Between 1963 and 1968, Yamauchi invested in several business lines for Nintendo that were far from its traditional market and, for the most part, were unsuccessful.
Two key events in Nintendo’s history occurred in 1979: its American subsidiary was opened in New York City, and a new department focused on arcade game development was created. In 1980, one of the first handheld video game system, the Game & Watch, was created by Yokoi from the technology used in portable calculators.
The first issue of the magazine Nintendo Power, which had an annual circulation of 1.5 million copies in the United States, was published in 1988.
In 1998, the Game Boy Color was released. In addition to allowing 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.
In May 1999, with the advent of the PlayStation 2,
In 2003, Nintendo released the Game Boy Advance SP, an improved version of the Game Boy Advance that incorporated a folding design, 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.
Following an announcement in March 2010,
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 was named as Iwata’s successor on 16 September 2015.
The NES Classic Edition was released in November 2016. The console is a redesigned version of the NES that includes support for the HDMI interface and Wiimote compatibility.
Nintendo announced plans in June 2021 to convert its former Uji Ogura plant, where it had previously made playing and Hanafuda cards, into a museum for the company to be completed by the 2023 fiscal year.