Temporary Nintendo Museum

If you don’t know now you know, I am a Nintendo Fanatic. I am a big fan but not only of their games but of the entire company itself, it’s transformation over the years, it’s ability to bounce back when everyone had written it off especially after the fall of Sega, it’s constantly high quality of products released, it’s revolutionary ideas and Samus Aran (my favourite game character). Nintendo is a very successful company but how many people know that it began operating way back 1889 selling playing cards and that it even dabbled in businesses such as taxi services and “love hotels” before settling down to produce some great toys then eventually going into the electronic gaming business? Nintendo is an inspiration and a perfect of example of starting out small and reaping success after years of hard work.

Nintendo Headquarters in Kyoto Japan

I currently own or used to own every nintendo game console or hand held device since the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES or FAMICOM). My most recent purchase is my Nintendo DS which is selling like hot bread and is set to surpass the Game Boy as the greatest selling Nintendo System of all time. The Nintendo Wii is the next system I hope to acquire soon but over 7 months since it’s release the wii is very difficult to find and has already sold (not shipped) almost 7.5 million systems worldwide at the time of this post and sold 600, 000 in the first week it was released in North America alone. Nintendo has sold quite a few systems and games in it’s time with 7 of the top 10 best selling console games of all time and 4 of the top 10 selling franchises (Samus’ Metroid series is ranked in the mid 30’s).

One of the men responsible for the successes that Nintendo now enjoys is Hiroshi Yamauchi. He took over in 1949 and transformed Nintendo into the company we know and love today. It’s worthwhile to mention that Yamauchi-sama is the third richest man in Japan no wonder he could refuse to accept his retirement pension, which was reported to be around us$9 million to us$14 million, feeling that Nintendo could “put it to better use.” There are quite a few more interesting personalities involved with Nintendo that if I start writing about now I’ll still be at me PC this time tomorow. Whew my blogging muscles are tired this has got to be my longest post ever, took me over an hour. If you read it through thank you (ありがとうございます), if you aren’t already a Nintendo Fanatic like me I guarantee you’ll be one after reading this post ^_^