History of Nintendo

This archived article was written by: David Rawle

By the year 2016, everyone should know the name Nintendo. Whether you heard about it from your children, grandkids or due to the fact that you own one of their consoles in some way or another. After the videogame crash of 1983, Nintendo took a risk and developed a gaming system that would change the game forever. The release of the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1983 (NES) restarted the entire gaming industry and still is an iconic revolutionary moment for Nintendo. The 8-bit system covered the market and was unrivaled by any of the competition.
In 1989 Nintendo released the revolutionary Game Boy, once again putting Nintendo ahead of the curve. The hand-held device was actually the second one Nintendo produced. Their first being the Game & Watch, and was the first in the line of Game Boy products. This portable device made gaming on the go easy, and crushed its competition. During the time of its release, it had to compete with the Sega Game Gear, Atari Lynx and the TurboExpress, all their own individual portable devices. It’s easy to see what device claimed victory, considering most people haven’t heard of most these devices.
Nintendo’s domination of the market would soon falter. In the 1990s, their newer consoles, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) and the Nintendo 64 would both fall behind Sony as the PlayStation became the most popular system on the market. They were eventually removed from first place to third in the years 2000-2001 when Sony released their PlayStation 2 and Microsoft released the Xbox, despite Nintendo’s efforts with the GameCube.
Although during this decline, Nintendo never lost their spot when it came to hand-held devices. With the Game Boy Color and their Advanced models the best portable devices only to be beaten by their predecessor, the Nintendo DS.
It took many years before Nintendo event attempted to release their next console, but when they did, it was a major success. In 2006, Nintendo released the first-movement-driven system ever, the Nintendo Wii. This was the jump Nintendo needed to get back into the game. The Nintendo Wii was such a success it became one of their best-selling consoles of all time, and spawned a new generation of Nintendo consoles. With the Wii U being its direct descendent and the Nintendo X coming in 2017, Nintendo has made it their goal to never fall in the gaming business.