Nintendo's R&D2 Team Has What It Takes

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Nintendo's R&D2 team has accomplished something nobody else can or would for years in the industry. They've created a home video game console that is not just a year, many years ahead of the competition and will sell for cheaper and profitably. I think maybe I'm wrong and this is why nobody talks about this. Or maybe like we've stumbled onto something like incredible in history that just everybody overlooked.

You may think you know the Nintendo story: a plumber named Mario, a princess named Zelda… and didn’t they buy the Seattle Mariners at some point? We thought we knew it too. And then we started researching and were blown away.

The lovable Disney-like Nintendo that we know today is a 130 year-old a playing card company (i.e. gambling), forged in the shadowy world of the Yakuza and shaped by a four-generation cycle of bitter family betrayal. And its unlikely transformation into a global multi-billion dollar media monopoly was led by an iron-fisted patriarch who — amazingly — never played a video game in his life! Get ready for one of our favorite stories Acquired has ever told — we couldn’t make this one up if we tried!

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