Video Game Case Study:

Nintendo

By: Franki Gjoza

History
Originally named Nintendo Koppai, the small
business based in Kyoto started by Fusajiro
Yamauchi produced Hanafuda Cards. These are
simple playing cards that are used to play
multiple games much like the more common
standardized 52 playing card sets. Nintendos
cards were hand made and quickly gained in
popularity.
In 1956, Yamauchi visited the U.S to discuss
business and manufacturing tactics with the
United States Paying Card Company, the worlds
biggest playing card company. He went to the U.S
only to find out the limitations of the playing card
business, it was such a trivial business that he
decided to continue, but later endeavor into other
areas of technology and business.
In 1959,Nintendostruck a deal withDisney to
have them allow Nintendo to use Disney's
characters on Nintendo's playing cards.

History
In 1963, Nintendo Playing Card Co was renamed to
simply Nintendo
The newly invested capital was used for different
business ventures such as a taxi company, love
hotels, and a food company along with several
other ventures
In 1964, the saturated market of playing cards left
the Nintendo company depleted of funds from sales
as well as from the stock market investments.
Gunpei Yokoi, originally a maintenance engineer for
the assembly lines, was later placed in the product
development department due to his background in
electrical engineering and his knack for creating
electric toys
Fast-forward to 1983, Nintendo was tired of creating
ports for other systems, so they decided to branch
into the realm of console development. The result
was the Famicom (short for Family Computer) which
was released exclusively in Japan.

History
Japan released the Famicom (NES) in July
of 1983 and later took it to the U.S.
By the end of 1986, the NES was sold
nationally in the U.S. and Canada and
outsold its competitors by a wide margin.
Nintendo only thrived and grew more with
the release of devices like the Nintendo
64, the Gameboy Advance, the Nintendo
DS, the Gamecube, and many more.
They continue to be a power house in the
gaming arena today and this doesnt
appear to be changing any time soon.
Nintendo focuses more on the fun of a
game while other companies focus on
performance.

Marketing & Consumption

Nintendo was originally marketed as
a playing card company, but later
ran with the idea of being a video
game power house in the at the
time booming industry
The constant introduction of newer
and newer consoles and handheld
devices satisfied the most thirsty
gamers at the time
After the Playstation 2, the Nintendo
Ds and the Game Boy are the bestselling game consoles of all time
with 154.02 million and 118.69
million units sold, respectively.

Marketing & Consumption

As a whole, Nintendo has
focused on different areas of the
business industry, originally
containing their business to their
home country of Japan
The creation of such infamous
franchises like Pokmon and
Super Mario, has allowed them to
become an industry powerhouse.
With the help and interest of
children, their games carry on in
family households around the
world.

Marketing & Consumption

The Super Mario Franchise was first
released in July of 1981.
MostMariogames have either been
released for thearcadeor Nintendovideo
game consolesandhandheldsdating from
theNintendo Entertainment Systemto
thecurrent generation of video game
consoles.
Analysts suggest that by 2012, the Mario
franchise was valued at over $10 billion.
The franchise has led to the creation of
over 200 Mario games. The entire
franchise, including series such asSuper
Mario,Mario Kart,Mario Party,Tennis,
andGolf, have sold more than 500 million
copies, making it thebest-selling video
game franchise of all time.

Production
Nintendo has based their customer base
on the demographic of young children
all the way to about the mid-teens.
The Japanese multinational consumer
electronics company Nintendo has
developed seven home video game
consoles and multiple portable consoles
for use with external media, as well as
dedicated consoles and other hardware
for their consoles
Nintendo has sold over 722.22 million
hardware units.
After the video game industry crash of
1983, Nintendo restarted the industry
with the NEW and the first Gameboy.

Production
Later came the GameCube which was
the last console they produced that
relied on traditional controllers with a
familiar style of gaming.
Towards the middle of the 2000s,
Nintendo introduced the first successful
Nintendo DS and a home console with
motion-based controlled games known
as the Wii. These became some of the
best-selling consoles of all time
Nintendo has always advertised their
products through TV campaigns for
much of their consoles throughout their
history. For this reason, many wonder
why the Wii-U was a failure.

Distribution
Nintendo quickly switched from a
playing card company to a video
game company when Yamauchi
became aware of the potential of
this new market, especially in the
western society of the U.S.
Nintendo developed and produced
optoelectronic guns for the
Odyssey for Magnavox and was
able to show its capabilities as a
technology company
Yamauchi took advantage of the
arcade game craze and started
distributing their video games

Distribution
Nintendo originally tested the waters
for the Super Nintendo in cities like Los
Angeles, and then began distributing
them in New York, Chicago, and then
eventually nationwide
The creation of extremely famous
characters such as Mario and Luigi, and
Donkey Kong, have forever been
distributed among millions of
populations in different countries
With the evolution of more video games
came the universal world of gaming.
Video games were not language based,
thus anyone from any country could
pick up a controller and play

Citations
"Company History"(in Japanese). Nintendo. RetrievedJanuary 24,2017
[Company Profile](in Japanese). Nintendo Co., Ltd.
RetrievedJanuary 24,2017
Sarkar, Patricia."Biggest Gaming Companies".GEEKS. RetrievedJanuary
24,2017
"Company History". Nintendo. RetrievedJanuary 24,2017