Quick, when you hear the name “Nintendo,” what comes to mind? Mario, the star of video games, movies, and everything in between? Pokemon, currently riding its mobile app game to amazing popularity? Was it the NES video game hooked up to your TV in the early 90s? For younger folks, it could be Animal Crossing. It might depend on your age, but surely the creations by Nintendo have been a major pop culture point in your life. And for that long and wide reach, Nintendo Company, Ltd. is the Pop Culture Hall of Fame inductee as a Brand for 2023.
Nintendo was born way earlier than most fans realize. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as Nintendo Koppai by Fusajiro Yamauchi. They originally produced handmade playing cards. After venturing into various toys and early electronic games in the 1960s, Nintendo released its first gaming console, the Color TV-Game, in 1977. Despite heavy competition in the early 1980s, it gained international recognition with the release of the home version of Donkey Kong. That was followed by the wildly popular Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Mario Bros. in 1985.
Donkey Kong kicked things into high gear as an arcade game, introducing a giant ape and an 8-bit hero who somehow became known as Mario, who was somehow a plumber by trade. Nintendo’s relevance in arcades and at home made it a powerhouse of a company.
From there, Nintendo never stopped innovating, usually coming up with something brilliant. The GameBoy was one of the first successful handheld games with swappable cartridges. The GameCube, the Wii, and others in between sent standards not only for vivid gameplay but also unusual new controllers that pushed the boundaries of what a game system can do. Their Switch console, rules the roost now, combining a portable, self-contained gaming system that can also hook up to a big-screen TV for multiple-player action.
Not forgetting their card game roots, Nintendo invented a card game called “Pocket Monsters,” better known as Pokemon. The character quickly evolved into an anime TV show and various video games. But it was the introduction of Pokemon Go, the smartphone-based adaptation that more recently set the world on fire. The game was designed to encourage getting out of the house for some exercise, with its GPS and virtual reality-based design. It’s also sort of a digital card-collecting game, so it goes back to its roots.
The culmination of their many, many characters would be the Smash Bros. series of games that allow players to select just about any character from any world of Pokemon and do silly, but intense combat. The fact that each and every character has unique skills and flaws is an astonishing combination of technology and world-building. For combining so much fun into so many packages, Nintendo is the Pop Culture Hall of Fame inductee as a Brand.
