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Nintendo began in Kyoto in 1889 as a maker of hanafuda playing cards—not as a video-game company. Over time, it broadened its business into games and toys, then electronic entertainment and video-game systems. Its history is a long change in what the company made, with the Famicom in Japan and the NES in North America marking a major step into the modern console era.
How did Nintendo start?
Nintendo’s company history begins in Kyoto in 1889, when it made hanafuda, a traditional Japanese playing-card format. Nintendo’s own histories identify card-making as the company’s origin, placing video games far later in its story. Nintendo of America’s account of the company’s origins and the corporate history timeline both establish that starting point.
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That distinction matters: Nintendo did not set out to make consoles. Its eventual identity as a video-game company followed a broader evolution from cards into other games and toys, and later into electronic entertainment. The company timeline records this expansion, though it does not by itself explain every business decision behind it.
From cards and toys to electronic entertainment
Nintendo’s move toward video games was part of a wider change in its entertainment business, rather than a single leap from playing cards to consoles. The official chronology places games and toys in the story before its video-game systems. That bridge helps explain how a company rooted in a physical, tabletop pastime came to make interactive electronic entertainment.
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The available company timelines support that broad sequence, but not a detailed account of every intermediate product or the motives behind each shift. The clearest way to understand the transformation is through the representative system milestones that followed.
1983: the Famicom begins Nintendo’s modern console story
Nintendo identifies 1983 as the Japanese launch year of the Family Computer, commonly called the Famicom. The Famicom is a major milestone in the company’s home-system history and the start of the modern systems-and-software trajectory described in Nintendo UK’s hardware history.
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- The next evolution of the Nintendo Switch system
- One system, three play modes: TV, Tabletop, and Handheld
- Larger, vivid, 7.9” LCD touch screen with support for HDR and up to 120 fps
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- Nintendo Switch 2 plays compatible physical and digital Nintendo Switch games.***
In North America, the system is known as the Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES. Famicom and NES are regional names and launch contexts for this chapter of Nintendo’s history, not separate console generations. Keeping the names tied to their regions avoids confusing the Japanese launch with the North American identity of the system.
Handheld and home-console milestones
After the Famicom era, Nintendo’s history continued across distinct kinds of hardware. Its official timeline highlights Game Boy, Nintendo 64 and Wii as later system milestones. These examples show the continuing evolution of Nintendo’s platforms, but they are representative markers, not a complete list of every system the company released.
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- Game Boy: a key handheld milestone in Nintendo’s system history.
- Nintendo 64: a later home-system milestone.
- Wii: another major point in the company’s home-system chronology.
Nintendo’s timeline establishes these systems as part of its hardware story; it does not, on its own, support claims about sales rankings or the precise impact of each platform on the wider market. The dates and milestones here are drawn from Nintendo’s corporate history.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Switch and the continuing systems story
Nintendo describes Switch as a home system that can also be used as a handheld, connecting two ways of playing in one platform. The company’s UK history continues beyond Switch to include Switch 2, bringing its current systems story into view without erasing the very different origins of the business.
From hanafuda cards in Kyoto to modern video-game systems, Nintendo’s history is not a straight-line story of a console maker. It is the story of an entertainment company whose products changed over time—from cards, to games and toys, to electronic play and systems designed for both home and handheld use.
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