98 Fun Facts About Nintendo

In what year was Nintendo originally founded?

Founder Fusajiro Yamauchi's first products were handmade hanafuda; the name Nintendo is often said to mean "leave luck to heaven", though even his descendants are unsure.

What was the first video game system Nintendo ever made, a series of dedicated consoles sold only in Japan from 1977?

The Color TV-Game series was five dedicated home consoles released only in Japan between 1977 and 1980, years before the Famicom and NES.

The character later known as Mario first appeared, as 'Jumpman', in which 1981 arcade game?

Donkey Kong, the 1981 arcade platform game, had Mario, then called Jumpman, rescuing Pauline.

Which Nintendo designer co-created The Legend of Zelda series alongside Shigeru Miyamoto?

Takashi Tezuka co-designed the 1986 original with Miyamoto and then directed A Link to the Past (1991) and Link's Awakening (1993).

Which Nintendo handheld launched in 2001 with a 32-bit ARM processor?

The Game Boy Advance launched in Japan on March 21, 2001, built around a 32-bit ARM7TDMI processor while staying backward compatible with Game Boy cartridges.

In what year did the Famicom, Nintendo's first cartridge-based home console, launch in Japan?

The Famicom launched in Japan on July 15, 1983 at ¥14,800 with three launch games, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr. and Popeye, all ports of Nintendo arcade hits.

Which Nintendo console was announced in 1999 under the codename "Dolphin"?

The GameCube was unveiled as Project Dolphin at E3 1999 and released in 2001; the codename survives in its model number, DOL-001.

When was the original Game Boy handheld console first released in Japan?

April 21, 1989 was the Japanese launch, with Alleyway, Baseball, Super Mario Land and Yakuman as the four launch titles.

In which Japanese city was Nintendo originally founded?

Kyoto has been home since 1889; Nintendo is still headquartered there and listed its stock on the Kyoto Stock Exchange in 1962.

The Nintendo Switch was released worldwide on 3 March of which year?

March 3, 2017 was launch day; the Switch succeeded the Wii U, whose commercial failure had pushed Nintendo toward the hybrid idea in the first place.

Before its October 2016 reveal, the Switch was known publicly by which two-letter codename?

NX was the placeholder name Nintendo used from Satoru Iwata's March 2015 announcement until the October 20, 2016 trailer revealed the Nintendo Switch.

Which 2018 Switch fighting game carried the slogan 'Everyone is here!'?

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate launched December 7, 2018 with every fighter from the series' history, more than 70 at launch, under the tagline 'Everyone is here!'

What does Nintendo call the Switch play mode where the console is propped on its kickstand?

Tabletop mode props the screen on its kickstand so the detached controllers can be used away from a TV; Nintendo's other two modes are TV mode and handheld mode.

The Switch's system-on-chip comes from which chipmaker's Tegra family?

Nvidia supplies the chip: the original Switch runs a custom Tegra X1, the same ARM-based system-on-chip family used in the Nvidia Shield TV.

What was the US launch price of the Nintendo Switch?

$299.99 was the US launch price; the box held the console, dock, two detachable controllers and a grip but no pack-in game.

In September of which year was the handheld-only Nintendo Switch Lite released?

The Switch Lite arrived on September 20, 2019 at $199.99; its controls are built in and it cannot be docked to a TV.

What did Nintendo call the Wii U's screen-equipped main controller?

The Wii U GamePad carried a 6.2-inch resistive touchscreen and could stream the game for off-TV play.

What is the best-selling Nintendo Switch game of all time, at more than 71 million copies?

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, an enhanced Switch port of the Wii U's Mario Kart 8, passed 70 million copies in 2025, roughly 20 million ahead of Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Roughly how many million copies did Animal Crossing: New Horizons sell in its first 12 days?

11.8 million copies (11.77 million) sold between its March 20, 2020 launch and March 31, as the first COVID-19 lockdowns began.

In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, who sells players the deserted-island getaway package?

Tom Nook, the tanuki who runs Nook Inc., sells the getaway package and then hands you the house loan, as he has since the 2001 original.

Which Zelda game launched alongside the Switch and won The Game Awards' Game of the Year?

Breath of the Wild was a Switch launch title and won Game of the Year at The Game Awards over Persona 5 and PUBG; its sequel Tears of the Kingdom followed on May 12, 2023.

Which Switch launch title is a collection of face-to-face mini-games like Quick Draw and Milk?

