Nintendo of America's Strategy of Something Is Hot

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Nintendo of America can't sell the cabinets and they've got all this capital tied up in this inventory. Yoko at this point is so pissed. She takes the kids and basically moves back to Japan. And this is pretty much the last time that Nintendo will pursue the strategy of something is hot. But from this point forward, they never try the fast follow clone copy thing again. Totally.

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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