Thread by @TodoNintendoS

Nintendo has meant a lot to me ever since I began playing videogames, and due to my curious nature, I've tried to share my love for it by posting many Nintendo facts on Twitter

Today, I wanted to take it further so... here's the ENTIRE history of Nintendo... in a Twitter thread!

The thread contains, in total, 108 tweets. To prevent posting them all at once, I will post them split into nine chapters throughout the day, with Chapter 1 coming in just a few minutes. Hope you enjoy the read!

Nintendo was founded in 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi (1859-1940) and was named Nintendo Koppai, a name which may sound familiar if you’ve played Pikmin 3 since Koppai is the home planet of the three protagonists: Alph, Brittany and Charles. (1/108)

Of course, videogames didn’t exist in 1889 so, as I guess you all know, they began their business making handcrafted playing cards named Hanafuda which, despite being focused on videogames, still produce and sell, including exclusive Mario-themed sets. (2/108)

Card games had been popular in Japan since 1549, after they were brought by European missionaries. These games were banned many times, so the Japanese kept coming up with new card games to the point where it became an endless loop and all bans were lifted in the 1880s. (3/108)

These new card games eventually originated Hanafuda, which were mostly played by the yakuza in illegal casinos, but not by average Japanese people. What Nintendo did was making Hanafuda popular again. In fact, Yamauchi himself used to play cards illegally before 1889. (4/108)

All of these cards were all handmade and done in a small local in Kyoto, which was in an area with high Yakuza presence. What you see below is the oldest known picture of a Nintendo HQ. Notice the English text on top of the sign: Marufuku Nintendo Card Co., (5/108)

Nintendo wasn’t the first business created by the Yamauchi family. In 1885, Fusajiro’s father Naonana Yamauchi founded Haiko Honten K.K, a concrete contracting company which still operates today. This company built their new HQ in 1933 and even their current HQ in Kyoto. (6/108)

This new HQ happened because of the success of Nintendo’s playing cards. It was located exactly where the first HQ was, except this time it “evolved” to a three story building next to a smaller local (pictured) which was demolished in 2004 and turned into a parking lot. (7/108)

The three-story building that survived the demolition can still be visited today. The building is currently inactive, but was left intact for posterity. In fact, the original plaques in English and Japanese can still be seen next to the front door (thanks @Corbininjapan!) (8/108)

But now, it’s time to go back to cards, which were the only thing Nintendo kept releasing until the 60s. Many people don’t know that they didn’t just make Hanafuda, as they also published more Japanese card games and even Western cards, which they liked to call "Trumps". (9/108)

In the 50s, Nintendo was a large playing cards company. They managed to get Disney’s permission to release Disney cards (pictured) and get their first TV ads, which tripled Nintendo’s profits. Other licences include Popeye, Bugs Bunny, Astro Boy and even adult film stars (10/108)

Not only does Nintendo still produce playing cards, they also love to include references to their Hanafuda cards in recent videogames, such as WarioWare Gold (in a specific microgame), and in Nintendo Labo and Super Mario Odyssey as hidden Easter Eggs. (11/108)

Now, Nintendo is mostly known for making games. However, to preserve their card game legacy, the Shigureden museum, designed by Shigeru Miyamoto himself, was founded in 2006 thanks to a $20m donation from Hiroshi Yamauchi alongside a Nintendo DS game of the same name (12/108)

In 1965, Nintendo hired Gunpei Yokoi as a maintenance manager. Since his work was done rather quickly, he spent the rest of his time at work crafting small toys with spare material, without Hiroshi Yamauchi (president of Nintendo from 1949 until 2002) knowing about it. (13/108)

One day, Hiroshi Yamauchi caught Gunpei Yokoi secretly working on one of his toys and asked him to have a little talk about it. Yokoi expected the worst, however, it turns out Yamauchi was really impressed and wanted to mass-produce it. That toy was the Ultra Hand. (14/108)

The Ultra Hand was a small toy sold for 600 yen ($5.49) that could pick up items from a distance and that sold about two million units. It has even been referenced in many recent Nintendo videogames, such as Mario Kart 8 or The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. (15/108)

After the mass success of the Ultra Hand, Gunpei Yokoi was promoted from maintenance duty to product development. Nintendo shifted their focus from card games to toys. The next bunch of tweets will showcase some of their most notable toys, released between 1965 and 1980. (16/108)

