The TurboGrafx-16 , known as the PC Engine outside North America, is a home video game console designed by Hudson Soft and sold by NEC Home Electronics . It was the first console marketed in the fourth generation , commonly known as the 16-bit era, however in actuality, the console has an 8-bit central processing unit (CPU) coupled with a 16-bit graphics processor, effectively making the claim somewhat false advertising . It was released in Japan in 1987 and in North America in 1989. In Europe the Japanese model was unofficially imported and distributed in the United Kingdom and France from 1988. In Japan, the system was launched as a competitor to the Famicom , but the delayed United States release meant that it ended up competing with the Sega Genesis and later the Super NES .
186-538: The Virtual Console is a defunct line of downloadable retro video games for Nintendo 's Wii and Wii U home video game consoles and the Nintendo 3DS family of systems. The Virtual Console lineup consisted of titles originally released on past home and handheld consoles and were run in their original forms through software emulation (excluding Game Boy Advance titles on the 3DS and Wii titles on Wii U), therefore remaining mostly unaltered, and could be purchased from
372-547: A HuC6270 video display controller and a HuC6260 video color encoder. It includes 8 KB of RAM , 64 KB of Video RAM , and the ability to display 482 colors at once from a 512-color palette . The sound hardware, built into the CPU, includes a programmable sound generator running at 3.58 MHz and a 5-10 bit stereo PCM. TurboGrafx-16 games use the HuCard ROM cartridge format, thin credit card-sized cards that insert into
558-549: A ROM cartridge format for video games as well as both a central processing unit and a picture processing unit . The Family Computer , or Famicom, was released in Japan in July 1983 along with three games adapted from their original arcade versions: Donkey Kong , Donkey Kong Jr. and Popeye . Its success was such that in 1984, it surpassed the market share held by Sega 's SG-1000 . That success also led to Nintendo leaving
744-499: A Wii U system using the "system transfer" tool. Any Wii Virtual Console titles can be transferred to the Wii U and played via its Wii Mode . Virtual Console games can be played using different controllers. The Wii Remote itself (turned on its side) can be used for NES , Master System , TurboGrafx-16 , and some Mega Drive/Genesis and Neo Geo AES games. The original and the pro versions of Classic Controller (sold separately from
930-430: A niche market , the slow and expensive manufacturing process, high product price, alongside long durability of the cards, which impacted sales due to the low replacement rate. As a solution, Nintendo produced a cheaper and lower-quality line of playing cards, Tengu , while also conducting product offerings in other cities such as Osaka , where card game profits were high. In addition, local merchants were interested in
1116-557: A 28% stake in PUX Corporation, a subsidiary of Panasonic , to develop facial , voice , and text recognition for its video games. Due to a 30% decrease in company income between April and December 2013, Iwata announced a temporary 50% cut to his salary, with other executives seeing reductions by 20%–30%. In January 2015, Nintendo ceased operations in the Brazilian market due in part to high import duties . This did not affect
1302-490: A 75% increase in income compared to the previous fiscal year, mainly contributed by the Nintendo Switch Online service. The year saw some changes to the company's management: outside director Naoki Mizutani retired from the board, and was replaced by Asa Shinkawa; and Yoshiaki Koizumi was promoted to senior executive officer, maintaining its role as deputy general manager of Nintendo EPD. By August, Nintendo
1488-529: A Hudson Soft game unknown to western gamers, proved costly as Sega packed-in a port of the hit arcade title Altered Beast with the Genesis. NEC's American operations in Chicago were also overhyped about its potential and quickly produced 750,000 units, far above actual demand. This was very profitable for Hudson Soft as NEC paid Hudson Soft royalties for every console produced, whether sold or not. By 1990, it
1674-500: A Nintendo Direct, Nintendo announced the addition of SNES games on Virtual Console for New Nintendo 3DS . Taking advantage of its upgraded hardware on the New 3DS, the games support "Perfect Pixel mode", which allows these games to be played at their original resolution and aspect ratio . SNES games are not supported on the original Nintendo 3DS models or Nintendo 2DS . Virtual Console games are saved on an SD card and are accessible through
1860-728: A Tokyo branch in Chiyoda, Tokyo , and sold more than 1.5 million card packs, holding a high market share , for which it relied on televised advertising campaigns. In 1962, Nintendo became a public company by listing stock on the second section of the Osaka Securities Exchange and the Kyoto Stock Exchange. In the following year, the company adopted its current name, Nintendo & Co., Ltd. and started manufacturing games in addition to playing cards. In 1964, Nintendo earned ¥150 million . Although
2046-531: A Virtual Boy store on the Nintendo 3DS, if you can." In response to an August 2011 price drop on the Nintendo 3DS hardware, Nintendo announced plans to give early adopters of the system a number of Virtual Console releases as appreciation of their support. Owners of the system who logged into the Nintendo eShop by a specified time in their home markets became "Nintendo 3DS Ambassadors". In September 2011, ten NES titles were made available through Virtual Console to
SECTION 10
#17327728207952232-747: A Virtual Console release of Puyo Puyo , released in Japan in Spring 2011, is the first Virtual Console to feature Wi-Fi support for online multiplayer. The Wii Shop Channel has functionality to allow games to be updated. This has been used four times so far to update Military Madness , Star Fox 64/Lylat Wars , Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (in North America and Europe), and Mario Kart 64 (in Europe and Australia). Several NES and SNES games released before March 30, 2007, have also been given updates in Europe and Australia to fix previous problems with
2418-618: A cult following, with a number of unauthorized PC Engine imports available along with NTSC -to- PAL adapters in the United Kingdom during the late 1980s. In 1989, a British company called Mention manufactured an adapted PAL version called the PC Engine Plus. However, the system was not officially supported by NEC. From November 1989 to 1993, PC Engine consoles as well as some add-ons were imported from Japan by French importer Sodipeng ( Société de Distribution de la PC Engine ),
2604-492: A dual 16-bit graphics processing unit (GPU) chipset consisting of a video display controller (VDC) and video color encoder. The GPUs are capable of displaying 482 colors simultaneously, out of 512. With dimensions of just 14 cm × 14 cm × 3.8 cm (5.5 in × 5.5 in × 1.5 in), the Japanese PC Engine is the smallest major home game console ever made. Games were released on HuCard cartridges and later
2790-524: A financial crisis for the company. To try to find a more successful game, they put Miyamoto in charge of their next arcade game design, leading to the release of Donkey Kong in 1981, one of the first platform video games that allowed the player character to jump. The character Jumpman would later become Mario and Nintendo's official mascot . Mario was named after Mario Segale , the landlord of Nintendo's offices in Tukwila, Washington . Donkey Kong
2976-566: A homage to Nintendo's previous name - Marufuku. In April 2020, Reuters reported that ValueAct Capital had acquired over 2.6 million shares in Nintendo stock worth US$ 1.1 billion over the course of a year, giving them an overall stake of 2% in Nintendo. Although the COVID-19 pandemic caused delays in the production and distribution of some of Nintendo's products, the situation "had limited impact on business results"; in May 2020, Nintendo reported
3162-503: A hybrid design as a home and handheld console, Joy-Con controllers that each contain an accelerometer and gyroscope, and the simultaneous wireless networking of up to eight consoles. To expand its library, Nintendo entered alliances with several third-party and independent developers; by February 2019, more than 1,800 Switch games had been released. Worldwide sales of the Switch exceeded 55 million units by March 2020. In April 2018,
3348-565: A long-time employee of the company. Yokoi was moved to the newly created department and was responsible for coordinating various projects. Yokoi's experience in manufacturing electronic devices led Yamauchi to put him in charge of the company's games department, and his products would be mass-produced. During this period, Nintendo built a new production plant in Uji , just outside of Kyoto, and distributed classic tabletop games such as chess , shogi , go , and mahjong , and other foreign games under
3534-865: A million units were sold. Nintendo partnered with Magnavox to provide a light gun controller based on the Beam Gun design for the company's new home video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey , in 1971. Other popular toys released at the time included the Ultra Hand , the Ultra Machine , the Ultra Scope, and the Love Tester , all designed by Yokoi. More than 1.2 million units of Ultra Hand were sold in Japan. The growing demand for Nintendo's products led Yamauchi to further expand
3720-460: A new department focused on arcade game development was created. In 1980, one of the first handheld video game systems , the Game & Watch , was created by Yokoi from the technology used in portable calculators. It became one of Nintendo's most successful products, with over 43.4 million units sold worldwide during its production period, and for which 59 games were made in total. Nintendo entered
3906-615: A number of TurboGrafx-16 (TurboChip/HuCARD), TurboGrafx-CD (CD-ROM²) and Turbo Duo (Super CD-ROM²) games were released on Nintendo's Virtual Console download service for the Wii , and later the Wii U , and Nintendo 3DS , including several that were originally never released outside Japan. In 2011, ten TurboGrafx-16 games were released on the PlayStation Network for play on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable in
SECTION 20
#17327728207954092-416: A partnership with The Walt Disney Company to incorporate its characters into playing cards, which opened it up to the children's market and resulted in a boost to Nintendo's playing card business. Nintendo automated the production of Japanese playing cards using backing paper, and also developed a distribution system that allowed it to offer its products in toy stores. By 1961, the company had established
