Nintendo

Nintendo is a major video game company. They are responsible for publishing the EarthBound/Mother series, and the Super Smash Bros. series, which features Ness and Lucas, the protagonists of EarthBound and Mother 3, as well as other content from the EarthBound series. Nintendo is most well known for the Mario, Zelda, and Pokémon series.
==History==
Nintendo was founded in the 1889, initially making playing cards. Over time, and with management changes, Nintendo transitioned into the video game industry. In 1981 they released Donkey Kong, which was extremely successful. The success of their arcade games eventually led to the creation of the Famicom, which was released in 1983. It was later called the Nintendo Entertainment System when it was released overseas a couple years later. The NES is known for reviving the video game industry in North America after the Video Game Crash of 1983.
In 1989, Nintendo released Mother for the Famicom in Japan. The game was localized into English, but this version was not released until 2015 for the Wii U. This was due to the NES being at the end of its life span, as well as the imminent release of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. In 1994, the first game in the series to be released outside of Japan, EarthBound, was released for the SNES.
Following the SNES, Nintendo released the Nintendo 64, which had much better 3D capabilities than Nintendo's previous consoles. The Nintendo 64 featured the first Super Smash Bros. game, which featured Ness as a playable character, sparking greater interest in the EarthBound franchise. The 64DD, a disk drive add-on to the N64, was going to feature EarthBound 64, but it was canceled, and development shifted to Mother 3 on the Game Boy Advance.
The Nintendo GameCube's only Mother related content was Super Smash Bros. Melee, which once again featured Ness as a playable character. Initially, he was intended to be replaced by Lucas, but this fell through due to the release of Mother 3 being pushed back. In 2006, Nintendo unveiled the Wii, known as the Revolution at the time. Super Smash Bros. Brawl was released for the Wii, featuring a large amount of EarthBound content. Ness and Lucas are playable characters, there are several EarthBound related stages and items, and Porky Minch is a boss in the story mode. There was also a untitled EarthBound game for the GameCube that never got released.
Later, in 2011, Nintendo released the Nintendo 3DS, and in 2012 released the Wii U. During the this period, Nintendo started to release games from the EarthBound franchise on Virtual Console. Nintendo's social media service, Miiverse, notably encouraged a revival of the series, which was eventually heeded with the release of EarthBound on Wii U Virtual Console, and later on the New 3DS. EarthBound Beginnings was later re-released on Virtual Console for the Wii U as well, marking the first time it has seen a proper release outside Japan. EarthBound was also one of the games featured on the Super NES Classic Edition, a plug and play version of the SNES developed by Nintendo. EarthBound Beginnings and EarthBound were both released in 2022 for the Nintendo Switch Online's NES and SNES video game libraries respectively.
Category:Companies
Category:Real Life