1-2-Switch launched alongside the console and asked players to look at each other rather than the screen in mini-games such as Quick Draw, Milk and Samurai Training.

Nintendo claimed the Joy-Con's 'HD Rumble' haptics could simulate the feel of what?

Ice cubes in a glass: at the Switch reveal presentation Nintendo said HD Rumble could let players feel how many virtual ice cubes were clinking in a glass.

Nintendo Labo, announced in January 2018, combined Switch games with kits made from what material?

Cardboard: Labo's Toy-Con kits were flat-pack cardboard sheets folded into a piano, fishing rod and robot suit that the console and its controllers slotted into.

Nintendo Switch Online, the paid subscription service, launched in which month and year?

Nintendo Switch Online launched in September 2018 (September 18 in the Americas), bundling online play, cloud saves and a library of NES games.

In July 2024 the Switch passed which home console as Nintendo's longest-running without a successor?

The NES had gone about seven years; the Switch 2 finally arrived on 5 June 2025.

The Nintendo Switch 2 launched on 5 June 2025 at what US price?

$449.99 was the standalone US price; the Switch 2's 7.9-inch 1080p console sold more than 3.5 million units in its first four days, a Nintendo launch record.

How do the Switch 2's Joy-Con 2 controllers attach to the console?

Magnetically: Joy-Con 2 snap onto the console with magnets and release with a button, replacing the original's rails; they can also be slid on a surface as a mouse.

Which racing game was the Switch 2's headline launch title in June 2025?

Mario Kart World was the Switch 2's flagship launch game, sold alone or in a console bundle, and introduced 24-racer open-world courses.

Which 1980 Nintendo arcade flop had its unsold cabinets converted into a 1981 hit?

Radar Scope shipped about 3,000 cabinets to the US in 1980 and most went unsold, so Nintendo had Shigeru Miyamoto design a replacement game to recycle them.

Gunpei Yokoi created the Game & Watch handhelds in 1980 using technology borrowed from what?

Portable calculators: Yokoi saw a bored commuter fiddling with an LCD calculator and built Game & Watch on the same cheap Sharp LCD and chip technology.

Which 1995 Nintendo console, with headache-inducing red stereoscopic graphics, sold poorly and was quietly dropped?

The Virtual Boy, a 1995 tabletop headset with red LED displays, sold under 800,000 units and was dropped within a year; designer Gunpei Yokoi left Nintendo in 1996.

Mario was named after Mario Segale, who was what to Nintendo?

Before that the character was simply 'Jumpman' in Donkey Kong.

Kirby was named partly in honour of John Kirby, who did what for the company?

Miyamoto also liked how harsh the name sounded against such a cute character; Sakurai always meant him to be pink, though the Game Boy showed him white.

Pokémon Red and Green, which launched the franchise, were released in Japan in February of which year?

Pokémon Red and Green launched in Japan on February 27, 1996, developed by Game Freak for the Game Boy; Western players got them as Red and Blue.

Which Nintendo president said 'in my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer'?

He was the first president unrelated to the Yamauchi family and created the Nintendo Direct format; he died in 2015 aged 55.

The Nintendo DS sold more than how many million units in its lifetime?

154 million: the DS family, launched in 2004, sold 154.02 million units, with the touchscreen and built-in wireless multiplayer as its two big innovations.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) was the first video game film to gross how much worldwide?

Chris Pratt voiced Mario and Jack Black Bowser; it finished 2023 second only to Barbie.

Which handheld launched in 2011 with a 3D screen that needed no glasses?

The Nintendo 3DS used a parallax-barrier screen that only worked from a narrow sweet spot, with a slider to dial the 3D down to zero; it kept the DS clamshell and backward compatibility.

Which puzzle game was bundled with the Game Boy in North America and Europe?

Henk Rogers persuaded Nintendo of America's Minoru Arakawa that a simple puzzler would reach far more people than a Mario game; it was also the first title to use the Game Link Cable.

What is the best-selling Nintendo 64 game, with nearly 12 million copies sold?

Super Mario 64 sold about 11.9 million copies, ahead of Mario Kart 64 and GoldenEye 007; its free-roaming analog camera set the template for 3D platformers.

Which studio originally developed the 2016 mobile hit Pokémon Go with Nintendo?

Niantic, spun out of Google in 2015, built Pokémon Go on the location data of its earlier game Ingress; Scopely bought Niantic's games business in 2025.

Which 1986 NES game revealed in its endings that its armoured hero Samus Aran was a woman?