4278-554: A pop-up "virtual" keyboard, which can be toggled on and off by pressing the "1" button on the Wii Remote, and are only used to set up the game and are not for input during gameplay. Games downloaded from the Virtual Console library can be stored in the Wii's built-in 512 MB flash memory . Wii system software versions 2.0 and later allow Virtual Console and WiiWare games to be moved from the console's internal memory to
4464-464: A port of Street Fighter II: Champion Edition . A large portion of the TurboGrafx-16's library is made up of horizontal and vertical-scrolling shooters. Examples include Konami 's Gradius and Salamander , Hudson 's Super Star Soldier and Soldier Blade , Namco 's Galaga '88 , Irem 's R-Type , and Taito 's Darius Alpha , Darius Plus and Super Darius . The console
4650-639: A rate of more than 1,000 titles an hour. Neo Geo AES support was added on September 18, 2007, for the Japanese Virtual Console, becoming the first addition to the list of consoles since the TurboGrafx-16 was added two days after the U.S. launch. On October 9, 2007, Nintendo announced that 7.8 million Virtual Console titles had been downloaded, and as of December 2007, this number topped ten million. Games from several new past consoles were added during 2008: Master System on February 26, 2008, for Japan's Virtual Console; Commodore 64 support
4836-494: A removable SD card and then back to the same console. Wii Menu 4.0 added a new menu to run channels from an SD card provided there is enough free space to hold a copy of the channel in internal memory. If the console runs out of memory, the SD menu will offer to move other channels to the SD card. Virtual Console games are locked to the Wii on which they were purchased—they cannot be transferred to another Wii via an SD card, although it
5022-505: A result of its limited release, with the system instead supporting standard HuCards and outputting a PAL 50 Hz video signal. In Japan, the PC Engine was originally sold with a standard controller known simply as the Pad. It has a rectangular shape with a directional pad, two action buttons numbered "I" and "II", and two rubber "Select" and "Run" buttons, matching the number of buttons on
5208-492: A second HuC6270A (VDC), a HuC6202 (VDP) that combines the output of the two VDCs, four times as much RAM, twice as much video RAM, and a second layer/plane of scrolling. It also uses the revised HuC6280A CPU, but the sound and color palette were not upgraded, making the expensive price tag a big disadvantage to the system. As a result, only five exclusive SuperGrafx games and two hybrid games ( Darius Plus and Darius Alpha were released as standard HuCards which took advantage of
5394-418: A side effect). The Virtual Cushion , released in 1992, allows players to feel the impact of enemy attacks through sound vibrations. Many peripherals were produced for both the TurboGrafx-16 and PC Engine. The TurboStick is a tabletop joystick designed to replicate the standard control layout of arcade games from the era. Other similar joystick controllers were produced by third-party manufacturers, such as
5580-462: A single Wii can only have four Wii Remotes and four GameCube controllers connected at the same time, a combination of the two are needed for five-player games. The same issue is found in 5-8 player Commodore 64 games as well. Because the Wii U doesn't have GameCube controller ports, only up to four-player games can be played on the system. MSX games also support USB keyboards, as the original system featured their input. However, Commodore 64 titles use
5766-585: A slot for a memory backup unit, which is required for certain games. The RF output used on the original PC Engine was also replaced with an A/V port for the Shuttle. The PC Engine Shuttle was also distributed in South Korea. It was released in 1990 by Daewoo Electronics. The PC Engine GT is a portable version of the PC Engine, released in Japan on December 1, 1990, and then in the United States as
Virtual Console - Misplaced Pages Continue
5952-417: A strategic alliance to develop the Nintendo 64 . NEC , Toshiba , and Sharp also contributed technology to the console. The Nintendo 64 was marketed as one of the first consoles to be designed with 64-bit architecture. As part of an agreement with Midway Games , the arcade games Killer Instinct and Cruis'n USA were ported to the console. Although the Nintendo 64 was planned for release in 1995,
6138-581: A subsidiary of Guillemot International . This came after considerable enthusiasm in the French press. The PC Engine was largely available in France and Benelux through major retailers. It came with French language instructions and also an AV cable to enable its compatibility with SECAM television sets. After seeing the TurboGrafx-16 falter in America, NEC decided to cancel their European releases. Units for
6324-522: A switch to function as either the Select or Run button, as many games had begun to use one of those for in-game commands. The Avenue Pad 6 was released in 1993 in conjunction with the PC Engine port of Street Fighter II: Champion Edition , adding four action buttons numbered "III" through "VI"; unlike the three-button pad, these buttons did not duplicate existing buttons, and instead added new functionalities in compatible titles. Another six-button controller,
6510-653: A third-party company, released by Sharp in April 1989 for ¥99,800. It is a hybrid system that can run PC Engine games and X1 computer software. Pioneer Corporation 's LaserActive supports an add-on module which allows the use of PC Engine games (HuCard, CD-ROM² and Super CD-ROM²) as well as new "LD-ROM²" titles that work only on this device. NEC also released their own LaserActive unit (NEC PCE-LD1) and PC Engine add-on module, under an OEM license. A total of eleven LD-ROM titles were produced, with only three of them released in North America. Outside North America and Japan,
6696-565: A three-dimensional environment with the aid of a sensor bar; the Nunchuk peripheral that includes an analog controller and an accelerometer; and the Wii MotionPlus expansion that increases the sensitivity of the main controller with the aid of gyroscopes . By 2016, more than 101 million Wii consoles had been sold worldwide, making it the most successful console of its generation, a distinction that Nintendo had not achieved since
6882-625: A total of 659 titles for the Wii, 244 titles for the 3DS (256 for Nintendo 3DS Ambassadors) and 466 titles for the Wii U available. There were 12 total NES, SNES, N64, and Sega Genesis games available at launch on the Wii Virtual Console for the North American region. Two TurboGrafx-16 titles were added two days later on November 21, 2006. The Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console launched with 4 Game Boy and Game Boy Color titles. North America saw its first release of Commodore 64 games on
7068-456: A way to restart from the previous suspend state. There are some exceptions, however. Arcade games released by Bandai Namco feature an updated menu and when reset during gameplay, the save state will be saved before the console is reset. There were 10 titles total of NES, Super NES, and Nintendo 64 games available at launch on the Virtual Console for South Korea. The store updates irregularly on Tuesdays. There are 40 titles available. Depending on
7254-540: Is a model of the console in a laptop form, released on December 13, 1991, in Japan, retailing at ¥99,800. The LT does not require a television display (and does not have any AV output) as it has a built-in flip-up screen and speakers, just as a laptop would have, but, unlike the GT, the LT runs on a power supply. Its expensive price meant that few units were produced compared to other models. The LT has full expansion port capability, so
7440-419: Is also known for its platformers and role-playing games; Victor Entertainment 's The Legendary Axe won numerous awards and is seen among the TurboGrafx-16's definitive titles. Ys I & II , a compilation of two games from Nihon Falcom 's Ys series, was particularly successful in Japan. Cosmic Fantasy 2 was an RPG ported from Japan to the United States that earned Electronic Gaming Magazine RPG of
7626-466: Is an updated model of the PC Engine, released in Japan on December 8, 1989. It has the same form factor as the original PC Engine, but it changes the color scheme from white and red to black and blue and replaces the original's radio frequency -output connector with a composite video AV port. It also used a revised CPU, the HuC6280A, which supposedly fixed some minor audio issues. A recolored version of
Virtual Console - Misplaced Pages Continue
7812-620: Is available in these games while Monster World IV was fully translated to English. A total of 17 NES, SNES, N64, Sega Mega Drive and TurboGrafx titles were available at launch on the Virtual Console in Europe and 11 titles for the Oceanic region (TurboGrafx games were first added there from July 6, 2007). There were 385 titles in Europe and 384 titles in Australia and New Zealand for the Wii, 168 titles for Nintendo 3DS (178 for Nintendo 3DS Ambassadors) and 258 titles for Wii U available. Though
7998-411: Is commonly assumed to mean "leave luck to heaven", but the assumption lacks historical validation; it has also been suggested to mean "the temple of free hanafuda ", but even descendants of Yamauchi do not know the true intended meaning of the name. Hanafuda cards had become popular after Japan banned most forms of gambling in 1882, though tolerated hanafuda. Sales of hanafuda cards were popular with
8184-617: Is internationally recognized, as well as other characters like Donkey Kong , Link , Samus Aran , Kirby , and Pikachu . The company has sold more than 5.592 billion video games and over 836 million hardware units globally, as of March 2023. Nintendo has multiple subsidiaries in Japan and abroad, in addition to business partners such as HAL Laboratory , Intelligent Systems , Game Freak , and The Pokémon Company . Nintendo and its staff have received awards including Emmy Awards for Technology & Engineering , Game Awards , Game Developers Choice Awards , and British Academy Games Awards . It
8370-549: Is one of the wealthiest and most valuable companies in the Japanese market. Nintendo was founded as Nintendo Koppai on 23 September 1889 by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi in Shimogyō-ku, Kyoto , Japan, as an unincorporated establishment, to produce and distribute Japanese playing cards , or karuta ( かるた , from Portuguese carta , 'card') , most notably hanafuda ( 花札 , 'flower cards') . The name "Nintendo"
8556-485: Is possible to purchase games in the Wii Shop Channel and send them as gifts to people on their Wii Friends list. This procedure does not work across regions and it has been reported that purchased titles cannot be sent to users from other countries either, even if they are on the same region. In the event that a Wii is damaged and the Virtual Console games can no longer be played, Nintendo will provide support (if
