Nintedo: Fusajiro Yamauchi

I always think about the people that design video games and how creative they must be. After long hours of playing my new Donkey Kong game on the Nintendo Wii console, i thought about not just the ones designing this genius game, but the original guy behind the whole Nintendo company, who designed the idea and set the rules for a future of video games.

Fusajiro Yamauchi founded Nintendo on September 23, 1889.Yamauchi lived in Kyoto, Japan and had a daughter, Tei Yamauchi (who later married future Nintendo president and Fusajiro Yamauchi's successor, Sekiryo Kaneda). Fusajiro Yamauchi began his business under the name "Nintendo Koppai" in 1889. The company made Japanese playing cards. The cards, known as hanafuda, daitoryo, or president, came in decks of 48. Each card was hand made using bark from mulberry (or mitsu-mata) trees. He sold the cards in two different shops in Japan; one in Kyoto and one in Osaka. Nintendo Koppai soon became a runaway success, forcing Yamauchi to hire additional help so he could produce enough cards to keep up with the demand, which continued to grow. Nintendo continues to manufacture playing cards in Japan and organizes its own contract bridge tournament called the "Nintendo Cup".

Nintendo's first video-gaming industry was securing rights to distribute the Magnavox Odyssey video game console in Japan in 1974. Only in 1977 did Nintendo begin to produce its own hardware, with the Color TV Game home video game consoles. Four versions of these consoles were produced, each including variations of a single game (for example, Color TV Game 6 featured six versions of Light Tennis). n 1975, Nintendo moved into the video arcade game industry with EVR Race, designed by their first game designer, Genyo Takeda, and several more titles followed. Nintendo had some small success with this venture, but the release of Donkey Kong in 1981, designed by Miyamoto, changed Nintendo's fortunes dramatically. The success of the game and many licensing opportunities gave Nintendo a huge boost in profit.

Ever since then, the Nintendo Company has been in great condition. In my opinion, its the most fun gaming company out there.