Every Nintendo console from 1980 to now: A complete history

pocket-lint.com:

(Pocket-lint) — It's a decade since the Nintendo 3DS first went on sale in Japan and a lot has happened both before and since!

When it comes to games machines, Nintendo has an incredibly rich past. Despite what you might think, the NES wasn't Nintendo's first consumer games machine, that accolade belongs to the handheld series Game & Watch, although it has come on leaps and bounds since then. Literally, in Mario's case. 

Game & Watch was a series of handhelds that only played a single game, and had either a clock, an alarm or in some cases, both. There were no cartridges or other games to download. Indeed, there was no internet to download them from. You bought a single game and stuck to it.

In the following years, Nintendo carved a niche for itself by being the quirky console manufacturer. Compared to the likes of Sony, Sega and Microsoft, it always took gaming in an odd but satisfying direction. And because of that that it became a company you can't help but love.

We've taken a look back at Nintendo's illustrious history, which has provided us with some of the most iconic games consoles and not to mention some of the greatest games franchises of all time.

There were a whole series of Game & Watch devices released throughout the 80s. And like similar handhelds of the time, they became incredibly popular.

The first was produced after Nintendo employee Gunpei Yokoi saw a businessman travelling on the Shinkansen playing with his calculator and thought the company could make a portable games machine to help kill time on the commute.

Each Game & Watch only had one game available to play, and there were around 60 in total. Some were based on arcade machines and were also responsible for bringing big licences and games