8742-572: Is saved properly (since it was saved to the cartridge itself) but one of the features in Mario Kart 64 (saving ghosts for racing at a later date) will not work, since that particular feature utilized the Controller Pak, and the option to copy data to the Controller Pak won't function in those games. Like other emulation software, the Wii Virtual Console enables the user to suspend play of a game at any time. To do this, users simply return to
8928-553: Is the Nintendo Entertainment System , or NES, which was released in North America in 1985. The landmark games Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda were produced by Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka . Composer Koji Kondo reinforced the idea that musical themes could act as a complement to game mechanics rather than simply a miscellaneous element. Production of the NES lasted until 1995, and production of
9114-685: The 128-bit Gekko processor and the DVD drive to be used in Nintendo's next home console. Meanwhile, a series of administrative changes occurred in 2000 when Nintendo's corporate offices were moved to the Minami-ku neighborhood in Kyoto, and Nintendo Benelux was established to manage the Dutch and Belgian territories. In 2001, two new Nintendo consoles were introduced: the Game Boy Advance , which
9300-715: The 1973 oil crisis caused both a spike in the cost of plastics and a change in consumer priorities that put essential products over pastimes, and Nintendo lost several billion yen. In 1974, Nintendo released Wild Gunman , a skeet shooting arcade simulation consisting of a 16 mm image projector with a sensor that detects a beam from the player's light gun . Both the Laser Clay Shooting System and Wild Gunman were successfully exported to Europe and North America. However, Nintendo's production speeds were still slow compared to rival companies such as Bandai and Tomy , and their prices were high, which led to
9486-463: The Arcade CD-ROM² standard. By this point, support for both the TurboGrafx-16 and Turbo Duo was already waning in North America; thus, no North American version of either Arcade Card was produced, though a Japanese Arcade Card can still be used on a North American console through a HuCard converter. Many variations and related products of the PC Engine were released. The PC Engine CoreGrafx
SECTION 50
#17327728207959672-836: The Arcade Card Duo , designed for PC Engine consoles already equipped with the Super CD-ROM² System, and the Arcade Card Pro , a model for the original CD-ROM² System that combines the functionalities of the Super System Card and Arcade Card Duo into one. The first games for this add-on were ports of the Neo-Geo fighting games Fatal Fury 2 and Art of Fighting . Ports of World Heroes 2 and Fatal Fury Special were later released for this card, along with several original games released under
9858-579: The CD-ROM optical format with the TurboGrafx-CD add-on. The "16" in its North American name and the marketing of the console as a 16-bit platform despite having an 8-bit CPU was criticized by some as deceptive. In Japan, the PC Engine was very successful. It gained strong third-party support and eventually became the Super Famicom 's main rival. However, the TurboGrafx-16 failed to break into
10044-473: The CD-i , and Sony's independent efforts resulted in the creation of the PlayStation console . The first issue of Nintendo Power magazine, which had an annual circulation of 1.5 million copies in the United States, was published in 1988. In July 1989, Nintendo held the first Nintendo Space World trade show with the name Shoshinkai to announce and demonstrate upcoming Nintendo products. That year,
10230-545: The Famicom's primary controller (as well as a standard NES controller). Another controller known as the TurboPad was also launched separately with the console, which added two "Turbo" switches for the I and II buttons with three speed settings. The switches allow for a single button press to register multiple inputs at once (for instance, this allows for rapid fire in scrolling shooters). The TurboPad became standard-issue with
10416-666: The Game Boy Advance SP , an improved version of the Game Boy Advance with a foldable case, an illuminated display, and a rechargeable battery. By the end of its production cycle in 2010, over 43.5 million units had been sold worldwide. Nintendo also released the Game Boy Player , a peripheral that allows Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games to be played on the GameCube. In 2004, Nintendo released
10602-522: The Game Boy Color was released. In addition to backward compatibility with Game Boy games, the console's similar capacity to the NES resulted in select adaptations of games from that library, such as Super Mario Bros. Deluxe . Since then, over 118.6 million Game Boy and Game Boy Color consoles have been sold worldwide. In May 1999, with the advent of the PlayStation 2 , Nintendo entered an agreement with IBM and Panasonic to develop
10788-466: The MSX computer. Nintendo liked this concept, as it had the ability to store full games and overwrite existing ones. However, as the technology for it was expensive, and that they would have to pay royalties for each card sold, Nintendo instead decided to pass on Hudson Soft's proposal. This eventually led to the partnership between Hudson Soft and NEC. The two companies successfully teamed up to then develop
10974-445: The Nintendo 2DS , a version of the 3DS that lacks the clamshell design of Nintendo's previous handheld consoles and the stereoscopic effects of the 3DS. With 13.5 million units sold worldwide, the Wii U is the least successful video game console in Nintendo's history. In 2014, a new product line was released consisting of figures of Nintendo characters called amiibos . On 25 September 2013, Nintendo announced its acquisition of
11160-485: The Nintendo 64 controller 's Rumble Pak peripheral, however, are not supported by the built-in "Rumble" feature of the Wii Remote (with a Classic Controller attached) and the GameCube controller, which also happened to make a certain optional item in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time useless. With the release of Bomberman '93 , it was revealed that TurboGrafx-16 games can support full five-player games. Since
11346-691: The Nintendo DS , which featured such innovations as dual screens – one of which is a touchscreen – and wireless connectivity for multiplayer play. Throughout its lifetime, more than 154 million units were sold, making it the most successful handheld console and the second bestselling console in history. In 2005, Nintendo released the Game Boy Micro , the last system in the Game Boy line . Sales did not meet Nintendo's expectations, with 2.5 million units being sold by 2007. In mid-2005,
SECTION 60
#173277282079511532-770: The Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Mario Bros. in 1985. Since then, Nintendo has produced some of the most successful consoles in the video game industry , such as the Game Boy , the Super Nintendo Entertainment System , the Nintendo DS , the Wii , and the Nintendo Switch . It has created or published numerous major franchises, including Mario , Donkey Kong , The Legend of Zelda , Metroid , Fire Emblem , Kirby , Star Fox , Pokémon , Super Smash Bros. , Animal Crossing , Pikmin , Xenoblade Chronicles , and Splatoon , and Nintendo's mascot, Mario ,
11718-668: The Nintendo Labo line was released, consisting of cardboard accessories that interact with the Switch and the Joy-Con controllers. More than one million units of the Nintendo Labo Variety Kit were sold in its first year on the market. In 2018, Shuntaro Furukawa replaced Kimishima as company president, and in 2019, Doug Bowser succeeded Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé . In April 2019, Nintendo formed an alliance with Tencent to distribute
11904-471: The Nintendo World Store was inaugurated in New York City. Nintendo's next home console was conceived in 2001, although development commenced in 2003, taking inspiration from the Nintendo DS. Nintendo also considered the relative failure of the GameCube and instead opted to take a " Blue Ocean Strategy " by developing a reduced performance console in contrast to the high-performance consoles of Sony and Microsoft to avoid directly competing with them. The Wii
12090-499: The Sharp Corporation . In 1988, Gunpei Yokoi and his team at Nintendo R&D1 conceived the Game Boy , the first handheld video game console made by Nintendo. Nintendo released the Game Boy in 1989. In North America, the Game Boy was bundled with the popular third-party game Tetris after a difficult negotiation process with Elektronorgtechnica . The Game Boy was a significant success. In its first two weeks of sale in Japan, its initial inventory of 300,000 units sold out, and in
12276-426: The Taishō era dated to 1915 indicates that the business was named Yamauchi Nintendo but still used the Marufuku Nintendo Co. brand for its playing cards. Japanese culture stipulated that for Nintendo to continue as a family business after Yamauchi's retirement, Yamauchi had to adopt his son-in-law so that he could take over the business. As a result, Sekiryo Kaneda adopted the Yamauchi surname in 1907 and headed
12462-420: The TurboDuo , was launched in October 1992. Two updated variants were released in Japan: the PC Engine Duo-R on March 25, 1993, and the PC Engine Duo-RX on June 25, 1994. The changes were mostly cosmetic, but the RX included a new 6-button controller. The PC-KD863G is a CRT monitor with built-in PC Engine console, released on September 27, 1988, in Japan for ¥138,000. Following NEC's PCs' naming scheme,
12648-402: The TurboExpress . It can play only HuCard games. It has a 2.6-inch (66 mm) backlit, active-matrix color LCD screen, the most advanced on the market for a portable video game unit at the time. The screen contributed to its high price and short battery life, however, which hurt its performance in the market. It also has a TV tuner adapter as well as a two-player link cable. The PC Engine LT
12834-493: The TurboGrafx-CD format would also join the Virtual Console beginning in October 2007, with five titles to be released for the remainder of 2007 and ten titles for 2008, each priced at 800 points. On June 1, 2007, Nintendo of America issued a press release to announce the upcoming release of its 100th Virtual Console title, which was Zelda II: The Adventure of Link . Within this press release, Nintendo stated that more than 4.7 million Virtual Console games had been downloaded, at