Soon after the Ultra Hand, the Ultra Machine came out, a device also designed by Gunpei Yokoi that pitched baseballs automatically, as baseball was pretty popular in Japan. It was even released outside of Japan renamed “Slugger Mate” and sold over a million units. (17/108)

Another popular toy was the Ten Billion Barrel (1980), a plastic cylinder divided into six levels which could be rotated in order to leave all balls of one colour in each column. It was a worldwide success and it’s been referenced in many games such as Metroid Prime. (18/108)

Another lesser-known yet popular at the time toy were the N&B blocks, also known as Nintendo’s version of Lego blocks, which were incredibly popular in Japan thanks to TV ads, though their quality was rather low. An entire world in Mario Land 2 is made out of N&B blocks. (19/108)

Since the mind behind all of those toys, Gunpei Yokoi, had an electrical engineering background, some electronic toys were also created such as the Love Tester, a device that guessed how much two persons loved each other which was just an electrical conductivity meter. (20/108)

In the subject of electronic devices, in 1970 Nintendo partnered with Sharp to release a series of light guns, which emitted small light flashes that activated a mechanism when a target was hit. These guns are considered to be the precursor of the well-known NES Zapper. (21/108)

In fact, one of these light guns was actually named “Duck Hunt” and inspired the NES game of the same name. It came with a projector that displayed images of flying ducks, which were the targets (and quack sounds). Despite costing almost $90, it sold incredibly well. (22/108)

Speaking of old toys that inspired NES game titles, Nintendo released the Mach Rider in 1972: three different-colured vehicles with a launchpad to charge them. This one wasn’t actually designed by Gunpei Yokoi, as it was created by Hasbro but marketed by Nintendo. (23/108)

During these years, Nintendo also released several board games and was in charge of marketing MB’s Twister in Japan, though it wasn’t successful. For board games, Nintendo also partnered with Disney once again and created many Disney board games between 1963 and 1965. (24/108)

Nintendo had established themselves quite well in the toy industry. However, in the way, they did other experiments that didn’t go that well, including office supplies like pens or printers that stopped working too soon and instant rice in another partnership with Disney (25/108)

Another notable failure was the Mamaberica: a baby stroller that was quickly removed from shelves after many babies (and even parents) suffered minor injuries because of how poorly made it was. Because of this, it’s pretty much impossible to find one today. (26/108)

Other old Nintendo products include Chiritori (a remote-controlled robot cleaner which you can see in the picture), Unilac (very simple furniture), alarm clocks, a Candy Machine (also pictured), and many more toys I didn’t talk about because it would’ve been too much. (27/108)

If you want to dig deeper into the many toys and products Nintendo used to make before making videogames, consider checking out blog.beforemario.com and The History of Nintendo Vol. 1 by Florent Gorges, which were major sources on my research. Thanks! (28/108)

Most of the electronic toys Nintendo released in the 70s enjoyed success. But at the same time, videogames were starting to become popular. In 1972, the first ever commercial home console, the Magnavox Odyssey, was released, and even had a light gun peripheral. (29/108)

Inspired by said peripheral, Nintendo began releasing some light gun models themselves, as I mentioned earlier. However, in 1975, they did their actual first step in the world of videogames, as they managed to license and distribute the Magnavox Odyssey in Japan. (30/108)

Despite the success of the first home consoles, there weren’t many companies actually creating them. Nintendo knew they’d succeed if they developed their own, and in 1977, they partnered with Mitsubishi to release the Color TV Game 6, Nintendo’s first home console. (31/108)

As the name implies, the Color TV Game 6 contained 6 built-in games, including Pong and Tennis, and allowed multiplayer. Just one week after, the Color TV Game 15 was released, which sold over a million units and even appears as an Assist Trophy in Super Smash Bros. (32/108)

And now, it’s finally time to talk about the man, the myth, the legend: Shigeru Miyamoto, who joined Nintendo in 1977 as a junior employee. His first project was the Color TV-Game Racing 112. However, another kind of games was starting to become popular: arcade games. (33/108)

In 1980, Nintendo created their videogame division, led by Gunpei Yokoi, and began developing several arcade games, the most popular being Radar Scope. However, they were way more successful in Japan than in North America, where most arcade machines were left unsold. (34/108)

This completely changed in 1981, after the release of Donkey Kong, with Shigeru Miyamoto as its creative mastermind and one of the first examples of platforming games. It was the very first game starring Mario, though he was known as “Jumpman” at the time. (35/108)