Metroid (1986) has five endings keyed to completion time; only the faster ones show Samus with her helmet off or out of the suit, revealing a woman.

In which year did the Super Famicom, known abroad as the SNES, launch in Japan?

The Super Famicom launched in Japan on November 21, 1990; North America waited until August 1991, and the frenzied Japanese launch reportedly prompted a government request to release future consoles on weekends.

Under what codename was the Wii developed before its name was announced in 2006?

Revolution was the codename from its E3 2004 announcement until the name Wii was revealed in April 2006; Nintendo said 'Wii', pronounced 'we', was easy to say in any language.

In 1982, Nintendo of America bought 27 acres in which city to build its long-term base?

Redmond, Washington: Minoru Arakawa bought the 27 acres with arcade profits, and Microsoft moved its own campus to the same suburb in 1986.

Which British studio made GoldenEye 007 and Banjo-Kazooie for the Nintendo 64?

Rare, based in Twycross, Leicestershire, sold its games under the Rareware label; Microsoft bought the studio in 2002 for $375 million.

Which unusual side business did Nintendo run in Kyoto in 1960?

Daiya Taxi was one of several 1960s experiments alongside instant rice and a vacuum cleaner; the oft-repeated claim that it also ran love hotels has never been documented.

Hiroshi Yamauchi became principal owner of which MLB team in 1992?

The Seattle Mariners: Yamauchi put up $75 million in 1992 to keep the club from moving to Tampa, transferred his stake to Nintendo of America in 2004, and never attended a game.

Nintendo's fourth president, who took over in 2002, had been a programmer at which studio?

HAL Laboratory: Satoru Iwata joined it part-time in 1980 while at university, programmed Balloon Fight and Kirby's Dream Land, and became its president before moving to Nintendo.

Who succeeded Tatsumi Kimishima as Nintendo's sixth president in June 2018?

Shuntaro Furukawa took over on June 28, 2018 at 46, having run Nintendo's corporate planning and sat on The Pokémon Company's board as Nintendo's representative.

After leaving Nintendo, Gunpei Yokoi led development of which Bandai handheld?

The WonderSwan, designed by Yokoi's company Koto Laboratory, reached Japan in March 1999 after his death in a 1997 road accident; its launch puzzle game Gunpey carries his name.

Which extendable grabber toy did Gunpei Yokoi create for Nintendo in 1966?

The Ultra Hand (1966) used scissor-like handles to extend a lattice arm and grab ball-shaped objects; it sold over a million units and launched Yokoi's career as a toy designer.

Shigeru Miyamoto got his Nintendo job in 1977 after impressing Yamauchi with what?

His toy designs: Miyamoto showed Hiroshi Yamauchi prototypes such as animal-shaped coat hangers and was hired as Nintendo's first staff artist in the planning department.

Which of Shigeru Miyamoto's hobbies inspired the Pikmin games?

Gardening: Miyamoto's own garden inspired Pikmin (2001), much as his boyhood cave exploring fed The Legend of Zelda; he also plays guitar, mandolin and banjo.

Who was hired in 1984 as Nintendo's first dedicated music composer?

Koji Kondo joined in 1984 as the first employee hired purely to write music; his Super Mario Bros. theme entered the US National Recording Registry in 2023, a first for game music.

Nintendo developed the N64 with which company under the banner "Project Reality"?

Silicon Graphics, the Mountain View workstation maker, signed the Project Reality deal in August 1993; its MIPS-based chips powered the console that finally arrived in mid-1996.

The N64's Expansion Pak raised the console's RAM from 4 MB to how much?

8 MB: the Expansion Pak added 4 MB of RDRAM in the bay on top of the console; Majora's Mask required it, and Perfect Dark needed it for its full campaign.

At CES in June 1994, Nintendo announced its upcoming 64-bit console under what name?

Ultra 64 was the name shown at the June 1994 CES alongside the arcade games Killer Instinct and Cruis'n USA; the 'Ultra' was dropped and the console launched as the Nintendo 64 in 1996.

Nintendo's 2001 home console delivered its games on which proprietary disc format?

MiniDVD: the 8 cm Game Discs held about 1.46 GB, and most consoles could not play ordinary DVDs or CDs at all.

IBM's PowerPC processor for Nintendo's 2001 console carried which codename?

Gekko was the 486 MHz PowerPC CPU built on IBM's copper-interconnect process; Flipper was the GameCube's graphics chip, and Broadway and Hollywood were the Wii's CPU and GPU.