13020-471: The Wii Shop Channel on November 19, 2006, alongside the launch of the Wii. While the gameplay remains unchanged for all of the classic titles offered for the Virtual Console, Nintendo has stated that some games may be improved with sharper graphics or better frame rates. In reality, however, many games suffer from drops in frame rate or have graphical glitches not present in the original, and many PAL SNES games run with significantly reduced borders compared to
13206-583: The Wii Shop Channel or Nintendo eShop for between 500 and 1200 Wii Points , or using real currency, with prices depending on the system, rarity, and/or demand. On Wii and Wii U, the Virtual Console's library of past games consisted of titles originating from the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), Game Boy , Game Boy Color , Nintendo 64 , Game Boy Advance , and Nintendo DS , as well as Sega 's Master System , Genesis/Mega Drive and Game Gear , NEC 's TurboGrafx-16 , and SNK 's Neo Geo AES . The service for
13392-414: The arcade video game market with Sheriff and Radar Scope , released in Japan in 1979 and 1980 respectively. Sheriff , also known as Bandido in some regions, marked the first original video game made by Nintendo, was published by Sega and developed by Genyo Takeda and Shigeru Miyamoto . Radar Scope rivaled Galaxian in Japanese arcades but failed to find an audience overseas and created
13578-450: The iOS and Android systems, Miitomo , was released. Since then, Nintendo has produced other similar apps, such as Super Mario Run , Fire Emblem Heroes , Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp , Mario Kart Tour , and Pokémon Go , the last being developed by Niantic and having generated $ 115 million in revenue for Nintendo. In March 2016, the loyalty program My Nintendo replaced Club Nintendo . The NES Classic Edition
13764-486: The natural environment and regional culture of Sonobe , popular culture influences like Westerns and detective fiction , along with folk Shinto practices and family media . These would each be seen in most of Nintendo's major franchises which developed following Miyamoto's creative leadership. Two key events in Nintendo's history occurred in 1979: its American subsidiary was opened in New York City, and
13950-450: The yakuza -run gaming parlors in Kyoto. Other card manufacturers had opted to leave the market not wanting to be associated with criminal ties, but Yamauchi persisted without such fears to become the primary producer of hanafuda within a few years. With the increase of the cards' popularity, Yamauchi hired assistants to mass-produce to satisfy the demand. Even with a favorable start, the business faced financial struggle due to operating in
14136-522: The "AGB_FIRM" kernel running on the other CPUs is responsible for emulating the Game Pak, applying a video filter, and allowing the brightness to be adjusted or the game quit without manually rebooting the 3DS. Many save types supported by AGB_FIRM (many of them having been discovered in September 2017, after injection became convenient and accessible to most users of custom firmware) were not employed in
14322-780: The "Play It Loud!" advertising campaign for Game Boys with different-colored casings. The Advanced Computer Modeling graphics used in Donkey Kong Country for the Super NES and Donkey Kong Land for the Game Boy were technologically innovative, as was the Satellaview satellite modem peripheral for the Super Famicom, which allowed the digital transmission of data via a communications satellite in space. In mid-1993, Nintendo and Silicon Graphics announced
14508-520: The "TurboGrafx-16", a name representing its graphical speed and strength and its 16-bit GPU . They also completely redesigned the hardware into a large, black casing. This lengthy redesign process and NEC's questions about the system's viability in the United States delayed the TurboGrafx-16's debut. The TurboGrafx-16 (branded as the TurboGrafx-16 Entertainment SuperSystem on the packaging and promotional material)
14694-638: The 1990s with the Super NES. Several accessories were released for the Wii from 2007 to 2010, such as the Wii Balance Board , the Wii Wheel and the WiiWare download service. In 2009, Nintendo Iberica S.A. expanded its commercial operations to Portugal through a new office in Lisbon . By that year, Nintendo held a 68.3% share of the worldwide handheld gaming market. In 2010, Nintendo celebrated
14880-581: The 25th anniversary of Mario's debut appearance, for which certain allusive products were put on sale. The event included the release of Super Mario All-Stars 25th Anniversary Edition and special editions of the Nintendo DSi XL and Wii. Following an announcement in March 2010, Nintendo released the Nintendo 3DS in 2011. The console produces stereoscopic effects without 3D glasses. By 2018, more than 69 million units had been sold worldwide;
15066-724: The Ambassadors at no cost before their general release; the games included marquee titles such as Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda . They were released to the general public for purchase at a later date, with additional features such as simultaneous multiplayer across multiple systems; Ambassadors received the new features as free software updates. On December 16, 2011, Ambassadors received access to ten Game Boy Advance titles, also at no charge, that were never released to those who are not Ambassadors. Unlike other Virtual Console-branded releases, GBA games are not emulated, but rather they run directly on an ARM7TDMI processor core;
15252-464: The American market and directed its U.S. operations to develop the system for the new audience. NEC Technologies boss Keith Schaefer formed a team to test the system. They found out that there was a lack of enthusiasm in its name "PC Engine" and also felt its small size was not very suitable to American consumers who would generally prefer a larger and "futuristic" design. They decided to call the system
15438-715: The Arcade Pad 6, was released by NEC Home Electronics in 1994, replacing the TurboPad as the bundled controller of the PC Engine Duo-RX (the last model of the console). A total of 686 commercial games were released for the TurboGrafx-16. In North America, the system featured Keith Courage in Alpha Zones as a pack-in game, a conversion of the PC Engine title Mashin Eiyuuden Wataru. The PC Engine console received strong third-party support in Japan, while
15624-580: The CD-ROM² unit is compatible with the LT the same way as it is with the original PC Engine and CoreGrafx. However, the LT requires an adapter to use the enhanced Super CD-ROM² unit. NEC Home Electronics released the PC Engine Duo in Japan on September 21, 1991, which combined the PC Engine and Super CD-ROM² unit into a single console. The system can play HuCards, audio CDs, CD+Gs, standard CD-ROM² games and Super CD-ROM² games. The North American version,
15810-470: The European markets were already produced, which were essentially US models modified to run on PAL television sets. NEC sold this stock to distributors; in the United Kingdom, Telegames released the console in 1990 in extremely limited quantities. By March 1991, NEC claimed that it had sold 750,000 TurboGrafx-16 consoles in the United States and 500,000 CD-ROM units worldwide. In an effort to relaunch
15996-520: The European release of the GameCube in May 2002, Hiroshi Yamauchi announced his resignation as the president of Nintendo, and Satoru Iwata was selected by the company as his successor. Yamauchi would remain as advisor and director of the company until 2005, and he died in 2013. Iwata's appointment as president ended the Yamauchi succession at the helm of the company, a practice that had been in place since its foundation. In 2003, Nintendo released
16182-515: The Famicom in America was also impacted. To differentiate the Famicom from its competitors in America, Nintendo rebranded it as an entertainment system and its cartridges as Game Paks, with a design reminiscent of a VCR . Nintendo implemented a lockout chip in the Game Paks for control on its third party library to avoid the market saturation that had occurred in the United States. The result
16368-570: The Famicom lasted until 2003. In total, around 62 million Famicom and NES consoles were sold worldwide. During this period, Nintendo created a copyright infringement protection in the form of the Official Nintendo Seal of Quality, added to their products so that customers may recognize their authenticity in the market. By this time, Nintendo's network of electronic suppliers had extended to around thirty companies, including Ricoh (Nintendo's main source for semiconductors ) and
16554-430: The Famicom. In the early 1980s, several video game consoles proliferated in the United States, as well as low-quality games produced by third-party developers , which oversaturated the market and led to the video game crash of 1983 . Consequently, a recession hit the American video game industry , whose revenues went from over $ 3 billion to $ 100 million between 1983 and 1985. Nintendo's initiative to launch
16740-429: The GameCube, even with such distinguishing features as the miniDVD format of its games and Internet connectivity for a few games, its sales were lower than those of its predecessors, and during the six years of its production, 21.7 million units were sold worldwide. The GameCube struggled against its rivals in the market, and its initial poor sales led to Nintendo posting a first half fiscal year loss in 2003 for
16926-663: The Japanese Virtual Console is also available for customers in Taiwan and Hong Kong and like other regions are able to buy Japanese Nintendo Points cards at certain retailers. On June 6, 2011, Nintendo launched the Virtual Console service for the Nintendo 3DS on the Nintendo eShop . Games released for the service include titles for the Game Boy , Game Boy Color , NES , Super NES ( New Nintendo 3DS only), Game Gear and TurboGrafx-16 games (available in Japan only). There are also special features available while playing Virtual Console games, such as viewing classic Game Boy titles with
17112-713: The Japanese Wii Shop Channel and Xbox Live Arcade in that region while the 3D Classics versions ported by M2 are still available on the Nintendo 3DS for download via the 3DS eShop. However, both North America and Europe still have both games available to download on the Wii Shop Channel and Xbox Live Arcade. While these and other removed titles can no longer be found or purchased from the Shop Channel, they remain available to those who have purchased them prior to their removal. Such users may still re-download them on their Wii consoles and even transfer them to
17298-404: The Japanese arcade market in late 1985. At this time, Nintendo adopted a series of guidelines that involved the validation of each game produced for the Famicom before its distribution on the market, agreements with developers to ensure that no Famicom game would be adapted to other consoles within two years of its release, and restricting developers from producing more than five games per year for
