If you really haven’t heard ofNintendoat this point, you’ve somehow managed to avoid one of the most iconic video game companies of all time. From its cast of colorful characters to its unique consoles, Nintendo has been revolutionizing the gaming industry for decades.
What started as a playing card company in 1889 has become a household name and for good reason. Let’s take a look at a handful of ways Nintendo paved the way for the gaming scene we have today.
10The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
The Basis Of Modern Gaming
Helped the gaming industry recover from its 1983 crash by releasing to the American market in 1985, the NES has been credited more than once with saving the entire gaming industry. Where Atari struggled with quality control, Nintendo enforced a strict level of quality by limiting the games playable on the NES(many of which are still enjoyable today), which helped consumers regain their faith in the industry.
Nintendo also increased sales by bundling in fun attachments like plastic guns and floor mats. These may not have lasted, but they were a sign that Nintendo understood that games should be about having fun. Oh, and the iconic D-Pad? This is the original version. The NES is a blueprint for almost all future controllers.
9Super Mario Bros
The Creation Of A Brand
WhileSuper Mario Broscan, and should, be praised for its game play and level design, it also established one of gaming’s most famous characters by taking the initially unnamed protagonist of Donkey Kong and giving him his own platform(er). Mario remains not just the face of the company but, for many, the face of gaming as a whole. This speaks to Nintendo’s ability to create compelling character designs, and to its cultural reach.
This is the game that would go on to become a sprawling world that includes staples in Nintedo’s main line-up, like Mario Kart, Mario Party, Super Mario Maker, and others. Nintendo’s ability to create iconic, beloved characters has seen countless other games trying for the same reconigzability.
8The Legend of Zelda
The Princess Isn’t The Only Thing Being Saved
When it first came out,The Legend of Zeldawas admired for the complexity it introduced to the RPG genre. More importantly, and because of that complexity, the game introduced saving. Previous to this you would have to pause your game and hope for the best.
But because of the battery built into the cartridge of the game, you were now able to return to the place you’d been at before. This allowed the game to tell a much longer story and introduce more power-ups, andthis game became the inspiration for hundreds of other RPGs.To this day, this series of games remains a Nintendo staple.
7The Game Boy
Handheld Gaming’s Take Off Point
Who does handheld gaming better than Nintendo? That reputation began in 1989, when Nintendo came out with the Game Boy, a device that would become the standard for, and synonymous with, handheld games. Because it was battery powered and portable, you were suddenly able to play even the more complex Nintendo titles on the go.
Also, the Game Boy was a cheaper way for people to enjoy games, at less than half the price of the NES, and it increased the market for games. That, and games could now be played anywhere, by anyone, without being tethered to a TV. Even today,the Game Boy remains at the top of handheld gaming.
6Pokemon
Cross-Media Success
Beyond being a game that appeals to the human desire to collect things,Pokemonfound its success in large part because of the tie-in anime adaptation. This served as marketing for the games, while giving them a large cultural impact even beyond those who’d played it.
The incredible success of this franchise would try to be emulated over the years by other video games, but Pokemon continues to set the bar for what cross-media video game adaptions should look like. And Nintendo’s mastery of multimedia continues with movies like Detective Pikachu and the wildly popular app Pokemon Go.
5Super Mario 64
The Blueprint For 3D Gaming
3D gaming owes a lot to Super Mario 64. It was the game that proved 3D graphics could work in gaming, bringing the analogue stick seamlessly into the experience of navigating the open world. The game also changed the way that the camera moved, giving you control over both actions and camera movement at the same time.
The game also took advantage of the 3D landscape to free Mario from having to navigate a specific path and instead move more freely in the space. Taking these things for granted today is a testament to Nintendo’s revolutionary game design.
4The Wii
An Unexpected Success Story
At a time when Xbox and PlayStation were focused on making better versions of the consoles they already had, Nintendo released the Wii. It was a console based completely on motion controls, and many of the consoles came with a copy of Wii Sports. It’s difficult to overstate how odd this choice was, but Nintendo’s gamble paid off.
Even in the face of the best-selling Halo series and the success of the PlayStation 2, the Wii drew in a diverse crowd of fans with its novelty, focus on family fun, and accessible controls. Afterward, theXbox Kinectand thePlayStation Moveattempted to capitalize on the success of the Wii, but they didn’t capture the same magic.
3The DS
Touchscreen Gaming Before Touchscreen Gaming
After the success of the Game Boy, and attempting to recover from the Game Cube’s low sales, Nintendo did something interesting: it added a second screen to its next handheld console. A touchscreen. This helped the gameplay focus Nintendo’s core mission to provide accessible, casual gaming, giving them a wider market than competitors. The DS also brought in online play, setting up trends like asynchronous social play smartphones would later use.
With those touchscreen smartphones becoming more popular, it’s not surprising to see elements of gameplay used on the 3DS in mobile gaming. Other consoles have also tried to emulate this function, to varying degrees of success, such as the PlayStation Vita.
2The Nintendo Switch
The First True Hybrid Console
There is nothing on the market like the Nintendo Switch, which seeks to combine the best parts of Nintendo’s handheld gaming, motion controls, and family-focused fun. On its way to becoming the best-selling console of all time, the Switch is both budget friendly and has a massive library of games.
Now you can play higher quality games on a lightweight machine while also still enjoying the large range of party games with friends. No one else has managed to replicate the specific range of experiences that the Switch offers, though its creation has opened the door for other promising hybrid consoles, such asthe Steam Deck.
1The Legend of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild
A Breath Of Fresh Air In The Open-World Genre
WhenBreath of the Wildlaunched in 2017, other games used most of the elements that Nintendo brought to life in this formula-breaking The Legend of Zelda game, but none that had combined them all so elegantly. On a technical level, the game is designed with sight lines in mind, smooth camera transitions, and minimized reliance on the map in favor of in-world navigation.
These, paired with the elemental interactions, the climbing system, and the incorporation of small, interactive details into the landscape make Breath of the Wildfeellike a massive puzzle, ready to be solved. Not to mention that, after the tutorial, the game is truly open world, even allowing you to go straight to the final boss. To see the impact this kind of open world has had, you can look at games likeGenshin Impact. Nintendo didn’t re-design open worlds as a concept, but it re-introduced a sense of creativity and exploration.
