History of Nintendo
Their first video arcade game was 1975's "EVR Race"; a handful of others followed in the next several years, "Radar Scope" and "Donkey Kong" being among the most famous of these. The early 1980s saw Nintendo's video game division (led by Yokoi) creating some of its most famous arcade titles. The massively popular "Donkey Kong" was created in 1981, with Shigeru Miyamoto as its mastermind, and released in the arcades and on the Atari 2600, Intellivision, and ColecoVision video game systems (although Nintendo themselves generally had no involvement with these early console ports). This release method would be used on several later Nintendo arcade games of this same period, including the original "Mario Bros." (not to be confused with the later "Super Mario Bros.") In addition to this arcade and dedicated console game activity, Nintendo was testing the consumer handheld video game waters with the Game & Watch.
History of Nintendo
In 1993, Nintendo announced plans to develop a new 64-bit console codenamed "Project Reality" that would be capable of rendering fully 3D environments and characters. In 1994, Nintendo also claimed that Project Reality would be renamed "Ultra 64" in the US. The "Ultra 64" moniker was unveiled in arcades on the Nintendo branded fighting game "Killer Instinct" and the racing game "Cruisin' USA". "Killer Instinct" was later released on the SNES. Soon after, Nintendo realized they had mistakenly chosen a name for their new console that the Konami corporation owned the rights to. Specifically, only Konami would have the rights to release games for the new system called "Ultra Football", "Ultra Tennis", etc. Therefore, in 1995 Nintendo changed the final name of the system to the "Nintendo 64", and announced that it would be released in 1996. They later showed previews of the system and several games, including "Super Mario 64", to the media and public. 1995 is also the year that Nintendo purchased part of Rare.