17484-702: The NES. In response to the competition, Uemura designed the Super Famicom , which launched in 1990. The first batch of 300,000 consoles sold out in hours. The following year, as with the NES, Nintendo distributed a modified version of the Super Famicom to the United States market, titled the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Launch games for the Super Famicom and Super NES include Super Mario World , F-Zero , Pilotwings , SimCity , and Gradius III . By mid-1992, over 46 million Super Famicom and Super NES consoles had been sold. The console's life cycle lasted until 1999 in
17670-580: The Nintendo 3DS home menu. The save feature for the Nintendo 3DS Virtual console service is similar to the Wii's. However, unlike the Wii's, the games can save a single "restore point" that can be used as much as the player wants to but is replaced and overwritten if the player makes another one. Before the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console officially fully launched in South Korea , the New Nintendo 3DS Super Mario Bros. 30th Anniversary bundle came with
17856-551: The Nintendo 3DS. TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine games were added to the service in Japan starting with Gradius and China Warrior on December 25, 2013, in Japan. R-Type and Alien Crush were later added a few months later in February, the following year. No new TG-16 games were added to the Virtual Console service again afterward. On November 12, 2015, it was announced that during a Nintendo Direct that Pokémon Red , Pokémon Blue , and Pokémon Yellow would be released on
18042-738: The Nintendo Switch in China starting in December. The theme park area Super Nintendo World opened at Universal Studios Japan in 2021. In early 2020, Plan See Do, a hotel and restaurant development company, announced that it would refurbish the former Nintendo headquarters from the 1930s as a hotel, with plans to add 20 guest rooms, a restaurant, a bar, and a gym. The building is owned by Yamauchi Co., Ltd., an asset management company of Nintendo's founding family. The hotel later opened in April 2022, with 18 guest rooms, and named Marufukuro in
18228-643: The Nippon Game brand. The company's restructuring preserved a couple of areas dedicated to playing card manufacturing. In 1970, the company's stock listing was promoted to the first section of the Osaka Stock Exchange, and the reconstruction and enlargement of its corporate headquarters was completed. The year represented a watershed moment in Nintendo's history as it released Japan's first electronic toy—the Beam Gun , an optoelectronic pistol designed by Masayuki Uemura . In total, more than
18414-423: The North American market and was a commercial failure, which has been blamed on the delayed release and inferior marketing. In Europe, the Japanese models were grey market imported, modified, and distributed in France and the United Kingdom beginning in 1988, but an official PAL model (named simply "TurboGrafx" without the "16") planned for 1990 was cancelled following the disappointing North American launch with
18600-459: The North American region. In 2010, Hudson released an iPhone application entitled "TurboGrafx-16 GameBox" which allowed users to buy and play a number of select Turbo Grafx games via in-app purchases . The 2012 JRPG Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory features a character, known as Peashy, that pays homage to the console. In 2016, rapper Kanye West 's 8th solo album was initially announced to be titled "Turbo Grafx 16". The album, however,
18786-584: The PC Engine the first video game console to use CD-ROM as a storage media. The add-on consisted of two devices – the CD player itself and the interface unit, which connects the CD player to the console and provides a unified power supply and output for both. It was later released as the TurboGrafx-CD in the United States in November 1989, with a remodeled interface unit in order to suit the different shape of
18972-602: The PC Engine. The system made its debut in the Japanese market on October 30, 1987, and it was a tremendous success. The PC Engine had an elegant, "eye-catching" design, and it was very small compared to its rivals. The PC Engine sold 500,000 units in its first week of release. The CD-ROM expansion was a major success for the CD-ROM format, selling 60,000 units in its first five months of release in Japan. By 1989, NEC had sold over 1.2 million consoles and more than 80,000 CD-ROM units in Japan. In 1988, NEC decided to expand to
19158-593: The PC-KD863G was designed to eliminate the need to buy a separate television set and a console. It output its signals in RGB , so it was clearer at the time than the console which was still limited to RF and composite . However, it has no BUS expansion port, which made it incompatible with the CD-ROM² System and memory backup add-ons. The X1-Twin was the first licensed PC Engine-compatible hardware manufactured by
19344-641: The Python 4 by QuickShot and the Stick Engine by ASCII Corporation . The TurboBooster attached to the back of the system and allowed it to output composite video and stereo audio. Hudson released the Ten no Koe 2 in Japan, which enabled the ability to save progress in compatible HuCard titles. In 1991, NEC Avenue released the Avenue Pad 3, which added a third action button labelled "III" that could be assigned via
19530-519: The Super-CD-ROM² unit, an updated version of the add-on released on December 13, which combines the CD-ROM drive, interface unit and Super System Card into one device. On March 12, 1994, NEC introduced a third upgrade known as the Arcade Card ( アーケードカード , Ākēdo Kādo ) , which increases the amount of onboard RAM of the Super CD-ROM² System to 2MB. This upgrade was released in two models:
19716-652: The TurboGrafx-16 console struggled to gain the attention of other developers. Hudson brought over many of its popular franchises, such as Bomberman , Bonk , and Adventure Island , to the system with graphically impressive follow-ups. Hudson also designed and published several original titles, such as Air Zonk and Dungeon Explorer . Compile published Alien Crush and Devil's Crush , two well-received virtual pinball games. Namco contributed several high-quality conversions of its arcade games, such as Valkyrie no Densetsu , Pac-Land , Galaga '88 , Final Lap Twin , and Splatterhouse , as did Capcom with
19902-541: The TurboGrafx-16 console was released in South Korea by a third-party company, Haitai , under the name Vistar 16 . It was based on the American version but with a new curved design. Daewoo Electronics distributed the PC Engine Shuttle in the South Korean market as well. The TurboGrafx-16 uses a Hudson Soft HuC6280 CPU—an 8-bit CPU running at 7.16 MHz paired with two 16-bit graphics processors,
20088-540: The TurboGrafx-16 console. The TurboGrafx-CD had a launch price of $ 399.99 and did not include any bundled games. Fighting Street and Monster Lair were the TurboGrafx-CD launch titles; Ys Book I & II soon followed. In 1991, NEC introduced an upgraded version of the CD-ROM² System known as the Super CD-ROM² , which updates the BIOS to Version 3.0 and increases buffer RAM from 64 KB to 256 KB. This upgrade
20274-544: The TurboGrafx-16 in North America, as well as subsequent models of the PC Engine in Japan starting with the PC Engine Coregrafx, immediately phasing out the original PC Engine Pad. All PC Engine and TurboGrafx-16 consoles only have one controller port; in order to use multiple controllers on the same system and play multiplayer games, a separate peripheral, known in Japan as the MultiTap and in North America as
20460-503: The TurboTap, was required, which allowed up to five controllers to be plugged into the system. The Cordless Multitap was also available exclusively in Japan, sold as a set with a single Cordless Pad, with additional wireless controllers available separately. Due to using different diameter controller ports, PC Engine controllers and peripherals are not compatible with TurboGrafx-16 consoles and vice versa. The TurboDuo would revert to using
20646-652: The United Kingdom, Spain, Belgium, and Australia. In 1992, Nintendo acquired a majority stake in the Seattle Mariners baseball team, and sold most of its shares in 2016. On July 31, 1992, Nintendo of America announced it would cease manufacturing arcade games and systems. In 1993, Star Fox was released, which marked an industry milestone by being the first video game to make use of the Super FX chip. The proliferation of graphically violent video games, such as Mortal Kombat , caused controversy and led to
20832-571: The United States as of 1995 , and 1.92 million CD-ROM² units sold in Japan. The final licensed release for the PC Engine was Dead of the Brain Part 1 & 2 on June 3, 1999, on the Super CD-ROM² format. The CD-ROM² is an add-on attachment for the PC Engine that was released in Japan on December 4, 1988. The add-on allows the core versions of the console to play PC Engine games in CD-ROM format in addition to standard HuCards. This made
21018-567: The United States, and until 2003 in Japan. In March 1990, the first Nintendo World Championship was held, with participants from 29 American cities competing for the title of "best Nintendo player in the world". In June 1990, the subsidiary Nintendo of Europe was opened in Großostheim , Germany; in 1993, subsequent subsidiaries were established in the Netherlands (where Bandai had previously distributed Nintendo's products), France,
21204-494: The United States, an additional 40,000 units were sold on its first day of distribution. Around this time, Nintendo entered an agreement with Sony to develop the Super Famicom CD-ROM Adapter , a peripheral for the upcoming Super Famicom capable of playing CD-ROMs . However, the collaboration did not last as Yamauchi preferred to continue developing the technology with Philips , which would result in
21390-637: The Virtual Console prior to this, the first being Battle Lode Runner from the TurboGrafx-16 , added on April 23, 2007, this and all others were originally written in English and required no localization. Despite the fact others fit the category, there are currently 25 titles listed under the "Import" genre with 1 removed: Sin and Punishment , Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (previously available in North America as part of Super Mario All-Stars ), Ninja JaJaMaru-kun , Alien Soldier (although
21576-467: The Virtual Console service on February 27, 2016, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the series. The games featured Local Play for trading Pokémon and battling, replacing the game link cable due to the Nintendo 3DS having wireless connections, but Game Boy Printer features in Pokémon Yellow , like other titles on the Virtual Console, was not be usable on the Nintendo 3DS. On March 4, 2016, during
