Nintendo might be younger than it claims to be - or much older
On September 23, 1889, so the story goes, Fusajiro Yamauchi founded a playing card-making company called Nintendo. From these humble origins as one of more than 30 playing card wholesalers based in the Shomendori/Takasegawa neighborhood of Kyoto, the family-owned company would become the largest playing card maker in the country. Under the leadership of Fusajiro's great-grandson Hiroshi Yamauchi, Nintendo went after the emerging video game market, becoming the world-famous giant we know today.
In 1889, the telephone patent was two years old, Edison and Tesla's War of the Currents was still waging, and ocean-faring steamships were ushering in the first wave of globalization. The world was shrinking fast, and Japan had, at last, emerged from its feudal Edo period with the end of the Satsuma Rebellion 12 years prior. You know, the one Tom Cruise apparently played a crucial role in…
Nintendo opened its doors in a Japan that was entering the world stage as a European-style constitutional monarchy, one with a rich culture of printmaking and record-keeping rivaling those of the most advanced Western countries.
It is puzzling, then, that we know almost nothing about the early history of Nintendo, despite being one of the world's best-known companies. And, stranger still, what we think we know often can’t be confirmed by the documentary evidence – in fact, it’s frequently contradicted by it.
The claim that Nintendo was founded in 1889 by a 21-year-old Fusajiro Yamauchi has never really been in dispute. Nintendo itself lists the date on its website, and there is not a modern book on Nintendo that disagrees.
However, this date is likely wrong. In business directories from the Taisho and early Showa periods such as the Teikoku
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