Sony engineer Ken Kutaragi secretly designed which part of the Super NES?

His bosses were furious when they found out; Sony chief Norio Ohga saved his job, and Kutaragi went on to father the PlayStation.

What was the Wii's US launch price in November 2006?

$249.99 bought a Wii with Wii Sports packed in on November 19, 2006; it out-sold the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, ending at 101.63 million units.

The Wii U, Nintendo’s worst-selling home console, sold how many million units?

13.56 million: the Wii U's lifetime total over four years on sale, against 101.63 million for the Wii it succeeded; production ended weeks before the Switch launched.

The Wii U was the first Nintendo home console to support what?

HD graphics: the Wii U output 1080p, arriving six years after the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 had made high definition standard; the Wii had topped out at 480p.

What does the "DS" in Nintendo DS stand for?

Dual Screen: the two LCDs sat in a clamshell with the lower one doubling as a touchscreen; the slimmer DS Lite alone made up over 60 percent of the line's shipments.

What was the Nintendo DS's internal development codename?

Nitro was the codename, which survives in the 'NTR' prefix on DS hardware and cartridge model numbers; Hiroshi Yamauchi said the DS would lift Nintendo 'to heaven' or sink it 'to hell'.

The clamshell Game Boy Advance SP dropped which feature found on every earlier Game Boy?

The headphone jack was gone: headphones needed an adapter that plugged into the charging port, so with Nintendo's own adapter you could not charge and listen at once.

Where was the NES test-marketed when it first went on sale in the US in October 1985?

New York City got the October 18, 1985 test launch, backed by a buy-back guarantee to retailers; Los Angeles followed in February 1986 and the nationwide release in September 1986.

In which year did the Game Boy Color launch in Japan?

The Game Boy Color launched in Japan on October 21, 1998; combined with the original Game Boy the line sold 118.69 million units.

Nintendo Power magazine, launched in 1988, published its final issue in which year?

2012: the final issue, number 285, was dated December 2012; the magazine grew out of the Nintendo Fun Club News newsletter and had been produced under licence by Future US since 2007.

The NES robot R.O.B. worked with only two games: Stack-Up and which other?

Gyromite: R.O.B. pressed the A and B buttons of a second controller to move pipes in Gyromite and stacked blocks in Stack-Up; the robot let Nintendo pitch the NES as a toy to wary retailers.

What do the letters in the NES accessory R.O.B. stand for?

Robotic Operating Buddy: in Japan it launched in July 1985 as the Family Computer Robot, and Nintendo of America pitched it as a cross between E.T. and R2-D2.

Which Super Mario Bros. (1985) level was built as a deliberate tutorial?

World 1-1: its first mushroom is placed so it is hard to avoid, teaching players that it is different from a Goomba and actually helps them.

Why was Yoshi, planned for the NES Mario games, held back until Super Mario World?

Hardware limitations: Miyamoto wanted Mario riding a dinosaur from the first Super Mario Bros., but the NES could not draw it; Shigefumi Hino drew the final Yoshi for the Super NES's dinosaur-themed world.

In Super Mario Odyssey, what is the name of Mario's sentient hat companion?

Cappy, a ghost-like Bonneter from the Cap Kingdom, lets Mario capture enemies and objects when thrown, including a Bullet Bill, a Tyrannosaurus and a tank called a Sherm.

Wario's name blends "Mario" with which Japanese word?

warui ('bad'): the name is a pun on Mario, with the W also reading as an upside-down M; Wario debuted as the final boss of Super Mario Land 2 (1992), designed by Hiroji Kiyotake.

Waluigi debuted as Wario's doubles partner in which 2000 Nintendo 64 game?

Mario Tennis (2000) introduced Waluigi as Wario's doubles partner; he was created by Camelot's Fumihide Aoki rather than Nintendo, and Charles Martinet voiced him from the start.

Star Fox (1993) drew its polygons using which chip built into the cartridge?

The Super FX chip, a RISC coprocessor inside the cartridge, rendered Star Fox's polygons; the game was co-developed with Britain's Argonaut Software and retitled Starwing in PAL regions.

Super Mario Bros. 3 was plugged in the climax of which 1989 film?

The Wizard, the Fred Savage road movie, used Super Mario Bros. 3 in its Video Armageddon finale; the game did not reach North America until February 1990, so the film was a feature-length trailer.

Splatoon's squid-derived playable characters are known as what?

