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Before video games, Nintendo made playing cards. Fusajiro Yamauchi began manufacturing and selling hanafuda cards in Kyoto in 1889; over the following decades, the company expanded into western-style and plastic playing cards, toys, games and electronic amusement. Nintendo dates its first home video game machines, TV Game 15 and TV Game 6, to 1977.
What did Nintendo make before video games?
Nintendo began as a playing-card maker and seller, not an electronics company. Its first product was hanafuda, a traditional Japanese card deck. Playing cards remained central to the business for decades, even as Nintendo broadened its products to include toys and other forms of entertainment.
The chronology matters: Nintendo’s electronic amusement experiments preceded its first home video game machines. The path ran from cards to a wider games-and-entertainment business, then to electronic products and home video games—not from cards directly to consoles.
Nintendo’s pre-video-game history, by milestone
| Year | Milestone | What changed |
|---|---|---|
| 1889 | Fusajiro Yamauchi began making and selling hanafuda in Kyoto. | The business that became Nintendo began with Japanese playing cards. Nintendo’s company history and company profile identify this as the company’s founding era. |
| 1902 | Nintendo began manufacturing and selling western-style playing cards in Japan. | The company broadened its card range. Nintendo’s South Africa history describes these as the first western playing cards made in Japan. |
| 1947 | Marufuku Co., Ltd., Nintendo’s corporate predecessor, was established; the company profile lists incorporation in November. | This is a later corporate milestone, distinct from the business’s 1889 founding. Nintendo’s history and company profile record the dates. |
| 1951 | The company took the name Nintendo Playing Card Co., Ltd. | The name explicitly reflected its card business. Nintendo’s company history records the change. |
| 1953 | Nintendo says it became the first company in Japan to mass-produce plastic playing cards successfully. | A change in materials and manufacturing extended the card business. Nintendo’s regional history describes this milestone. |
| 1959 | Nintendo began selling playing cards featuring Disney characters. | Character cards helped the company reach a children’s-card market, according to Nintendo’s South Africa history. |
| 1963 | The name changed to Nintendo Co., Ltd.; the company began making games in addition to playing cards. | The name and product scope signaled a broader business. Nintendo’s company history records both developments. |
| 1966 | Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi approved the Ultra Hand, an extensible-arm toy, according to TIME’s 2015 account. | The toy marks Nintendo’s move into playthings beyond cards. This detail comes from TIME, rather than Nintendo’s corporate chronology. |
| 1970 | Nintendo’s South Africa history dates its Beam Gun series to this year and describes its use of opto-electronics. | The company was exploring electronic amusement before home video game machines arrived. This is Nintendo’s characterization in its regional history. |
| 1973 | Nintendo developed the Laser Clay Shooting System for leisure facilities. | Electronic entertainment extended beyond products for the home. The milestone appears in Nintendo’s company history and its regional history. |
| 1977 | Nintendo launched TV Game 15 and TV Game 6, its first home video game machines. | This is the company’s home-video-game milestone, not the beginning of its involvement in entertainment technology. See Nintendo’s company history. |
Why Nintendo’s card history is more than a prelude
The early business was not a brief stepping-stone. Nintendo’s official chronology follows playing cards from hanafuda in 1889 through western-style cards, plastic cards and Disney-character cards, and only records the company starting to manufacture games in addition to cards in 1963. The evidence here establishes a gradual widening of the business, not a sudden abandonment of cards.
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Elebase USB to USB C Adapter for iPhone 18 Pro Max,USBC Car Charger Adapter
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The milestones show adaptation within the card business as well as expansion beyond it: new card formats, new production methods and licensed characters came before toys and electronic amusement. That sequence makes Nintendo’s early history a story of a company repeatedly widening what it made and how people played.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How the company differed before and after video games
| Era | Main products and kind of play | What the timeline establishes |
|---|---|---|
| 1889 through the card-business era | Hanafuda and western-style playing cards; later, plastic and Disney-character cards. | Nintendo’s history documents a long-running card business and changes to its products and production. |
| 1960s to early 1970s | Games and toys, followed by opto-electronic entertainment and the Laser Clay Shooting System. | Nintendo’s scope had expanded beyond cards before its home video game machines. |
| From 1977 | TV Game 15 and TV Game 6, Nintendo’s first home video game machines. | The company entered home video games after years of card-making and other entertainment products. |
The cited histories provide milestones, but not comparable revenue figures for these eras. They support a comparison of products and forms of play, not a claim about which business was larger or more profitable.
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