GoNintendo 'End of Day' thought - Destin Feature: A house built on cards

I put my New Year’s resolution into full-effect today, and it’s working out great thus far! I wanted to reconnect with old friends, and I managed to meet up with two today! I’m hoping more come along throughout the week. I hope you all found a resolution that is working out for you! I’m going to head to bed and sleep soundly knowing that I’ve done a job well done! See you in a few, short hours. - RMC

This article originally started out as a fact finding mission. I always knew that Nintendo began as a playing card manufacturer but I wanted to know more about the founder, the game, and how the company got started. The following is what I found.

If you took away the negative connotation associated with the “house built of cards” idiom, the statement could easily be a Nintendo slogan.  The company was literally built because of a card game.

The game, Hanafuda, is of Japanese origin and uses various cards and suits that are collected to gain points.  While the game itself isn’t that important, it’s importance to one man, Fusajiro Yamauchi is.

Japan had mostly given up on card games due to the fact that the government had made most of them illegal in an effort to limit gambling.  Hanafuda was allowed by the government as it didn’t have numbers, but instead pictures that players would use to determine a cards value.

Players didn’t care much for Hanafuda at the time.  The card genre had been so limited and outlawed that the public gave up on learning new games as they arose.  That is until Fusajiro came along.  Fusajiro wanted to create a quality product for hanafuda players and he brought it to them with his high quality, hand painted cards.

Fusajiro’s hand painted cards were popular because instead of just having a general illustration on them, he gave people unique, hand crafted illustrations for their decks, and printed them on the bark of mulberry trees.  With this new, tasteful, and artistic approach to the game a fan base grew and Fusajiro opened the doors to his first shop on November 6th, 1889.  He called his shop Nintendo Koppai.

Fusajiro was 29 years old when he began the company and soon Nintendo Koppai became the most popular game company in Japan.  What helped the company expand so quickly was the Meiji Constitution which was passed on November 29th 1890.  It loosened the governments vice grip on the card scene, allowing new card games to be sold.

Then, gambling made a comeback.  When gambling the mafia insisted on using a new deck of these handmade cards for every game, and guess who’s cards they liked the most?  This prompted Fusajiro to need help and soon he had a group of apprentices by his side.  He and his apprentices would manufacture these cards for the public, and with the Yakuza perpetuating the gambling scene, high caliber cards were a much sought after item.

The mafia’s gambling habits weren’t the only reason Nintendo saw success.  In 1907 a deal was struck with Japan’s Tobacco and Salt Public Corporation to sell cards in cigarette shops.  Fusajiro’s Nintendo was also one of the first to begin offering Western-style playing cards as soon as it was again legal to do so.

Suddenly Nintendo Koppai was the largest game manufacturer in Japan, allowing them to dominate the market by offering the most popular card games on the market, and even offering a few card games they invented on their own.

The word Nintendo has many translations, one of which being “leave luck to the stars.”  This translation seems a fitting title for a company built by a passionate artist who wanted to bring a high quality product to the masses.  The company saved the playing card genre in the 1890’s and later would save the video game genre in 1983.  The stars definitely have a fair share of luck set aside.

Fusajiro retired at the age of 70 when his son-in-law, Sekiryo Kaneda Yamauchi took over the company.  He passed on 10 years later, but he left behind an empire.  An empire built on top of a deck of cards.

Sources:
Nintendo History 1
Meiji Constitution
Nintendo
Nintendo opens it’s doors.
Fusajiro Yamauchi
Gambling makes a comeback