Inklings, squid-humanoids who swim through their own ink, are Splatoon's playable species on a far-future Earth; their octopus counterparts, Octolings, became playable in Splatoon 2's Octo Expansion (2018).

Pikmin's Captain Olimar comes from which planet?

Hocotate is Olimar's home planet; he works for Hocotate Freight and crash-lands on PNF-404, the Pikmin planet, in his rocket the S.S. Dolphin.

Masahiro Sakurai first pitched Super Smash Bros. (1999) under what working title?

Dragon King: The Fighting Game was the prototype Sakurai and Satoru Iwata built in 1997-98 without approval, using placeholder fighters; Nintendo characters came later, and it shipped with twelve.

How old was Masahiro Sakurai when he created Kirby?

19: Sakurai, born in 1970, designed Kirby in 1990 and directed Kirby's Dream Land (1992); he later voiced King Dedede himself in Kirby 64 and the Smash series.

Which childhood hobby of Satoshi Tajiri inspired Pokémon?

Insect collecting: Tajiri caught bugs in the Tokyo suburbs as a boy, and seeing two Game Boys joined by a link cable gave him the idea of trading creatures the way he once swapped bugs.

Super Nintendo World opened first at which theme park, in March 2021?

Universal Studios Japan in Osaka opened Super Nintendo World on March 18, 2021 after a pandemic delay; Universal Studios Hollywood followed in February 2023 and Epic Universe in Orlando in May 2025.

Ocarina of Time introduced which lock-on system for focusing on enemies?

Z-targeting, named after the N64 controller's Z trigger, locked the camera onto one enemy; the fairy Navi's hovering cursor was built to show players what they were targeting.

Before Nintendo, Reggie Fils-Aimé launched the Bigfoot and Big New Yorker at which chain?

Pizza Hut: as its marketing chief Fils-Aimé launched the Bigfoot pizza and the Big New Yorker; his CV also included Procter & Gamble, Guinness, Panda Express and VH1 before he ran Nintendo of America from 2006 to 2019.

Who replaced Reggie Fils-Aimé as president of Nintendo of America in 2019?

Doug Bowser took over on April 15, 2019, having joined Nintendo from Electronic Arts in 2015; the internet delighted in a Nintendo boss who shares a surname with Mario's arch-enemy.

The first Nintendo Direct presentation was streamed in which year?

2011: the first Nintendo Direct streamed on October 21, 2011; Satoru Iwata hosted them in both English and Japanese until his death, and Yoshiaki Koizumi took over as general host in 2017.

Wii Sports bundled tennis, baseball, bowling, golf and which fifth sport?

Boxing, controlled with the Remote and Nunchuk, was the fifth sport; Wii Sports came free with the console everywhere except Japan and South Korea and sold 82.9 million copies.

Wii Fit, Nintendo's exercise game, required which peripheral, which doubled as a bathroom scale?

The Wii Balance Board measures weight like a bathroom scale and tracks the centre of balance; Wii Fit and Wii Fit Plus sold a combined 43.8 million copies.

The 64DD peripheral connected to the internet through which dedicated service?

Randnet, a joint venture with Recruit, was the 64DD's dial-up service; only ten disks were released and about 15,000 subscribers remained when it shut in February 2001, never having left Japan.

What was Nintendo's first smartphone app, released in March 2016?

Miitomo, launched in Japan on March 17, 2016, had users answer pre-made questions as Mii avatars; Nintendo shut it down on May 9, 2018 as the user base dwindled.

Famicom owners in Japan could have games rewritten cheaply at in-store kiosks called what?

Disk Writer kiosks in toy shops rewrote a Famicom Disk System disk with a new game for ¥500; the rewritable disks also held saves, which enabled The Legend of Zelda's save feature in 1986.

Brain Age's on-screen guide is a caricature of which real Japanese neuroscientist?

In PAL regions the 2005 DS game was sold as Dr Kawashima's Brain Training, mixing Stroop tests, arithmetic and Sudoku.

By what name was Peach known in the original Super Mario Bros. manual in English?

Princess Toadstool was her English name from the 1985 manual; the first Western use of 'Peach' came in Yoshi's Safari (1993), and in Super Mario 64 she signs her letter with both names.

Before being redesigned as a turtle-like Koopa, Bowser was first conceived as what animal?

Miyamoto based the early design on the Ox-King from the Toei film Alakazam the Great until a colleague pointed out it looked more like a turtle.