21762-486: The Virtual Console service was discontinued on the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. Purchased titles remain playable. There were 38 Famicom, Super Famicom, Nintendo 64, Sega Mega Drive, and PC Engine games available at launch on the Wii Virtual Console for the Japanese region. The Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console launched with 7 Game Boy and Game Boy Color titles. New Virtual Console software is added on Tuesdays (Wii) and Wednesdays (Nintendo 3DS, Wii U) at 2:00 pm JST and there were
21948-902: The Virtual Console titles primarily cover only the games that have been released in Europe, Nintendo UK has commented that there is a possibility that in the future, Nintendo will localize Japanese and North American games that have never been released in Europe such as Super Mario RPG , which was released on the European Virtual Console on August 22, 2008, after being unreleased in that region for 12 years. In March 2007, Hudson released three TurboGrafx games which were not originally released in Europe: Double Dungeons , Dragon's Curse , and Battle Lode Runner . Five Hanabi Festivals have been held since, releasing former Japanese and/or North American exclusive titles. The first few Virtual Console games were released to
22134-510: The Virtual Console version of Super Mario Bros. pre-installed. The full launch includes six games with three being for the NES and three of them being for Game Boy. Nintendo of Hong Kong launched the Virtual Console in Taiwan and Hong Kong for the first time in Nintendo 3DS/Nintendo 3DS XL systems in Chinese, their first releases are the Japanese versions of Pokémon Red , Pokémon Blue , Pokémon Green and Pokémon Yellow for Game Boy on
22320-553: The Virtual Console. A select few first-party and nearly all other N64 game cartridges utilized the extra memory capability of the N64 Controller Pak . Saving of data to the Controller Pak is not supported by the Virtual Console, so for those games which used this feature, the save feature will not work properly in the Virtual Console. An extreme example is that of Mario Kart 64 which uses internal cartridge memory for progress and save game data. Consequently, all progress
22506-490: The Wii Internal Memory and function exactly as the original cartridge did. A game that in its original cartridge form did not have any form of save feature will not have any save game feature on the Virtual Console (though depending on its original system it may have the suspend feature as described below). Most first-party N64 games used internal cartridge memory for game save data and thus will save properly on
22692-498: The Wii also included games for platforms that were known only in select regions, such as the Commodore 64 (Europe and North America) and Microsoft 's and ASCII 's MSX (Japan), as well as Virtual Console Arcade , which allowed players to download video arcade games . On the other hand, the Virtual Console on Nintendo 3DS had a smaller library consisting of NES, SNES, Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Gear titles. Launching with
22878-465: The Wii at the end of 2006, Virtual Console titles had been downloaded over ten million times as of early 2008. The distribution of past games through the Virtual Console is one of Nintendo's reasons for opposing software piracy of old console games. On January 30, 2019, the Virtual Console service was discontinued on the Wii, following the shutdown of the Wii Shop Channel . On March 27, 2023,
23064-400: The Wii component cables. These updates are free of charge to those who have downloaded a previous version of the game. In later years, some games have been removed from the service due to their licenses expiring, namely R-Type and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles , among others. The three Donkey Kong Country SNES games produced by Rare were unknowingly withdrawn. Since Nintendo retains
23250-510: The Wii main menu from the game. Two exceptions to this are the N64 and Neo Geo AES, titles which do not support this feature. The N64 will allow play to be halted by returning to the Wii Menu but will require the person to start from the title screen to continue playing. Note that suspending play enables the player to pause the game indefinitely but does not function as a "save state" in that, once
23436-490: The WiiWare part of the Wii Shop Channel, as opposed to through the Virtual Console. Satoru Iwata stated in a speech on March 23, 2006, that Nintendo, Sega , and Hudson Soft were working in collaboration to bring a "best of" series of games to the Wii. At E3 2006 , Hudson also declared it would bring upwards of 100 titles to the Wii's Virtual Console. Additionally, Hudson mentioned that its lawyers were working on acquiring
23622-477: The added power and it was quickly discontinued. The final model was discontinued in 1994. It was succeeded by the PC-FX , which was released only in Japan and was not successful. The PC Engine was created as a collaborative effort between Hudson Soft , who created video game software, and NEC , a company which was dominant in the Japanese personal computer market with their PC-88 and PC-98 platforms. NEC lacked
23808-674: The advent of the Atari Jaguar console. Mattel did not market its 1979 Intellivision system with bit width, although it used a 16-bit CPU. In 1994, NEC released a new console, the Japanese-exclusive PC-FX , a 32-bit system with a tower-like design. It was a commercial failure, leading NEC to abandon the video game industry. Emulation programs for the TurboGrafx-16 exist for several modern and retro operating systems and architectures. Popular and regularly updated programs include Mednafen and BizHawk. In 2006,
23994-528: The already-manufactured stock of systems liquidated via mail-order retailers. At least 17 distinct models of the console were made, including portable versions and those that integrated the CD-ROM add-on. An enhanced model, the PC Engine SuperGrafx , was rushed to market in 1989. It featured many performance enhancements and was intended to supersede the standard PC Engine. It failed to catch on—only six titles were released that took advantage of
24180-547: The business in 1929. By that time, Nintendo was the largest playing card business in Japan. In 1933, Sekiryo Kaneda established the company as a general partnership named Yamauchi Nintendo & Co., Ltd. investing in the construction of a new corporate headquarters located next to the original building, near the Toba-kaidō train station . Because Sekiryo's marriage to Yamauchi's daughter produced no male heirs, he planned to adopt his son-in-law Shikanojo Inaba, an artist in
24366-562: The business styled itself as Marufuku Nintendo Card Co. The war created considerable difficulties for companies in the leisure sector, which were subject to new levies such as the Karuta Zei ("playing cards tax"). Nintendo subsisted and, in 1907, entered into an agreement with Nihon Senbai—later known as the Japan Tobacco —to market its cards to various cigarette stores throughout the country. A Nintendo promotional calendar from
24552-500: The company was experiencing a period of economic prosperity, the Disney cards and derived products made it dependent on the children's market. The situation was exacerbated by the falling sales of its adult-oriented playing cards caused by Japanese society gravitating toward other hobbies such as pachinko , bowling , and nightly outings. When Disney card sales began to decline, Nintendo realized that it had no real alternative to alleviate
24738-426: The company's employ and the father of his grandson Hiroshi , born in 1927. However, Inaba abandoned his family and the company, so Hiroshi was made Sekiryo's eventual successor. World War II negatively impacted the company as Japanese authorities prohibited the diffusion of foreign card games, and as the priorities of Japanese society shifted, its interest in recreational activities waned. During this time, Nintendo
24924-462: The console's racing game library, stating that, compared to "all the popular consoles, the PC Engine is way out in front in terms of the range and quality of its race games." Reviewing the Turbo Duo model in 1993, GamePro gave it a "thumbs down". Though they praised the system's CD sound, graphics, and five-player capability, they criticized the outdated controller and the games library, saying
25110-518: The console) can be used for all Virtual Console games. The controllers from the GameCube can also be used for all games on the Virtual Console, except for some multiplayer TurboGrafx-16 games that use the GameCube controller for the fifth player. As a result of this, the wireless GameCube controller (the WaveBird ) has seen increased popularity. All Virtual Console games have their buttons mapped to
25296-431: The console, retailing at ¥18,800. It was targeted primarily towards younger players with its spaceship-like design and came bundled with a TurboPad II controller, which is shaped differently from the other standard TurboPad controllers. The reduced price was made possible by removing the expansion port from the back, making it the first model of the console that was not compatible with the CD-ROM² add-on. However, it does have
25482-742: The creation of the Interactive Digital Software Association and the Entertainment Software Rating Board , in whose development Nintendo collaborated during 1994. These measures also encouraged Nintendo to abandon the content guidelines it had enforced since the release of the NES. Commercial strategies implemented by Nintendo during this time include the Nintendo Gateway System , an in-flight entertainment service available for airlines, cruise ships and hotels, and
25668-566: The discontinuation of some of their light gun products. The subsidiary Nintendo Leisure System Co., Ltd., which developed these products, was closed as a result of the economic impact dealt by the oil crisis. Yamauchi, motivated by the successes of Atari and Magnavox with their video game consoles , acquired the Japanese distribution rights for the Magnavox Odyssey in 1974, and reached an agreement with Mitsubishi Electric to develop similar products between 1975 and 1978, including
25854-464: The extra video hardware if played on a SuperGrafx) were released, and the system was quickly discontinued. The SuperGrafx has the same expansion port as previous PC Engine consoles, but requires an adapter in order to utilize the original CD-ROM² System add-on, due to the SuperGrafx console's large size. The PC Engine Shuttle was released in Japan on November 22, 1989, as a less expensive model of
