The Origin Story of the Name “Nintendo”

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Nintendo started as a playing card company by Fusajiro Yamauchi, who saw an opportunity to enter into a market with universal appeal. The name Nintendo means 'leave luck to heaven' and was a reference to gambling and casinos, which were illegal at the time. The company became the largest playing card manufacturer in Japan, despite strict efforts to eliminate Western influence from Japanese society. Hanafuda cards, a substitute parallel track to the Western deck, had four seasons and was used for games of gambling. Finally, after the Meiji Restoration, the government removed the official ban on playing cards, allowing Nintendo to legally produce Hanafuda cards.

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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