Nintendo Home Video Game Consoles - The Story of the Odyssey

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Nintendo was part of the very first home video game console launched in America by Magnavox. Nintendo rebrands and starts distributing the Magnavox Odyssey through its toy retailer channels in Japan. In 1976, they take a bunch of tech from Magnavox and start making their own modified consoles.

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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