Everything started in 1889 when Fusajiro Yamauchi began producing Japanese playing cards called Hanafuda; apart from Hanafuda cards he also imported some western games, mixed ideas and set up two stores, one in Kyoto and one in Osaka. Playing cards were a novelty for Japanese people and were very succesful at the time. Fusajiro Yamauchi decided to expand his business and in 1933 he legally established Yamauchi Nintendo & Co, establishing as well the first factory in Nintendo’s history. Nowadays Nintendo still sells playing cards in Japan, however its video games division was the responsible for its international expansion. Nintendo is now the leading video games company in the world thanks to the success of Nintendo DS and Wii.
I was searching around online to see if I could find the location of that 1933 first building of Nintendo, however I was not successful until it occured to me to use Google Maps and search for YAMAUCHI NINTENDO!! and it worked! Here you have the pictures of what probably is a reconstruction of the original building on top of the original location. When I went there I peeped inside the building and nobody seemed to be using it nowadays.
5 replies on “First Nintendo building”
That is really cool. Also cool is how this shows the power of the internet.
awesome find. A Nintendo geek like me should make a pilgrimage to this place
Haven’t seen this post in the spanish version o.o.
Anyway, first news about Nintendo card games past (or should I say “origins”).
Really amazing how japanese corps can xpand themselves on different fields.
I recently found this place just by chance and it looked so understated I questioned whether or not it could be a birth place of Nintendo. 3 weeks later I find your write up…. I cant believe it!! I’ve always been a bit of a Nintendo nerd and stayed true to the company never owning another console brand. OMG. I’m such a nerd….. But a happy nerd now