Facts You Probably Didn't Know About The Nintendo Company

I’m sure you know by now that we love Nintendo on Bit Rebels. We write about it a lot, and we’ve covered everything from the original NES all the way up to the Wii. I still remember the first time I discovered Mario. I was just a kid, and of course, at that moment I was convinced I had to get the Mario lunchbox, the Mario sneakers and the Mario t-shirt. Playing videos games back then was considered mostly an activity for boys, not girls. I didn’t care though. I was all over it.

In all the Nintendo posts I’ve written, one thing that I’ve never really thought about before recently is the Nintendo company itself. If you’ve never read about Nintendo’s history, it’s a fascinating story. In Japanese, the word Nintendo means “leave luck to heaven.” According to this infographic, the very first artist at the company, Shigeru Miyamoto, is the one who created Mario. Shigeru got his inspiration from watching his idol, Walt Disney. By 1990, Mario was more recognizable than Mickey Mouse.

Here’s an interesting little stat. During Thanksgiving week in 2009 (which normally kicks off the Christmas shopping season in the States), Nintendo sold 2.5 systems every second. Wow! Online MBA put together this concise Nintendo infographic jam packed with interesting Nintendo company stats. I had no idea how huge this company is. It makes sense though since over 500 million games have been sold between Mario, Pokemon and Zelda.