Seeing how much Donkey Kong succeeded, they kept releasing arcade games using the same strategies than with Donkey Kong. Most notably Mario Bros. (not Super Mario Bros.). Most of their popular arcade games were ported to consoles, but without Nintendo’s involvement. (36/108)

In 1982, Nintendo entered the handheld market with Game & Watch, small devices designed by Gunpei Yokoi with a screen that could only play one game, each sold for about $20. Today, they’re known for the many references in videogames such as Smash Bros. or Nintendo Land. (37/108)

Nintendo kept releasing Game & Watch machines until 1991, even releasing Disney and themed games as well as Mario and Zelda machines once the franchises had become popular worldwide. However, Nintendo’s real deal was about to happen: the Famicom. (38/108)

In 1982, Nintendo developed a prototype named the “Advance Video System”, which had a very similar design to the NES, except it had a keyboard and a joystick as the controller. It was never released, but the prototype is on display at the Nintendo World Store. (39/108)

In 1983, Nintendo released their first major game console in Japan: the Famicom, selling half a million units in just two months. Soon after, they began to receive complaints that it would randomly freeze due to a bug, which led to the removal of all systems from shelves (40/108)

While they were fixing the Famicom to release it again, they considered releasing the console outside of Japan, but Atari refused to help distribute the console in the US. Plus, there was another much major problem happening at the time: the video game crash of 1983. (41/108)

The videogame crash of 1983 was a massive recession in the American videogame industry, causing a drop of almost 97% in videogame sales due to a saturation of available games, most with very low quality, that cost a lot to produce but failed to sell properly. (42/108)

Of course, Nintendo avoided releasing anything during those hard times. In 1985, Nintendo finally decided to release the Famicom in the US, renamed as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES): a massive success which regained consumer trust regarding videogames in the US. (43/108)

To prevent making the same mistakes that led to the 1983 crash, Nintendo would only release games that received their Seal of Quality, and third-party developers could only make up to five games in a year. Nintendo didn’t want to flood the market with bad games. (44/108)

In 1985, their success would become significantly greater worldwide thanks to the release of the well-known Super Mario Bros, directed and produced by Shigeru Miyamoto. Currently, it has sold over 43 million copies and is the 7th biggest-selling videogame ever. (45/108)

The success of Super Mario Bros increased the sales of both the Famicom and the NES significantly, easily outselling all of its competitors. As a comparison, the NES sold almost 62 million units in its lifetime, while the Sega Master System sold about 18 million units. (46/108)

The NES also marked the birth of many well-known videogame franchises that are still very well-known today, including The Legend of Zelda, Kirby, Metroid, Tetris, Final Fantasy, Mega Man, Metal Gear… and many popular games such as Ice Climber or Balloon Fight. (47/108)

During the Famicom years, many important employees for the company joined. Most notably: composer Koji Kondo, game designer Takashi Tezuka, programmer and future president Satoru Iwata and Kirby creator Masahiro Sakurai, who joined affiliate HAL Laboratory being just 19. (48/108)

Another important event for the NES was the release of the first issue of Nintendo Power, a magazine that became immensely popular among American Nintendo fans thanks to its game walkthroughs and reveals. Its last issue was published in December 2012. (49/108)

Finally, Nintendo’s first major console didn’t just enjoy success overseas. Japan loved Mario so much that a film based on its universe and a 3-episode OVA series were released in 1986 and 1989, respectively. America also got the Captain N comics and animated series. (50/108)

The Famicom and the NES were still enjoying their success, but Nintendo, who was still selling Game & Watch systems, wanted to take handheld gaming to the next level and released the Game Boy in 1989, with best-sellers Tetris and Super Mario Land as its launch titles. (51/108)

At the time, most handheld systems by other companies had screens which consumed a lot of battery and stopped working rather soon. This wasn’t a problem for the Game Boy thanks to its black and green LCD screen, which also made the console much cheaper. (52/108)

The Game Boy was another invention by the mastermind behind most of Nintendo’s biggest-selling products: Gunpei Yokoi. The name “Game Boy” was actually proposed by Earthbound director Shigesato Itoi, who considered the console as a “companion” to the Famicom and the NES. (53/108)

