Acquired

Nintendo's Origins

Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal 3h 27m 37 months ago

Every company has a story. Learn the playbooks that built the world’s greatest companies — and how you can apply them.

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Show Notes

You may think you know the Nintendo story: a plumber named Mario, a princess named Zelda… and didn’t they buy the Seattle Mariners at some point? We thought we knew it too. And then we started researching and were blown away.

The lovable Disney-like Nintendo that we know today is a 130 year-old a playing card company (i.e. gambling), forged in the shadowy world of the Yakuza and shaped by a four-generation cycle of bitter family betrayal. And its unlikely transformation into a global multi-billion dollar media monopoly was led by an iron-fisted patriarch who — amazingly — never played a video game in his life! Get ready for one of our favorite stories Acquired has ever told — we couldn’t make this one up if we tried!

Links:

Our Atari episode with Nolan Bushnell

Video of id Software’s legendary PC “port” of Super Mario Brothers 3

Episode sources

Carve Outs:

Everything Everywhere All At Once

Michael Lewis on Tim Ferriss and on CSPAN

Sponsors:

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Intapp: https://bit.ly/intappceleste

Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentry

Anthropic: https://bit.ly/acquiredclaude25