendo struck a deal with Disney in 1959 which allowed them to put Disney characters on their playing cards. This opens up new markets where both children and homemakers started purchasing playing cards.5 Due to this success; Nintendo went public in 1962 and became a listed company in Osaka Stock Exchange. Soon after, Nintendo started to venture in other areas including Taxi Company, Food Company, etc. Most of them failed except for their toy making venture.

Nintendo's success in the home console arena can also be attributed to the rigidity of the gaming industry and culture within which its two main competitors, Sony and Microsoft, adhered themselves. Traditionally, the norm was for new home console systems to be marketed primarily based on improved audiovisual capabilities. Indeed, the original PlayStation was a huge win for Sony, and to the detriment of Nintendo, in large part because of its more lifelike 3D graphics. Note that Nintendo was no different with earlier iterations of its systems, though perhaps to a lesser extent than its competitors. However, with this specific generation, namely against the release of the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360, both of which touted high definition capabilities, the Wii was unmistakably the sub performer in terms of graphics. Its competitors had no choice but to follow the dominant ideology, which...

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...ostalgia effects, to co-opt this hardcore gaming culture with a console that at best, only occasionally acceded to its wishes, while at worst, marginalized them completely. What Nintendo realized, and ultimately capitalized on, was that the hegemonic structure influencing the industry was inherently weak, in that it was essentially a small minority overwhelming the relatively silent masses. Although there are doubts to the sustainability of such an endeavor, the signs are present that the Wii has already altered the video game landscape, as now Sony and Microsoft struggle to shore up their own casual game offerings. Casual gamers may eventually prove to be the more powerful subset; as the marketing attests, anyone of any age can play and enjoy the Wii, potentially creating a limitless market for Nintendo and reshaping the core expectations of the video game market.

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