Gaming systems

main: Nintendo video game consoles

Nintendo has produced a number of home and portable video game consoles since 1977.

Home consoles include Color TV Game (1977), the Nintendo Entertainment System/Famicom (NES, 1983), the Super Nintendo Entertainment System/Super Famicom (SNES, 1990), Virtual Boy (1995), the Nintendo 64 (N64, 1996), the Nintendo GameCube (GCN, 2001), and most recently the Wii (2006).

Portable consoles include the Game & Watch line (1980), the Game Boy line (1989), the Game Boy Advance (2001), and most recently the Nintendo DS (2004).

History

As a card company (1889–1956)

===New ventures (1956–1975)===

In 1963, Yamauchi renamed Nintendo Playing Card Company Limited to Nintendo Company, Limited. The company then began to experiment in other areas of business using the newly injected capital. During this period of time between 1963 and 1968, Nintendo set up a taxi company, a "love hotel" chain, a TV network and a food company (trying to sell instant rice, similar to instant noodles). All these ventures eventually failed, and after the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, playing card sales dropped, leaving Nintendo with 60 yen in stocks.

In 1966, Nintendo moved into the Japanese toy industry with the Ultra Hand, an extending arm developed by its maintenance engineer Gunpei Yokoi in his free time. Yokoi was moved from maintenance to the new "Nintendo Games" department as a product developer. Nintendo continued to produce popular toys, including the Ultra Machine, Love Tester and the Kousenjuu series of light gun games. Despite some successful products, Nintendo struggled to meet the fast development and manufacturing turnaround required of the toy market, and fell behind the well-established companies such as Bandai and Tomy.

In 1973, the focus shifted to family entertainment venues with the Laser Clay Shooting System, using the same light gun technology used in Nintendo's Kousenjuu series of toys, and set up in abandoned bowling alleys. Following some success, Nintendo developed several more light gun machines for the emerging arcade scene. While the Laser Clay Shooting System ranges had to be shut down following excessive costs, Nintendo had found a new market.

===Electronic era (1975–present)=== In 1974, Nintendo secured the rights to distribute the Magnavox Odyssey home video game system in Japan. In 1977, Nintendo began to produce its own Color TV Game home video game systems. Four of these systems were produced, each playing variations on a single game (for example, Color TV Game 6 featured six versions of Light Tennis).