26040-525: The figure increased to 75 million by the start of 2019. In 2011, Nintendo celebrated the 25th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda with the orchestra concert tour The Legend of Zelda : Symphony of the Goddesses and the video game The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword . In 2012 and 2013, two new Nintendo game consoles were introduced: the Wii U , with high-definition graphics and a GamePad controller with near-field communication technology, and
26226-727: The first microprocessor for video games systems, the Color TV-Game series, and an arcade game inspired by Othello . During this period, Takeda developed the video game EVR Race , and Shigeru Miyamoto joined Yokoi's team with the responsibility of designing the casing for the Color TV-Game consoles. In 1978, Nintendo's research and development department was split into two facilities, Nintendo Research & Development 1 and Nintendo Research & Development 2 , respectively managed by Yokoi and Uemura. Shigeru Miyamoto brought distinctive sources of inspiration, including
26412-418: The first World of Nintendo stores-within-a-store , which carried official Nintendo merchandise, were opened in the United States. According to company information, more than 25% of homes in the United States had an NES in 1989. In the late 1980s, Nintendo's dominance slipped with the appearance of NEC 's PC Engine and Sega 's Mega Drive , 16-bit game consoles with improved graphics and audio compared to
26598-498: The first company to succeed in mass-producing plastic playing cards in Japan. Some of the company's employees, accustomed to a more cautious and conservative leadership, viewed the new measures with concern, and the rising tension led to a call for a strike . However, the measure had no major impact, as Hiroshi resorted to the dismissal of several dissatisfied workers. In 1959, Nintendo moved its headquarters to Kamitakamatsu-cho, Fukuine, Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto. The company entered into
26784-459: The first time since the company went public in 1962. In 2002, the Pokémon Mini was released. Its dimensions were smaller than that of the Game Boy Advance and it weighed 70 grams, making it the smallest video game console in history. Nintendo collaborated with Sega and Namco to develop Triforce , an arcade board to facilitate the conversion of arcade titles to the GameCube. Following
26970-407: The front slot of the console. PC Engine HuCards have 38 connector pins. TurboGrafx-16 HuCards (alternatively referred to as "TurboChips") reverse eight of these pins as a region lockout method. The power switch on the console also acts as a lock that prevents HuCards from being removed while the system is powered on. The European release of the TurboGrafx-16 did not have its own PAL-formatted HuCards as
27156-401: The game is resumed, the user will be able to pause play again (overwriting the suspend point) but will not be able to return to the previously suspended state. The suspend feature will not be available if the user resets the Wii with the reset button on the front of the console during gameplay. Further, if the Wii loses power during gameplay, there is no further suspend state, nor will there be
27342-767: The game was previously available in North America through the Sega Channel ), DoReMi Fantasy: Milon's DokiDoki Adventure , Puyo Puyo 2 , Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa , Dig Dug , Gley Lancer , Super Fantasy Zone , Break In , Star Parodier (Removed), Cho Aniki , Final Soldier , Digital Champ: Battle Boxing , Gradius II: Gofer no Yabou , Bomberman '94 , Detana!! TwinBee , Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair , Pulseman , Secret Command , Street Fighter II: Champion Edition , Castlevania: Rondo of Blood , Ironclad , Ufouria: The Saga and Monster World IV . Furthermore, at least two import titles ( DoReMi Fantasy and Puyo Puyo 2 ) were released without any English translation, and thus only Japanese text
27528-496: The game, they are playable in either Japanese or English. Super Mario World is the only game that can be bought in either language. Companies currently supporting by publishing games are Bandai Namco Entertainment , Hudson Soft , Irem , Konami , Nintendo , Taito and Windysoft . Since Nintendo of Taiwan and Nintendo of Hong Kong never offered a Chinese version of the Wii console in Hong Kong or Taiwan, they have released Japanese Wii's in that region and by hardware extensions,
27714-532: The greatest of all time . In 1995, Nintendo released the Virtual Boy , a console designed by Gunpei Yokoi with stereoscopic graphics . Critics were generally disappointed with the quality of the games and red-colored graphics, and complained of gameplay-induced headaches. The system sold poorly and was quietly discontinued. Amid the system's failure, Yokoi formally retired from Nintendo. In February 1996, Pocket Monsters Red and Green , known internationally as Pokémon Red and Blue , developed by Game Freak
27900-495: The licenses to games from now defunct companies. Nintendo announced MSX compatibility on September 19, 2006, announcing on February 23, 2007, that the MSX titles Eggy and Aleste would be released in Japan. In February 2007, a heading for Neo Geo AES games was added to the Japanese Virtual Console page, and in September of that same year, games for that system appeared on the list of future releases, priced at 900 points each. Also in September Hudson announced that games made for
28086-418: The model, known as the PC Engine CoreGrafx II , was released on June 21, 1991. Aside from the different coloring (light grey and orange), it is nearly identical to the original CoreGrafx except that the CPU was changed back to the original HuC6280. The PC Engine SuperGrafx , released on the same day as the CoreGrafx in Japan, is an enhanced variation of the PC Engine hardware with updated specs. This model has
28272-407: The offices, for which he acquired the surrounding land and assigned the production of cards to the original Nintendo building. Meanwhile, Yokoi, Uemura, and new employees such as Genyo Takeda , continued to develop innovative products for the company. The Laser Clay Shooting System was released in 1973 and managed to surpass bowling in popularity. Though Nintendo's toys continued to gain popularity,
28458-439: The original cartridge releases. As with disc-based games, the Virtual Console service is region-locked—that is, different versions of games are provided to different regions, and game availability may vary from region to region. Nintendo stated that the Wii Shop Channel would not be used exclusively for retro games, and WiiWare games have appeared in North America as of May 12, 2008. These original games are made available through
28644-430: The presidency and headed manufacturing operations. His first actions involved several important changes in the operation of the company: in 1951, he changed the company name to Nintendo Playing Card Co., Ltd. and in the following year, he centralized the manufacturing facilities dispersed in Kyoto, which led to the expansion of the offices in Kamitakamatsu-cho, Fukuine, Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto. In 1953, Nintendo became
28830-576: The production schedules of third-party developers influenced a delay, and the console was released in June 1996 in Japan, September 1996 in the United States and March 1997 in Europe. By the end of its production in 2002, around 33 million Nintendo 64 consoles were sold worldwide, and it is considered one of the most recognized video game systems in history. 388 games were produced for the Nintendo 64 in total, some of which – particularly Super Mario 64 , The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time , and GoldenEye 007 – have been distinguished as some of
29016-442: The prospect of continuous renewal of decks, thus avoiding the suspicions that reusing cards would generate. According to Nintendo, the business' first western-style card deck was put on the market in 1902, although other documents postpone the date to 1907, shortly after the Russo-Japanese War . Although the cards were initially meant for export, they quickly gained popularity not only abroad but also in Japan. During this time,
29202-400: The respective buttons on the controllers, however, in certain circumstances, users can use X and Y instead of A and B, if the original controller does not have X and Y buttons (for example the NES). In certain titles, such as Nintendo 64 games, there may be specific controls tailored to the Classic Controller or GameCube Controller. Nintendo 64 titles that originally provided force feedback via
29388-430: The rest of Nintendo's Latin American market due to an alliance with Juegos de Video Latinoamérica. Nintendo reached an agreement with NC Games for Nintendo's products to resume distribution in Brazil by 2017, and by September 2020, the Switch was released in Brazil. On 11 July 2015, Iwata died of bile duct cancer , and after a couple of months in which Miyamoto and Takeda jointly operated the company, Tatsumi Kimishima
29574-419: The rights to these games, the reason for their removal remained unknown, however, they have since been released on the Wii U eShop and were also added back to the Wii Shop Channel around the same time as well. Sonic the Hedgehog and its sequel Sonic the Hedgehog 2 were both removed in Japan in 2012. While the games returned to the Wii Shop Channel in 2013, they were removed yet again on October 30, 2015, on
29760-416: The same controller port that the PC Engine uses, resulting in new TurboDuo-branded versions of the TurboPad and TurboTap peripherals, known as the DuoPad and the DuoTap respectively, to be made. An official TurboGrafx-16/Duo Adapter was also produced, which was an extension cable that allowed any TurboGrafx-16 controller or peripheral to be connected into the TurboDuo console (as well as any PC Engine console as
29946-511: The same day of the Japanese release on February 27, 2016. The Pure White Nintendo 3DS released in Taiwan & Hong Kong uses the Japanese region firmware but all online features are blocked so the Japanese Nintendo eShop can't be used and likewise the Japanese Virtual Console can't be used either. Nintendo Nintendo Co., Ltd. is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto . It develops, publishes and releases both video games and video game consoles . Nintendo
30132-415: The serial number or console e-mail name can be provided). Also, if a Wii owner transfers all data on their console to a Wii U , the ability to download those titles from the Wii Shop Channel, along with all save data currently on the Wii, is transferred. Game saving is functional and intact on the Virtual Console for all games which originally had a save feature on their cartridge. Saved games are saved to
30318-446: The service on February 23, 2009, and its first Virtual Console Arcade games on March 25, 2009. There were 398 titles for the Wii, 172 title for the 3DS (184 including those available for Nintendo 3DS Ambassadors and Donkey Kong: Original Edition) and 267 titles for the Wii U available. Though the Virtual Console lineup initially only covered games that had been released in North America, George Harrison indicated in an interview that there
