Nintendo
In 1889, Nintendo was a small Japanese start-up in Kyoto. Founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it focused entirely on making handmade Hanafuda cards, which were Japanese playing cards. The cards eventually gained popularity, and Yamauchi hired assistants to keep up with the demand. The company passed through the family until Hiroshi Yamauchi became president in 1949. Between 1963 and 1968, Hiroshi tried to expand the company by making a taxicab service, a love hotel chain, a type of instant rice, and a vacuum cleaner, among other thing, None were successful. In 1964, Japanese households stopped buying playing cards, and Nintendo struggled to stay alive in the Japanese toy industry.
In 1965, Nintendo hired Gunpei Yokoi as a maintenance engineer for their assembly line. 5 years later, in 1970, Hiroshi Yamauchi was observing one of Nintendo's hanafuda factories, and he noticed that Yokoi had created an extending arm toy for his own amusement and ordered him to develop it as a product for the Christmas rush. Named the Ultra Hand, it sold 1,000,000 units in its lifetime. Yokoi was then moved from his maintenance job to a job in product development.
Later, Nintendo saw how popular arcade games were becoming and created a racing game called EVR Race in 1975. Later, they also created a shooter called Radar Scope. They shipped 3,000 cabinets to America to sell, but only 1,000 sold. Instead of creating an entirely new game, Nintendo decided to adapt the remaining Radar Scope cabinets into a Popeye game. There was a Popeye movie coming out around the time, and Nintendo had manufactured Popeye merchandise in the past, so the rights should have been easy to obtain, but they were lost due to a licensing disagreement. Radar Scope was instead changed to the arcade classic Donkey Kong, which led to Nintendo's success as a video game company.
In 1965, Nintendo hired Gunpei Yokoi as a maintenance engineer for their assembly line. 5 years later, in 1970, Hiroshi Yamauchi was observing one of Nintendo's hanafuda factories, and he noticed that Yokoi had created an extending arm toy for his own amusement and ordered him to develop it as a product for the Christmas rush. Named the Ultra Hand, it sold 1,000,000 units in its lifetime. Yokoi was then moved from his maintenance job to a job in product development.
Later, Nintendo saw how popular arcade games were becoming and created a racing game called EVR Race in 1975. Later, they also created a shooter called Radar Scope. They shipped 3,000 cabinets to America to sell, but only 1,000 sold. Instead of creating an entirely new game, Nintendo decided to adapt the remaining Radar Scope cabinets into a Popeye game. There was a Popeye movie coming out around the time, and Nintendo had manufactured Popeye merchandise in the past, so the rights should have been easy to obtain, but they were lost due to a licensing disagreement. Radar Scope was instead changed to the arcade classic Donkey Kong, which led to Nintendo's success as a video game company.