Expanding his business was a smart move, for Mr. Yamauchi soon became the card distribution leader in Japan. Mr. Yamauchi had a good business head on his shoulders. He had the idea of selling his cards in tobacco stalls.

Fusajiro retired and his son-in-law took over the business, and he also adopted the family name. Sekiryo Yamauchi took over as the second president of Nintendo. I new company was established by Sekiryo called Yamauchi Nintendo & Co.

Since he now implemented this change, Sekiryo was now able to build new offices next to his old building.

A new company was established by Nintendo to control the distribution of cards and Poker decks. It was called Marafuku Co. Ltd. And was established in 1947.Hiroshi Yamauchi took over Nintendo in 1949 from his father. He heard through the grapevine that is employees did not approve of his. Therefore, he fired them and hired a whole new workforce. Yamauchi is now the current president of Nintendo.

In 1951 the name of the distribution company was changed to Karuta Co. by
Hiroshi. The Nintendo offices were moved to a newer building 1n 1952, and factories were now being built in order to increase production and make it a lot nore efficient. In 1951 Nintendo started to produce cards that were coated in plastic. In 1959 Hiroshi closed a major deal with Walt Disney. Nintendo was to start the production of cards based on the ever famous Disney characters. In the first year alone, Nintendo sold over 600,000 of these cards.

The year 1962 was a monumental year for Nintendo. It started to trade its stock on the Stock Exchange for Kyoto and Osaka. To signify that the company was going to make a fresh start, the company name was changed to Nintendo Co. Ltd. which it uses today. Instead of the typical card games, he changed the production to games. There were various ventures that included instant rice, a taxi service and love hotels. None of these games succeeded and by the year 1968 they had all closed.

In the year 1969, Nintendo began its first gaming section giving it the simple name of “Games”. This was Nintendo’s first research and development section. Nintendo’s offices were set in a newly built production plant located in Uji City.

By the year 1970, Nintendo’s stocks were still being traded in the Osaka Stock Exchange. It was also during this time that Nintendo began selling a different kind of toy call a Beam Gun. Gunpei, who was a new employee, was told that he should “do something new” for Nintendo as the Christmas season was swiftly approaching. Within a few short days, Gunpei introduced the Ultra Hand which was an arm toy. This sold a whopping 1.2 million copies.

This year Nintendo introduced electric technology into the toy industry of Japan. Gunpei next invented the “love tester” which became very popular in this country. This machine had a boy and girl hold hands and with their free hands they held the two handles that were located inside the machine. Now the machine tested how much “love” flowed between them. This is still very popular and can still be seen in many arcades today. After the hit of his love tester, Gunpei hired Uemura from Sharp.

By using some of the solar cells from Sharp, they were able to create the Nintendo Beam Gun games. Small solar cells were used as sensors that could detect light coming from a light gun. After waiting for quite a while, the Nintendo Beam Gun games came out on the market and sold over 1 million copies. Since the machines became increasingly popular, Nintendo had to expand. Hiroshi decided to buy some of the old buildings that were located next to their present headquarters. Upon completion of the new offices, the old building was used for making the “President” cards although they were not the success they had once been.

In the year 1973 Yokoi thought that the technology used in the Beam Light Guns could be used in other ways. He decided to tell Hiroshi Yamauchi his plan. Yokoi thought that the light gun could be used in the simulation of shooting clay pigeons. After mulling over what Yokoi was saying, Yamauchi came up with a brilliant commercial plan. Bowling alleys had been a very popular sport in Japan in the 1960’s, but now they just stood empty and unused. The idea came to Yamauchi that they could change these bowling alleys to serve as electronically operated shooting ranges that had simulated clay pigeons. Solar cells could easily detect whether the pigeon was hit or not. It was called the “Laser Clay Shooting System”. On the day of its release, a major system malfunction occurred. The press was tricked, however, by the actions of some genius employees of Nintendo. One of the employees hid behind the box that controlled the pigeons and the scoring. From there the employee could trigger the pigeons and could even change the score manually. To the audience, it seems that everything was running smoothly. The “Laser Clay Shooting System” almost instantly became a successful part of the entertainment system in most of Japan.

A new change came into play in the Laser Clay shooting in 1974 and was called the “Wild Gunman”. Sixteen mm film was used to produce long tunnels of image projection systems. Gunmen suddenly appeared in an alley, and the player had the job of shooting the bad guys first before they shot you. This game was eventually shipped to America and Europe, but in 1973 the oil shortage of Japan began to take its toll. Japan’s economy went into a downward spiral, and people just could not afford to use their hard earned money on Nintendo’s Shooting Ranges anymore. A new idea had to be found in order for Nintendo to be kept afloat.

