Foundation: 1889
Headquarters: Kyoto
President: Shuntaro Furukawa
Executive Summary: Nintendo is a multinational video game company based in Kyoto, Japan, which specializes in video game and video game console development. Founded in 1889 as Nintendo Karuta by Japanese craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi, at first the company produced handmade hanafuda, traditional Japanese playing cards. Much later, it gained international renown with the release of the Donkey Kong arcade game, the Nintendo Entertainment System, and Super Mario Bros. Since these successes, Nintendo continued to produce and develop some of the world’s most well-known and successful consoles in the video game industry. Most notably, the 8-bit Game Boy, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the Nintendo DS, the Wii, and more recently, the Nintendo Switch. In addition to Nintendo’s fruitful ventures in the video game console industry, its involvement in the video game industry proved to be just as lucrative with several big-name franchises such as the aforementioned Donkey Kong and Super Mario Bros, as well as Pokemon, Kirby, and several more. Though most of of Nintendo’s research and development is done at their domestic Japanese headquarters in Kyoto, Nintendo has branched out to foreign nations, establishing research and development facilities across the globe. Nintendo also has created distributor partnerships, especially with Chinese tech giant Tencent, to handle and release Nintendo products in China, following the lifting of the nation’s console ban in 2015. Its annual income is in the range of US$11 billion.
