Nintendo
In 1975, Nintendo moved into the video arcade game industry with "EVR Race", designed by their first game designer, Genyo Takeda, and several more games followed. Nintendo had some small success with this venture, but the release of "Donkey Kong" in 1981, designed by Miyamoto, changed Nintendo's fortunes dramatically. The success of the game and many licensing opportunities (such as ports on the Atari 2600, Intellivision and ColecoVision) gave Nintendo a huge boost in profit and in addition, the game also introduced an early iteration of Mario, then known in Japan as Jumpman, the eventual company mascot.
Super Mario Land
"Super Mario Land" was developed by Nintendo R&D1 and published by Nintendo in 1989 as a launch title for their Game Boy handheld console. Nintendo CEO Hiroshi Yamauchi believed that fun games sold consoles, so when the company created the Game Boy handheld console, he wanted a fun game that would feature Nintendo's mascot, Mario, and subsequently sell consoles. The job fell to Nintendo R&D1, a development team led by Game Boy inventor Gunpei Yokoi. Yokoi had previously created the Game & Watch series and worked with his protégé, Shigeru Miyamoto, on the game that invented Mario, "Donkey Kong". "Super Mario Land" was the fourth "Super Mario" title, the first portable Mario game, and the first in the series to be made without Miyamoto.