History of Nintendo
In 2002, Hiroshi Yamauchi was succeeded by Satoru Iwata, who saw the release of the Nintendo DS handheld (2004) with a touchscreen and the Wii home console (2006) with motion control, which were extraordinarily successful—Nintendo, now aiming for a wide audience including casual gamers and previously non-gamers, temporarily stopped competing with Microsoft and Sony, who targeted devoted gamers.
The Wii U console (2012) sold poorly, causing the company's future prospects to be questioned and influencing Iwata to bring Nintendo into mobile gaming.
[14] During the 1960s, Nintendo struggled to survive in the Japanese toy industry, which was still small at this point, and already dominated by already well-established companies such as Bandai and Tomy.
In 1966, Yamauchi, upon visiting one of the company's hanafuda factories, noticed an extending arm-shaped toy, which had been made by one of its maintenance engineers, Gunpei Yokoi, for fun.
[17] Released in 1972, the first commercially available video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey, has a light gun accessory, the Shooting Gallery.
[19] In 1973, its focus shifted to family-friendly arcades with the Laser Clay Shooting System,[20] using the same light gun technology used in Nintendo's Kousenjuu series of toys, and set up in abandoned bowling alleys.
Its first steps were to acquire the rights to distribute the Magnavox Odyssey in Japan in 1974 and to release its first video arcade game, EVR Race,[21] in 1975.
The fault was found in a malfunctioning chip and Nintendo decided to recall all Famicom units that were currently on store shelves, at a cost of approximately $500,000.
However, a controversy involving Coleco and Donkey Kong soured the relationship between the two during the negotiations, and Atari refused to back Nintendo's console.
In 1983–1985, a large scale recession in video game sales hit the market which amounted to a 97% decrease primarily in the North American area.
The recession known as the video game crash of 1983 was caused by a few main factors including the flooding of the console market, competition of home computers, inflation, and loss of publishing control.
Nintendo decided that to avoid facing the same problems, they would only allow games that received their "Seal of Quality" to be sold for the Famicom.
[33] The last major first-party game for the NES was Super Mario Bros. 3, which was released in early 1990 in North America, with more than 18 million units sold.
Across several years, the SNES in North America eventually overtook the Genesis, due to franchise games such as Super Mario World, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Street Fighter II, and the Final Fantasy series.
In 1991, Nintendo agreed to a settlement regarding price-fixing allegations brought by the Federal Trade Commission and attorneys general in New York and Maryland.
[40] In 1993, Nintendo announced plans to develop a new 64-bit console codenamed Project Reality, capable of rendering fully 3D environments and characters.
[20] Many said that the advertising onslaught by Sony at this time did not truly begin to take effect until many of the consumers who held out for the Nintendo 64 became frustrated at the lack of software following the first few months after the system's release.
The Pokémon franchise, created by Satoshi Tajiri, was proving so popular in America, Europe, and Japan, that for a brief time, Nintendo took back their place as the supreme power in the games industry.
[45] In March 2000, Nintendo made an $80 million USD settlement with the New York Attorney General over hand injuries sustained by children while rotating the N64 joystick in five different mini-games within Mario Party.
It was announced at E3 1999, when Nintendo of America president Howard Lincoln declared the console would "equal or exceed anything our friends at Sony can come up with for PlayStation 2".
Sony was Nintendo's main competition after Sega exited the console industry due to the financial failure of the Dreamcast.
[51] Nintendo was still targeting its core, family-friendly demographic, while Sony "expertly co-opted anxious teenagers desperate to distance themselves from childish things".
[51][62] The handle on the console and the cartoon-like, cel-shaded art style of The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker contributed to the idea that the system was for children.
[69] Nintendo of America allocated $100 million to the GameCube for the 2003 holiday season, dropping the console's recommended price to $99.99, way below the Xbox and PlayStation 2 which were selling for $179.99.
[71]In May 2004, Nintendo announced plans to release a new brand of handheld, unrelated to the Game Boy, featuring two screens, one of which was touch-sensitive.
Leveled by the Anascape Ltd., the suit claimed that Nintendo's use of analog technology in their game controllers constituted a violation of their patents.
The lawsuit sought to recover damages from both corporations and possibly force them to stop selling controllers with the violating technology.
For months prior, cutbacks in Nintendo of America's online department led to the trimming back of NSider's chat hours and the replacement of their annual Camp Hyrule event — held during August — with a sweepstakes.
[87] According to Fils-Aimé, the system was a "make or break" console for the company's success, as it was apparent that the Wii U's lifespan would be considerably shorter than average.
[102] ValueAct Capital, a San Francisco-based investment firm, announced in April 2020 that they had purchased US$1.1 billion worth of Nintendo stock, or a 2% stake of the company.
