Nintendo

Nintendo was originally founded as a trading card company in the 19th century, a role they still play to some extent, but they are far better known as one of the greatest video game developers. Known affectionately as the big "N" or "Ninty", Nintendo have been responsible for some of the of the most exceptional videogaming software and hardware.

The Hardware

• Game & Watch
• Nintendo Entertainment System (rest of world) / Famicom (Japan)
  • Famicom Disk System (Japan only) - a large number of stores in Japan had machines which had many hundreds (thousands?) of games stored upon them. For a set price, a blank disk was bought and games selected and wrote to it, very popular in Japan, suprisingly never seen anywhere else (or was it?)
• Game Boy - the original smash hit
• Game Boy Advance - the new, more advanced version of the Game Boy
• Virtual Boy - not one of the Game Boy family despite sounding like it. The Virtual Boy used a poorly developed 3d virtual reality like system, it was in red monochrome and induced nausea. Games wise it was the worst Nintendo release ever
• Super Nintendo aka Super NES (rest of world) / Super Famicom (Japan)
• Nintendo N64 - 2d is dead, or is it? the N64 saw Nintendo fully embrace the 3d game worlds that Starfox, Pilotwings, and Super Mario Kart only pretended to be
  • Pokemon styled
  • 64DD - only released in Japan, this add on system games are on rewriteable disks. Games released include a paint and 3d package, F Zero X, for creating new F Zero tracks and a few others

The Software and Franchises

• Mario Brothers etc. - Mario and Luigi, have to wonder about the names though, Mario Mario and Luigi Mario. Seen in countless videogames, on cereal boxes, stickers, t-shirts and even (an awful) movie. As well known as Mickey Mouse
• Zelda - a huge and sprawling game world, features hundreds of characters. The main character, strangely isn't Zelda, but Link, the elfin hero of every adventure
• Pokemon
• [Donkey Kong]? - one of Nintendo's original arcade games, back when they developed for the arcades
• Tetris - The [killer app]? for the original Game Boy