30504-418: The situation. After the 1964 Tokyo Olympics , Nintendo's stock price plummeted to its lowest recorded level of ¥60 . In 1965, Nintendo hired Gunpei Yokoi to maintain the assembly-line machines used to manufacture its playing cards. Yamauchi's experience with the previous initiatives led him to increase Nintendo's investment in a research and development department in 1969, directed by Hiroshi Imanishi,
30690-477: The system in the North American market, in mid-1992 NEC and Hudson Soft transferred management of the system in North America to a new joint venture called Turbo Technologies Inc. and released the TurboDuo, an all-in-one unit that included the CD-ROM drive built in. However, the North American console gaming market continued to be dominated by the Genesis and Super NES , which was released in North America in August 1991. In May 1994, Turbo Technologies announced that it
30876-671: The ten official GBA releases, but can be used by games unofficially "injected" into a GBA VC title. On February 1, 2012, Punch-Out!! the first non-ambassador NES game was released on the Virtual Console service. Since then, other NES games that were not part of the ambassador program were released including third party games by Capcom, Konami, and Tecmo such as; Mega Man , Castlevania , and Ninja Gaiden . Furthermore, two NES import titles were added in North American and Europe; Summer Carnival '92 Recca and The Mysterious Murasame Castle in both 2013 and 2014, respectively. Game Boy Advance games were never released to non-Ambassadors on
31062-453: The third-party support was "almost nonexistent" and that most of the first party games were localizations of games better suited to the Japanese market. In 2009, the TurboGrafx-16 was ranked the 13th greatest video game console of all time by IGN , citing "a solid catalog of games worth playing," but also a lack of third-party support and the absence of a second controller port. The controversy over bit width marketing strategy reappeared with
31248-442: The traditional green screen or viewing them in an emulated border. A separate, but related set of games are 3D Classics , which are remakes of classic titles that make use of the Nintendo 3DS's stereoscopic 3D capabilities. When asked if Virtual Boy games were going to be available for download on the Virtual Console for the Nintendo 3DS , Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aimé told Kotaku that he couldn't answer, as he
31434-461: The vital experience in the video gaming industry and approached numerous video game studios for support. By pure coincidence, NEC's interest in entering the lucrative video game market coincided with Hudson's failed attempt to sell designs for then-advanced graphics chips to Nintendo ; In July 1985, Hudson Soft approached and pitched them a new add-on for the Famicom that played games using their patented Bee Cards , which they had experimented with on
31620-461: The year in 1993. In Japan, the PC Engine was very successful, and at one point it was the top-selling console in the nation. In North America and Europe, the situation was reversed, with both Sega and Nintendo dominating the console market at the expense of NEC. Initially, the TurboGrafx-16 sold well in the U.S., but eventually, it suffered from a lack of support from third-party software developers and publishers. In 1990, ACE magazine praised
31806-413: Was a financial success for Nintendo both in Japan and overseas, and led Coleco to fight Atari for licensing rights for porting to home consoles and personal computers. In 1983, Nintendo opened a new production facility in Uji and was listed in the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange . Uemura, taking inspiration from the ColecoVision , began creating a new video game console that would incorporate
31992-410: Was a possibility that Nintendo or other Virtual Console providers would localize Japanese games that have never been released in English. This later came to reality, and former Japan-only games have appeared on the North American Virtual Console. The first game to be added with such localization was Sin and Punishment for the Nintendo 64. While other previous Japan-only titles had been released through
32178-608: Was added on March 28, 2008, for Europe's Virtual Console. and MSX support was added on May 27, 2008, for Japan's Virtual Console. On February 23, 2009, the first three Commodore 64 titles ( International Karate , The Last Ninja and Pitstop II ) were added to the North America Virtual Console for the first time. On March 25, 2009, simultaneously with Nintendo's Keynote Speech at Game Developers Conference, Nintendo launched 'Virtual Console Arcade', launching with four titles, Mappy , The Tower of Druaga , Star Force and Gaplus . On February 4, 2011, Sega announced that
32364-419: Was clear that the system was performing very poorly and NEC could not compete with Nintendo and Sega's marketing. In late 1989, NEC announced plans for a coin-op arcade video game version of the TurboGrafx-16. However, NEC cancelled the plans in early 1990. In Europe, the console is known by its original Japanese name PC Engine, rather than its American name TurboGrafx-16. PC Engine imports from Japan drew
32550-412: Was designed by Gwénaël Nicolas with stylistic departure from its predecessors, and the GameCube . During the first week of the Game Boy Advance's North American release in June 2001, over 500,000 units were sold, making it the fastest-selling video game console in the United States at the time. By the end of its production cycle in 2010, more than 81.5 million units had been sold worldwide. As for
32736-426: Was dropping support for the Duo, though it would continue to offer repairs for existing units and provide ongoing software releases through independent companies in the U.S. and Canada. In Japan, NEC had sold a total of 5.84 million PC Engine units as of 1995 and 1.92 million CD-ROM² units as of March 1996 . This adds up to a total of more than 6.59 million PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 units sold in Japan and
32922-479: Was eventually released in the New York City and Los Angeles test markets in late August 1989. However, this was two weeks after Sega of America released the Sega Genesis with a 16-bit CPU to test markets. Unlike NEC, Sega did not waste time redesigning the original Japanese Mega Drive system, making only slight aesthetic changes. The Genesis quickly eclipsed the TurboGrafx-16 after its American debut. NEC's decision to pack-in Keith Courage in Alpha Zones ,
33108-406: Was founded in 1889 as Nintendo Koppai by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade hanafuda playing cards. After venturing into various lines of business during the 1960s and acquiring legal status as a public company, Nintendo distributed its first console, the Color TV-Game , in 1977. It gained international recognition with the release of Donkey Kong in 1981 and
33294-643: Was named as Iwata's successor on 16 September 2015. As part of the management's restructuring, Miyamoto and Takeda were respectively named creative and technological advisors. The financial losses caused by the Wii U, along with Sony's intention to release its video games to other platforms such as smart TVs , motivated Nintendo to rethink its strategy concerning the production and distribution of its properties. In 2015, Nintendo formalized agreements with DeNA and Universal Parks & Resorts to extend its presence to smart devices and amusement parks respectively. In March 2016, Nintendo's first mobile app for
33480-432: Was named the richest company in Japan. In June 2021, the company announced plans to convert its former Uji Ogura plant, where it had manufactured playing and hanafuda cards, into a museum tentatively named "Nintendo Gallery", targeted to open by March 2024. In the following year, historic remains of a Yayoi period village were discovered in the construction site. TurboGrafx-16 The console has an 8-bit CPU and
33666-454: Was partly supported by a financial injection from Hiroshi's wife Michiko Inaba, who came from a wealthy family. In 1947, Sekiryo founded the distribution company Marufuku Co., Ltd. responsible for Nintendo's sales and marketing operations, which would eventually go on to become the present-day Nintendo Co., Ltd., in Higashikawara-cho, Imagumano, Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto . In 1950, due to Sekiryo's deteriorating health, Hiroshi Yamauchi assumed
33852-414: Was released in Japan for the Game Boy, and established the popular Pokémon franchise. The game went on to sell 31.37 million units, with the video game series exceeding a total of 300 million units in sales as of 2017. In 1997, Nintendo released the Rumble Pak , a plug-in device that connects to the Nintendo 64 controller and produces a vibration during certain moments of a game. In 1998,
34038-475: Was released in November 2006, with a total of 33 launch games. With the Wii, Nintendo sought to reach a broader demographic than its seventh-generation competitors, with the intention of also encompassing the "non-consumer" sector. To this end, Nintendo invested in a $ 200 million advertising campaign. The Wii's innovations include the Wii Remote controller, equipped with an accelerometer system and infrared sensors that allow it to detect its position in
34224-436: Was released in November 2016. The console is a version of the NES based on emulation, HDMI , and the Wii remote. Its successor, the Super NES Classic Edition , was released in September 2017. By October 2018, around ten million units of both consoles combined had been sold worldwide. The Wii U's successor in the eighth generation of video game consoles , the Nintendo Switch , was released in March 2017. The Switch features
34410-442: Was released in several forms: the first was the PC Engine Duo on September 21, a new model of the console with a CD-ROM drive and upgraded BIOS/RAM already built into the system. This was followed by the Super System Card released on October 26, an upgrade for the existing CD-ROM² add-on that serves as a replacement to the original System Card. PC Engine owners who did not already own the original CD-ROM² add-on could instead opt for
34596-427: Was unfamiliar with the platform. "As a consumer, I have experience with every Nintendo platform and, I think every accessory, including the Superscope, with the exception of the Virtual Boy... so it's difficult for me to articulate a point of view back to our parent company [in Japan] why we absolutely have to have a Virtual Boy store" The author of the piece, Kotaku 's Stephen Totilo, called upon readers to "argue for
#794205