Brand Power Is a Cornered Resource, Not Branding

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The reason you buy something from Nintendo is all sorts of reasons, but not because it says Nintendo. I think Nintendo's wildly differentiated in the IP that is on their platforms and nowhere else. It reflects in what happened. Like they had 95% global market share in this enormous industry. And so brand really matters.

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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