Nintendo Research Paper

Words: 1329
Pages: 6

Thinking Laterally Nintendo is a respected international videogame and console manufacturer that holds and helped set a standard of quality in the videogame production industry. Created and founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi in 1889, in the small city Kyoto, Japan, as Nintendo Koppai, Nintendo began building its empire by manufacturing handmade "Hanafuda" Japanese playing cards that were used for various types of games in a similar fashion to a standard fifty-two card deck used in casinos (Jones). For the first sixty years of the company’s life, Nintendo accomplished many milestones including the “introduction of first western-style playing cards in Japan,” which were “originally intended for export, but the product became popular in Japan as well …show more content…
After being established as an unlimited partnership under the new name Yamauchi Nintendo & Co. in 1933, Yamauchi began a distribution company in 1947 which would be Fusajiro Yamauchi’s last large contribution to the growing company. In 1950, Mr. Yamauchi passed the company down to his grandson, Hiroshi Yamauchi, who “took office as President and headed the manufacturing operation” (Nintendo History). Hiroshi Yamauchi branded the company with a sleeker name, Nintendo Co., Ltd., and pushed it in a new direction, creating smaller start-up companies that unfortunately did not take hold before the company entered the videogame industry. Today, Nintendo prides itself on being the leading company in the videogame industry as suggested by the first sentence of their mission statement and earned $47 Billion last year. Nintendo’s strength and success as a company is correlated with the unmeasurable resilience, thoughtful innovation principles, and wonderful leadership …show more content…
Nintendo has always been a company with leaders that sticks to their guts. Nintendo’s second CEO, Hiroshi Yamauchi, was never scared to take a chance with a new, or out of the box business when the company’s main industry got shaky. Yamauchi’s taking a chance with promoting Gunpei Yokoi, proved to be an excellent decision and in turn, forever changed the company for the better. Fortunately, Nintendo has been blessed enough to have more than one or two magnificently talented, influential, leaders. Without the great leadership of Yamauchi, Nintendo would have never survived to the point of its next great CEO, Satoru Iwata. Satoru Iwata was the first CEO outside of the Yamauchi family and was a gamer unlike his predecessor Hiroshi Yamauchi (Hiranand). When Iwata began, Nintendo was a “troubled [company] knocked off its perch by Sony,” and he swiftly understood that Nintendo would definitely struggle with a “straight fight” due to the magnitude of the competitors’ budgets enabling them to “produce more powerful consoles and secure more exclusive games” (Hiranand). In order to be successful, Iwata changed the game. Instead of marketing games to gamers, he decided to market towards people that normally did not play videogames. Iwata wanted to change the “definition of ‘gamer’” (Hiranand). With the Nintendo Wii’s motion controller, Iwata accomplished exactly what he set out to do. The innovative motion controller