Space War and the Idea of Bringing It Back to the Consumer Market

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Early video games were inspired by and derivatives of space war. A deck PDP one cost over a hundred thousand dollars, which is over a million dollars today. The idea that you could domesticate this animal, not even bring it into homes, but get the price point down to a point where bars or arcades or carnivals could afford to buy these things like no way.

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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