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.
GameCube
Nintendo is traditionally recognized for releasing innovative, first-party games, most notably from the "Super Mario" and "The Legend of Zelda" series. These first-party series continued on the GameCube and bolstered the console's popularity. As a publisher, Nintendo also focused on creating new franchises, such as "Pikmin" and "Animal Crossing", and renewing some that skipped the Nintendo 64 platform, most notably the "Metroid" series with the release of "Metroid Prime". The console also saw success with the critically acclaimed "" and "Super Mario Sunshine", and its best-selling game, "Super Smash Bros. Melee", which sold 7 million copies worldwide. Though committed to its software library, however, Nintendo was still criticized by some for not featuring enough games during the console's launch window.