The release of the Game Boy didn’t mean that the NES era would come to an end, as Nintendo kept releasing major games for the NES such as Super Mario Bros. 3, which was released in 1990. The last licenced NES game was Wario’s Woods, released in February 1994. (54/108)

In November 1990, Nintendo released the Super Famicom in Japan, which was released in August 1991 in America as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES for short). By that time, the Super Famicom had already sold over 1.6 million units alone in Japan (55/108)

The Super Famicom and the SNES had pretty high technical specifications for its time, allowing 16-bit graphics that could display a total of 32768 colors and allowed the rotating of sprites (Mode 7) to generate 3D effects. Its audio subsystem was designed by Sony. (56/108)

Speaking of Sony, Nintendo partnered with them to develop a CD-ROM peripheral for the SNES, which eventually evolved into a standalone console named Nintendo PlayStation. However, for unknown reasons, Nintendo suddenly decided to pull out of the partnership. (57/108)

Instead, Nintendo decided to partner with Philips, while Sony began to continue developing the console they had started working on with Nintendo. The partnership with Philips resulted on the Philips CD-i. And we don’t talk about the Philips CD-i, you know… (58/108)

Despite these rather small complications, Nintendo’s plans pretty much assured them a bright future. In 1992, for some weird reason, they bought the Seattle Mariners baseball team. In fact, Nintendo of America still retains 10% of the ownership share from the team. (59/108)

In May 1993, Nintendo was officially in the Top 10 leading companies in the world, mostly due to the fact that they had just announced their new gaming console: a 64-bit system that would be able to render 3D environments and models, codenamed Project Reality. (60/108)

In 1994, Project Reality got its first official name: Ultra 64. It’s the first official name because, as you may have guessed, it was changed to Nintendo 64. This is because Konami owned the Ultra trademark, as it was their subsidiary that made games such as Metal Gear. (61/108)

The Ultra 64 had a rather weird announcement, as it was showcased running Killer Instinct, which was later released on the SNES, not the Nintendo 64. However, its official release in 1995 was a success, selling 500,000 units on launch date, mostly due to Super Mario 64. (62/108)

By 1995, Nintendo was dominating both the handheld and the home console market and opened headquarters in Australia and the UK. When the N64, it looked that their success was going to keep going. However, 1995 was also the year when complications suddenly began. (63/108)

As I said earlier, the Nintendo 64 had a pretty decent launch worldwide, and launch game Super Mario 64 is considered one of the most revolutionary games of all-time. First months were great for Nintendo, but trouble began after several months had passed… (64/108)

The first and most important problem came from Sony, who released the PlayStation in December 1994 alongside a massive marketing campaign which ended up eclipsing the Nintendo 64 campaign months later. Sony had turned into their first competitor, taking Sega’s place. (65/108)

Despite this, Nintendo managed to do quite well, so Sony’s campaign wasn’t a major problem… until several months later, when consumers noticed that the Nintendo 64 was lacking games, mostly due to the fact that they still kept their strict policies from the Famicom era. (66/108)

The problem of the N64 lacking games got more and more serious, as most third-party companies noticed that developing games for the PlayStation was much more affordable because of the CD format, which has less manufacturing costs than Nintendo’s cartridge format. (67/108)

But trouble didn’t end there. Not only did Sony become a problem. Before, Nintendo also managed to get themselves into trouble. In 1995, Nintendo released the Virtual Boy in Japan, the first console ever that could display stereoscopic 3D graphics with simulated depth. (68/108)

The Virtual Boy was a massive failure. It sold poorly during its first weeks, as it was too expensive and uncomfortable to play due to its red and black graphics, which caused motion sickness. It was discontinued with only 22 games released and a failed American release. (69/108)

Today, Nintendo likes to laugh at their own commercial failure by including the console as an item or an Easter Egg in games such as Animal Crossing: New Leaf or Tomodachi Life. In fact, they’re giving virtual reality another go with the release of a VR Nintendo Labo Kit (70/108)

Soon after the Virtual Boy’s failure, Gunpei Yokoi announced that he was leaving Nintendo after 30 years working for the company, not without releasing the Game Boy Pocket (smaller and lighter than a Game Boy) one week before his resignation, as a gift before parting. (71/108)

Nintendo would have been in even bigger trouble if it wasn’t for a spark of hope that seemingly appeared out of nowhere: Pocket Monsters, also known as Pokémon, which debuted in 1996 with Pokémon Red and Green, directed by Satoshi Tajiri and produced by Shigeru Miyamoto (72/108)

