Nintendo The Survivor Essay -- Video Games Nintendo Essays

Nintendo the Survivor   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  "Work hard, but in the end it's in heaven's hands." This is a quote from Game Over about the meaning of the word "Nintendo." In the video-gaming market, though, it was really in consumers' hands. Nintendo has always needed to adapt to survive in the market. Nintendo always needed to be on top; it was a company that needed to be ahead of the rest. Nintendo had to set new standards, or improve on an existing product or idea.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Dutch and Portuguese first brought their card games over to Japan 355 years ago. For the longest time, the kuruta (playing cards) in Japan were Dutch and Portuguese. Fusajiro Yamauchi came along and integrated the cards into existing Japanese games that originally used clams and stones. Fusajiro called these cards Hanafuda (flower cards), and many varieties of games were made using these cards (Game Over). In 1889, Fusajiro founded his own playing card company (Company History). Using the Japanese Kanji characters - nin, ten and do - Fusajiro named his company Nintendo (Game Over). As quoted from the book Game Over, the Kanji characters Nintendo meant "Deep in mind we have to do whatever we have to do," or even "Work hard, but in the end it is in Heaven's hands."   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  To gain more business, Nintendo needed to reach other regions of Japan. To do so, Fusajiro decided to have symbols painted on the cards that reflect the characteristics of various regions of Japan. Nintendo then signed up with tobacco shops to sell the Nintendo Hanafuda easily around the nation. All was doing modestly well until the Yakuza showed up. The Yakuza, the Japanese equivalent to the Mafia, set up many gambling parlors in Japan. Hanafuda were used for a variety of card games in these parlors, and like in casinos: new games were started with new decks. With these bustling gambling parlors going through so many Nintendo brand playing cards, Nintendo profited handsomely (Game Over).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In 1907, Nintendo started manufacturing western-style playing cards for bringing out a wider variety of card games from the United States of America. In 1927, Nintendo started to put fancy backing on the cards (they were originally blank). In 1949, Nintendo's current president, Hiroshi Yamauchi, came into office (Game Over). Four years later Nintendo became the first company in Japan to manufacture plastic-coated cards. This was done to... ...d a little more excitement to its new system. Nintendo started to release Game Boy Color Games that featured four to five Game & Watch games.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Nintendo has come a long way. From selling trading cards in Japan in 1889 to planning a state-of-the-art video game systems for the millennium. Nintendo changes to meet the demands of their customers, so that they will continue to buy Nintendo products. In the end, Nintendo always seems to come out on top with setting a new standard in the video game systems industry. Nintendo is a survivor and a revolutionist.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  To the best of my knowledge, the information above and below is correct. The information above contain some editorial wording. The information below may be slightly incomplete, there were other Nintendo Power references I could not track; The book Game Over contains many other references. Works Cited "Company History of Nintendo of America Inc." 9 Nov. 1999. http://www.nintendo.com/corp/history.html. "Game Boy Advance." Incite: Video Gaming Dec. 1999: 154. "Nintendo 64 Hardware." 13 Dec. 1999. http://www.nintendo.com/n64/expansionpak.html. "Out of the Shadows: Nintendo 64 Debuts in Japan." Nintendo