One day in 1975 Yamauchi was having dinner with one of his old childhood friends who was a executive of one of the new high tech companies in Japan. Technological advances that were successfully made with microchips were a main part of their discussion. They were trying to figure out how these microchips could be used in video games and computers. After their meeting, Yamauchi returned home and did his own research about the new microchips. He found that many American companies had already started making games which were able to be connected to a television set. Yamauchi agreed to a license deal to not only manufacture but to sell Magnavox’s new video game “Odyssey” in Japan. This little machine played different kinds of very popular American game “Pong”. When you interchanged a different plastic cover over the screen, then the ball took on a different appearance such as a football or a baseball. At that time, Masayuki Uemura thought that it would be a good idea to align Nintendo with an electronics company. Nintendo and Mitsubishi Electrics became partners and they started to see how they could invent a new video game system that used a VCR.

In 1977, Nintendo introduced its first video game machine in Japan which was called “Color TV Game 6”. This game was designed to play six varieties of light tennis. Millions of copies were sold. “Color TV Game 15” quickly followed and it was far more technologically advanced than its predecessor. It sold over a million copies as well. After these console games, two new systems were put out by Nintendo. One was called Blockbuster which was a rather complex game and the other was a kind of racing game. These two games sold about a million copies together. Nintendo had a brilliant idea of incorporating the calculator and the watch/game into one unit.

At this time a new movie was released in America. It featured a young boy who entered a Nintendo competition and made it to the finals. What a surprise everyone got when they were allowed to get a sneak preview of a brand new game called Mario 3. This created instant hype about this game and when it was released, it was an instant sell out!

Atari soon created a new company to begin the distribution of non-Nintendo authorized games. In a tennis game that resulted in many lawsuits again, Nintendo naturally won. All of these companies that backed these unauthorized games were made to pay hefty settlements to Nintendo. Video games sales this year shot up to $2,300,000,000 and showed that Nintendo’s profits were steadily increasing.

On November 21, 1990, the SNES was finally released in Japan. This console was so popular that it sold out in three days! However, the rest of the world would have to wait for its release two years later. Super Mario 3 was released and it raked in $300,000 in the first few days alone! The success of this game was attributed to the way the product was seen in the movie “The Wizard”. Nintendo clearly dominated 85% of the video gaming market, and their sales grew to a whopping $3,400,000,000.

In the year 1991, New York State sued Nintendo claiming that it unfairly ruled the video game market. This lawsuit led to an agreement in which Nintendo gave its customers $5 or every console that was sold. It was also in this year that Nintendo overtook Toyota in the revenue department. A study was conducted which showed that an SNES console was purchased every five seconds. Another report also claimed that Nintendo was spending an annual $1,000,000,000 in conductors alone.

In the year 1992, the current president of Nintendo became the first overseas investor to hold a majority share in a baseball team in the United States. He also made the comment that he would like the Nintendo headquarters to be here as well.

In the year 1993, Nintendo made the announcement of their 64-bit plans. They stated that their new consoles would be released with a 64 bit chip. Also, the NES was re-released. Nintendo decided that they were going to redesign the console and put in some free games. This did the trick because the NES outsold the SNES in some cities. It was also in the beginning of 1993 that Nintendo had cornered 75-80% of the market.

In 1994 Nintendo released the Super Game Boy. This allowed users to play SNES games on this little handheld device. Nintendo also struck a deal with some airlines. Nintendo climbed to one billion on the game pack charts. Another big thing to come out in this year was a $1000 exercise bike that had a built in SNES. In 1995 Nintendo made the announcement that the N64 was complete. Artwork was released for the new console and 3D stick. In the year 1996 more Squares and N64 leave Nintendo for the Playstation. The N64 was viewed by many as the world’s best console while the famous Mario64 was hailed as the greatest game the world has ever seen! It was also in this year that the Game Boy Pocket was introduced, and developers began making games for it again.

The Nintendo GameCube which was released on November 18, 2001, was the fourth home video game console put out by this company. As of early 2006, it has sold well over 20 million units. It was given the code name “Dolphin” and was the most compact of the generation’s era consoles. It was also the least expensive.

Nintendo first announced in 2005 that it was going to be coming out with a fifth home video game console. The official name of this console was announced on April 27, 2006, as the Nintendo Wii. This console was meant to be for everyone, hence, the word Wii sounds like “we”. That word could easily be remembered by people the world over, no matter what their native tongue is. Shortly after this announcement by Nintendo, they received a mixed response of disbelief, criticism and at times confusion.

Looking back at Nintendo’s history, every video game console that was released was priced at $199. It does not seem like it is going to be any different for the Wii. If Nintendo keeps the same price for this video game console, it will surely drive a lot of sales for it. With the Christmas rush, it is sure that there will be a long line to pick up the Wii!

On January 29, 2007, Nintendo added four classic games to the ever popular Wii video game system’s the Will Shop Channel. The games went live at 9 A.M. Pacific time. Every Monday, Nintendo adds new games to the channel. It is simple to download the games if the Wii owner has a high-speed internet connection. They can redeem the Wii points in order to get the games. Wii Points can be purchased at retail outlets or in the Wii Shop Channel. The new games on the block are Mario Kart 64, Bonanza Bros., Contra III, and Comix Zone.