On this episode, we'll be covering Nintendo's early years or at least the first hundred years of the company up until about 1990. We want to basically shift away from it being about these episodes and make it more about bringing you closer into the acquired kitchen. For our limited partners, we're bringing back private zoom calls that will email you about the next one soon. And we'll be adding a new feature. You can help us pick future episodes.
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!