Pokémon became (and still is) a mass success worldwide, even though Pokémon Red and Blue weren’t released until 1998 in America (1999 in Europe). Thanks to Pokémon alone, Nintendo became once again the leading video game company in the world, despite previous hard times. (73/108)

On October 4 1997, a tragic event shook Nintendo. Gunpei Yokoi was in a car driven by one of his associates when it suffered a truck crash, causing the death of Yokoi. Nintendo had suddenly lost the mastermind behind many of their older toys and the Game Boy. (74/108)

What killed Yokoi wasn’t the crash, as he was rolled over by a third vehicle as soon as he stepped out of his car to help casualties. From there, important employees such as Miyamoto are forced to go to work by car, as risk of death is greatly reduced when inside of one. (75/108)

The following years would be rather relaxing for Nintendo, as they already had a big number of franchises that gave them a lot of benefits. In 1998, they released the Game Boy Color, with Tetris DX and Wario Land II as its launch titles. Pokémon Gold/Silver came in 1999. (76/108)

Also, the problem of the N64 having few games wasn’t as important as the 20th Century was coming to an end, mostly thanks to the release of games such as Zelda Ocarina of Time, Goldeneye 007 and the many masterpieces Rare (owned by Nintendo at the time) had released. (77/108)

In May 2002, Hiroshi Yamauchi retired after 53 years as the president of Nintendo and Satoru Iwata took his spot, ending the 113-year streak of the Yamauchi family. Months earlier, in 2001, they released the GameCube to compete with the PlayStation 2 and the new Xbox. (78/108)

The GameCube was released on September 14, 2001 in Japan and two months later in North America, while Europe had to wait until May 2002. It was initially praised for its high-quality controller and launch games, which included Luigi’s Mansion and SEGA’s Super Monkey Ball (79/108)

With the GameCube, Nintendo focused a lot on creating new franchises, such as Animal Crossing (which was a port of the N64 Japanese-exclusive Animal Forest) or Pikmin, while also caring about their popular IPs with Wind Waker, Metroid Prime or Mario Sunshine, for example (80/108)

Regarding third-party support, Nintendo updated their policies and made it cheaper to develop games for their consoles, which had considerable success. However, most developers saw how their games had way more success on the PlayStation 2 and kept making games for it. (81/108)

In the end, the GameCube ended up selling 21.6 million units, when Nintendo expected to sell up to 50 million. As a comparison, the PlayStation 2 is currently the biggest-selling console of all-time, with over 155 million units sold. Nintendo had to change their strategy (82/108)

Regarding handheld gaming, Nintendo kept releasing games consistently on the newly-released Game Boy Advance, so they were still dominating the handheld market by a landslide. Plus, in 2002, Nintendo games began being marketed in mainland China under the iQue brand. (83/108)

In 2002, the European Commission sued Nintendo for their anti-competitive marketing in Europe during the 90s, as they fixed prices of their consoles to keep them unnecessarily high. They were fined 149 million euros, one of the largest fines from the Commission. (84/108)

While Nintendo didn’t really succeed during the GameCube years, their highly valuable franchises still gave them enough benefits to maintain themselves economically. For the upcoming years, they were ready to look at the past and see the mistakes they made to avoid them. (85/108)

At E3 2004, Nintendo announced their new line of handheld consoles featuring touch controls and a dual screen. Just a few months later, the Nintendo DS was released, with games such as Super Mario 64 DS and WarioWare: Touched as launch titles. (86/108)

Since Nintendo’s handhelds were extremely popular, its commercial success was pretty much evident, earning over three million pre-orders. The Nintendo DS could also generate 3D graphics, had a built-in microphone and supported wireless local connection and Wi-Fi. (87/108)

Two years later, a lighter and smaller version of the Nintendo DS, the Nintendo DS Lite, was released. Currently, it’s the biggest-selling Nintendo DS model at 93.6 million units sold. There was a lack of stock at the time as Nintendo didn’t expect such a high demand. (88/108)

Once again, Nintendo had proven their handheld console dominance, but there was another market they needed to conquer: the home console one. Their plans began at E3 2005, where they revealed their next-generation console, codenamed “Nintendo Revolution”. (89/108)

As you may have guessed, the Nintendo Revolution was eventually renamed Nintendo Wii and was released on November 2006, one year before the GameCube was officially discontinued. Launch titles included best-sellers Wii Sports and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. (90/108)

