page_title: History of Nintendo
section_title: Origins
hierarchical_section_title: History of Nintendo / Origins
context_page_description: The history of Nintendo traces back to 1889, when it was founded to produce handmade hanafuda. Nintendo Co., Ltd. is a Japanese multinational consumer electronics company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It eventually became one of the most prominent figures in today's video game industry, being the world's largest video game company by revenue.
context_section_description: Nintendo was founded as Yamauchi Nintendo (山内任天堂) by Fusajiro Yamauchi on September 23, 1889. Based in Kyoto, Japan, the business produced and marketed hanafuda. The name "Nintendo" is commonly assumed to mean "leave luck to heaven", but there are no historical records to validate this assumption. The cards, which were all handmade, soon began to gain in popularity, and Yamauchi had to hire assistants to mass-produce cards to keep up with the demand.
  Fusajiro Yamauchi did not have a son to take over the family business. Following the common Japanese tradition, he adopted his son-in-law, Sekiryo Kaneda, who then legally took his wife's last name of Yamauchi. In 1929, Fusajiro Yamauchi retired from the company and allowed Sekiryo Kaneda to take over the company as president. In 1933, Sekiryo Kaneda established a joint venture with another company and renamed the company Yamauchi Nintendo & Co.
  
  In 1947, Sekiryo established a distribution company, Marufuku Co., Ltd., to distribute the hanafuda, as well as several other types of cards produced by Nintendo. Sekiryo Kaneda also had only daughters, so again his son-in-law (Shikanojo Inaba, renamed Shikanojo Yamauchi) was adopted into the family. Shikanojo later abandoned his family and did not become company president. Subsequently, his son Hiroshi Yamauchi was brought up by his grandparents and he later took over the company instead of his father.
caption: Nintendo poster from early Meiji Era
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