Does anyone know where Nintendo is?

"Nintendo" originated from the idiom "It depends on people to make things happen, and it depends on heaven". President Hiroshi Yamauchi changed his main business from the production of playing cards to computer game consoles in the 1980s.

In the 1970s, the American company Atari created a high-tech computer game industry. Coincidentally, Nintendo, a Japanese company that specializes in computer game consoles, caused an uproar when it launched its home computer game console (FC) on the market in the early 1980s. This small Japanese company has less than 1,000 employees, but it is lagging behind the well-known internationally renowned large companies such as Panasonic, Hitachi, Toshiba, and Sony. In 1993, the per capita profit was US$800,000; in 1994, the company's pre-tax profit Profit ranks second among listed companies in Japan, second only to Toyota, the dominant player in the automobile industry.

"Nintendo" has been manufacturing and selling gambling equipment such as poker for a long time. It has survived for more than a hundred years in an industry that is far from elegant. When it was passed into the hands of Hiroshi Yamauchi, he took the risk and invested huge sums of money. Position its main business in computer game consoles. Hiroshi Yamauchi "betted" on the gaming industry and faced the harsh reality: Japan was facing an oil crisis at the time, and the economy had been in recession for three years; American gamers were also growing tired of old-fashioned programs, and game console sales dropped to a record low. point.

However, the discerning Hiroshi Yamauchi saw the development prospects of cheap home game consoles from the temporary decline of the market. In order to attract customers, other manufacturers announced that their game consoles can not only play games, but also have learning functions that can help children learn, calculate and type. However, Hiroshi Yamauchi went in the opposite direction and publicly claimed: Nintendo FC game console is the only one. The function is to play games. Removing multiple functions is the secret weapon that allows Nintendo FC game consoles to win at a low price. However, it was two young gamers who really brought development opportunities to Nintendo. One was a native Japanese, and the other was far away in the former Soviet Union.

Japanese youth Shigeru Miyamoto was born as a painter. His favorite toy is cartoons and movies, and he is only half-baked in computer technology. He stayed at Nintendo for three years and achieved nothing, and was sent to the engineering department by Hiroshi Yamauchi to help design games. The first fairy tale game designed by Shigeru Miyamoto was called "Donkey King Kong". The protagonist was a silly carpenter with a big nose. The second game made Miyamoto Shigeru's life shine. When he finished writing the script of the game, he never imagined that the protagonist "Mario" would later become famous all over the world and break into thousands of households.

"Mario", with "Super Mario Brothers" as the official name of the software, followed the FC game console to the United States and immediately became the most popular computer game in history. From 1985 to 1991, eight generations were launched, with sales reaching 70 million units. "Mario" later became the central character in many American movies, television and comic books, causing American children to spend more time playing Nintendo game consoles than watching TV.

"Super Mario" and the more than 100 Nintendo computer game program cards that followed it turned the American entertainment industry upside down. Some people repeatedly exclaimed: Nintendo brought Japan's "cultural invasion" ".

When Nintendo brought "Super Mario" to the world, a young man from the former Soviet Union, Pachenov, also became obsessed with computer games. Pachenov accidentally read an intelligence test book written by an American mathematician. There is a jigsaw puzzle test that requires readers to select a number of irregular tiles to piece together into a square to test the subject's geometric thinking ability.

There are thousands of arrangements of geometric figures, and Pachenov believes that it is best to use computers to help realize it. After repeated thinking, he designed a puzzle game using a computer: four different shapes of tiles randomly fall from the top of the screen in sequence, and the player must fill the gaps with them before they fall to the bottom. The game seems very simple, with little innovation in terms of technology, but it has a strong appeal. Pachenov named his "invention" "Tetris", which means "four" in Greek - this was the prototype of the "Tetris" game that would later sweep the world.

Before the disintegration of the Soviet Union, people did not have much awareness of commodities. Inadvertently, Pachenov's "square" spread quietly throughout the country and beyond the borders. At this time, Nintendo just launched the handheld GB computer game console--"Game Boy" (GameBoy). "Tetris" is naturally the best partner of the GB game console.

Hiroshi Yamauchi did not hesitate to send the strongest negotiator to Moscow to purchase the patent rights from Pachenov's research institute.

"Tetris" accompanied Nintendo on its second expedition. Not only the United States and Japan, but also the door of the Chinese computer game console market was knocked open. Since then, Nintendo has dominated the global computer game industry for more than 10 years.

The predecessor of Nintendo was established on September 23, 1889. It started as a small company founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi, specializing in the manufacture of Japanese handmade playing cards called Hanafuda. Officially renamed Nintendo Co., Ltd. in 1963, Nintendo has developed many businesses, such as hotels and video game companies. In addition, Nintendo also owns the Seattle Mariners of Major League Baseball. The business gradually shifted to electronic products, and later developed the hugely influential Famicom Nintendo game console, quickly becoming the world's largest video game company. Later, the advent of consoles such as Super Famicom, N64, GameCube, and Wii further strengthened Nintendo's position in the video game industry, which remains to this day.

Nintendo is the longest-lived video game platform company in history, the most influential and famous game platform manufacturer, and the leader of portable game console platforms. They developed in Japan in 1983 and later developed branches in different regions, such as North America in 1985 and Europe in 1986. Nintendo Co., Ltd. is headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. To this day, Nintendo has sold more than 2 billion copies of game software worldwide, created many famous characters in the history of games, such as Mario, Donkey Kong, and created the most classic games in the history of games. For example, "The Legend of Zelda" (The Legend of Zelda), "Pokémon" (Pokémon). Nintendo manufactures and sells home video game consoles and game software, including the Nintendo GameCube and Game Boy series of the world's best-selling video game consoles.

Nintendo of America Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nintendo, located in Redmond, Washington. It is Nintendo's operations center in the Americas and Europe. About 40% of American households own a Nintendo home game console.