Nintendo

Japanese video game company headquartered in Kyoto that makes the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 consoles and their software. Founded in 1889 as a playing-card maker, it is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Industry: Video game hardware and software | Location: Kyoto, Japan | Founded: 1889

About Nintendo

Nintendo is a Japanese video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It designs and sells game consoles and software, and it is one of the best-known names in the global games industry. The company dates back to 1889, when Fusajiro Yamauchi started it in Kyoto as Nintendo Koppai to make handmade hanafuda playing cards. Over the following decades it moved its offices within Kyoto, with its current headquarters in the Minami-ku district since 2000. In the mid-twentieth century Nintendo tried several unrelated ventures, including a taxi company and a hotel business, before turning to electronics. Nintendo entered video games with its first console, the Color TV-Game, in 1977. Its international breakthrough came with the arcade title Donkey Kong in 1981, followed by the Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Mario Bros. in 1985. Shuntaro Furukawa is the company's current president. The business is built around its own hardware platforms and the franchises released on them. The original Nintendo Switch was followed by the Switch 2, which launched in 2025. According to figures reported on the company's results for the fiscal year ended 31 March 2026, net sales rose 98.6 percent to about 2.3 trillion yen and operating profit rose 27.5 percent to 360.1 billion yen. Switch 2 had sold 19.86 million units by the end of that fiscal year, and Mario Kart World was the flagship title with 14.7 million copies. Nintendo sold 3.8 million units of the original Switch in the same period, down about 65 percent from the year before. The company has said it plans to sell 16.5 million Switch 2 units and 2 million original Switch units in the current fiscal year, and it announced a Switch 2 price increase taking effect in Japan on 25 May and in Europe, the United States and Canada on 1 September. Trade press reported that the share price fell sharply after the results. Nintendo has a notable link to the Gulf. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund bought a 5.01 percent stake in 2022 and, according to a 2024 report, held 7.54 percent after reducing it from 8.58 percent, remaining one of the company's largest shareholders. The fund's games arm, Savvy Games, has said it aims to invest broadly in the Japanese games industry rather than buy more Nintendo shares. On the operations side, Nintendo of Europe took over Nintendo's activities in Saudi Arabia, covering marketing, online infrastructure and distribution, in the second half of 2023; before that, the market had been handled by Nintendo in Japan. Arab News reported in May 2025 that Nintendo was expanding in Saudi Arabia with an online store and the coming launch of the Switch 2.

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