Regarding Nintendo’s competitors, Sony released the PlayStation 3 just one week before the Wii was released, with the same mindset that made the PlayStation 2 successful. Nonetheless, this time, Nintendo had a much better strategy that would outsell Sony’s system. (91/108)

While Sony focused on bringing games their fans loved, Nintendo focused on appealing new players and young gamers by releasing casual games such as Wii Sports. This, combined with the big value of Nintendo’s properties, caught their competitors off guard. (92/108)

The same strategy was also applied with Nintendo DS games, achieving a much greater number of third-party releases than in the GameCube days. Of all 1839 Nintendo DS games released in North America, only 11 of them were M-rated by the ESRB. (93/108)

In the end, the Nintendo DS almost became the biggest-selling console of all time and the Wii sold over 101 million units. The PlayStation 3 got pretty close at 87.4 million units sold, though they were aiming to outsell the PS2. Sony’s PSP sold about 76.3 million units. (94/108)

In 2008, another updated Nintendo DS model was released: the Nintendo DSi, which was just like a regular DS Lite, except it had in-built external and internal cameras and, for the first time ever, allowed the purchase of digital games in a handheld Nintendo console. (95/108)

During the Nintendo DS and Wii years, on May 2005, Nintendo opened the Nintendo World Store in New York, containing many kiosks of upcoming and new Nintendo releases, as well as display cases containing obscure or ancient Nintendo items such as Hanafuda cards. (96/108)

It’s clear that Nintendo dominated the videogame market during these years, but it was time to move forward, as their competitors had most likely learned from Nintendo’s clever strategies and were ready to counter-attack. It’s time to move to the 3DS and the Wii U era. (97/108)

Early into 2011, Nintendo released the Nintendo 3DS, the true succesor of the Nintendo DS. As its name implies, it was capable of replicating actual 3D images using parallax effects. However, most people bought the console for its catalogue rather than the 3D. (98/108)

The 3DS had a pretty weak launch, with Pilotwing Resort and Nintendogs + cats being the most successful launch titles. However, sales began to grow as 2011 was coming to an end thanks to games such as Mario Kart 7, Zelda Ocarina of Time or Super Mario 3D Land. (99/108)

However, the system that became more important in Nintendo history was announced in 2011 under the name “Project Café” and released in 2012 as the Wii U… and not in a good way, as we’re talking about a system that sold less than 14 million units during its lifetime. (100/108)

The main problem with the Wii U was the way it was announced: it was introduced in 2011 in a way that made it seem like a new controller for the Wii and not a new console, even though it was capable of running games at 1080p and had a built-in gyroscope. (101/108)

At this point, we all knew what happened to the Wii U. Despite the many good games it had, such as Super Mario 3D World, Mario Kart 8 or Splatoon (Nintendo’s first new IP since the GameCube years), many consumers had lost trust on it or simply preferred Sony’s PS4. (102/108)

The Wii U didn’t generate much benefit, and despite having enough money to withstand the Wii U years, important employees such as Satoru Iwata cut their salary by 50% so they didn’t need to fire anyone, a move that was highly praised by the industry. (103/108)

In July 2015, a bile duct growth caused the death of Nintendo’s former president Satoru Iwata, which made Nintendo cease their social media activity for a few days. Shigeru Miyamoto and Genyo Takeda led the company until the new president, Tatsumi Kimishima, appeared. (104/108)

Despite the tough situation of the Wii U, Nintendo, once again, dominated the handheld market thanks to the Nintendo 3DS, even though mobile games were becoming more and more popular. Because of this, Nintendo recently began developing games for smartphones. (105/108)

In October 2016, Nintendo revealed the Nintendo Switch, which was released on March 3rd, 2017 with 1-2-Switch and Zelda: Breath of the Wild as a launch title (after being delayed for two years), which was also the last major release on the Wii U at the same time. (106/108)

The Nintendo Switch quickly outsold the Wii U and is currently at almost 35 million units sold in just two years, which is more than the Wii U and the GameCube’s total sales. As always, this was mostly due to games such as Mario Odyssey, Zelda and Splatoon 2. (107/108)

Currently, Nintendo is still delivering a very strong Switch catalogue, including best-selling games like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and highly-anticipated upcoming games such as Animal Crossing or Super Mario Maker 2, assuring its bright future.

THANKS FOR READING! (108/108)