This is Nintendo's first office in Kyoto, 1889. Nintendo initially started out producing and selling Japanese playing cards. They did just that for nearly 75 years.
In 1963, Nintendo began to branch out to other types of businesses, investing money into a taxi service business, love hotels, a TV company, and an instant rice company. All these business ventures failed, and to make matters worse, after the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, playing card sales had dropped drastically.
Starting in the late '60s, Nintendo pivoted to making toys. One of their employees was a maintenance engineer by the name of Gunpei Yokoi, whose job was to repair conveyor belts. During his free time, he had made extendable tongs for his amusement. Nintendo asked him to make a few prototypes and decided to market his toy as the "Ultra Hand," which went on to sell more than 1 million units. The toy literally gave a hand to Nintendo and lifted it out of near financial ruin.
Yokoi was moved to product development and went on to create several other successful toys before jumping into making video games. During the early '80s, Yokoi began working with a young product developer named Shigeru Miyamoto. They were under pressure to develop a best-selling game for Nintendo and were competing against the likes of Namco's Pac-Man.
Miyamoto wanted to develop a video game that used the characters Popeye, Olive Oyl, and Bluto but was unable to obtain a license. So he went on to create his own characters, Donkey Kong and an unnamed character. In the early development stages of Donkey Kong, the unnamed character was unable to jump, and the goal of the game was to escape a maze. Miyamoto decided to give the unnamed character the ability to jump, stating: "If you had a barrel rolling towards you, what would you do?"
In Japan, the unnamed character eventually received the name Jumpman. However, when the video game was introduced to American audiences, the name was changed. According to legend, Nintendo in America was confronted by warehouse owner Mario Segale about unpaid rent. After a heated exchange, Nintendo assured Segale he would get his money. After the incident, Nintendo decided to rename Jumpman to Mario.
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