Unit 2 Assignment 1 Part 2

The History of Nintendo

Nintendo was originally created in 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi who initially started the company in order to make playing cards and didn’t begin to experiment in the video game industry until 1980 when Shigeru Miyamoto suggested the transformation in order to keep Nintendo relevant in the entertainment industry. In 1980 Nintendo released the “GAME & WATCH” followed closely by the game Donkey Kong in 1981 which almost immediately became the most popular coin-operated machine in the business which further amplified Nintendo’s presence in the video game industry. After watching the rise of Atari, Nintendo became inspired to release a game console that was similar but would cost less than its competitors resulting in the Famicom system that was released in 1983 (later renamed the Nintendo Entertainment System or NES when it was released to the rest of the world). The system was a huge success both locally and globally even through the 1983 Video Game Crash.

Nintendo’s biggest competition overall is Sega however there has been an ongoing battle between game consoles and Personal Computers because of the dramatic decrease in price during the 1980’s.  After the competitiveness between the two systems increased, Atari’s sale rates decreased by 90% which encouraged multiple other competitors to leave the console market behind leaving Atari alone until the revival of the Japanese console market after Atari refused to do a joint project with Nintendo.  As soon as Nintendo entered the market they made massive profits which encouraged the fellow Japanese company SEGA to enter the scene, however due to the undeniable popularity and fiercely competing, Nintendo still remained the most popular game company as they sold 62 million consoles against SEGA’s 10 million.

In 1988 SEGA tried even harder to reach the high selling point of Nintendo with the Megadrive however the Famicom had already secured loyalty towards Nintendo’s brand which was an unanticipated element to SEGA resulting in the brand not being able to completely penetrate the Japanese market though the graphics and games were far more complicated than anything created by Nintendo. Even through the introduction of the SEGA Genesis and the consoles adult-oriented market Nintendo beat sales with 23 million consoles sold by SEGA and almost 50 million from Nintendo in 1933.

Although Nintendo competed fiercely with SEGA, coming out on top a majority of the time, the company has made mistakes in the past such as during the 1930’s when rather than continue to generate on their own individuality, Nintendo decided to take a popular attribute from SEGA and replicate it for their company. Although a MEGA CD complimented the SEGA system, it didn’t work for Nintendo resulting in the project being dropped and being one out of a small number of SEGA wins against Nintendo. Nintendo's ever present popularity can be showcased through a survey Nintendo held which proved that children found Nintendo more recognisable than Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny.