Nintendo made playing cards for 90 years
Then it made Mario.
For almost a century, Nintendo produced hanafuda — small, hand-painted playing cards used in traditional Japanese games. It survived by staying small and staying patient. Only in the 1970s, under Hiroshi Yamauchi, did the company begin experimenting with electronic toys. The Game Boy arrived in 1989 — exactly one hundred years after the first pack of cards left the workshop.
Editor's Note
A century of quiet craft is not a detour on the way to greatness. It is the training.
