The Nintendo corporation was founded in Japan in 1889. But it
was not until 1985 that the Nintendo Entertainment System — the
now-iconic video game console pictured above — made its way into
North America. But no, the Japanese did not have Super Mario
Bros. a century before Americans — a different-looking Japanese
predecessor to the North American NES debuted in Japan in 1983,
not 1889. What was Nintendo doing beforehand? The company’s
beginnings trace back to playing cards. Not the standard ones
involving an Ace and a King, but rather a style called hanafuda,
or “flower cards,” which Nintendo developed and became popular
in gambling parlors in Japan almost immediately. From 1889 until
1956, this was the company’s only notable product, and may have
remained so until Hiroshi Yamauchi, the company’s chairman (and
grandson of its founder), travelled to the United States to
visit the headquarters of the United States Playing Card
Company, the world’s largest company in that business. Upon
finding their offices to