Nintendo, the world's family-friendly video game maker, formed under less virtuous auspices. Before Nintendo made video games, they made playing cards for gangsters and ran their own love hotel, which some assert their own president frequented—during work. Saucy! It's deathly quiet. I can hear my footsteps as I trundle down a small side-street, where the road narrows and then widens. It's early afternoon, and snowing—the last rattle of winter. Near a bridge that straddles the river, next to a lifeless fruit stand, sits the birthplace of one of the most successful video game companies in the world. You wouldn't know the three-story stone structure—a rarity in a country that historically favors wood—is anything special if you missed the plaque that reads, "The Nintendo Playing Card Co." The windows are dark. Some cardboard boxes are visible in the second story window. You also wouldn't know that the area houses several Yakuza strongholds, unless you'd talked to the locals. The area looks safe and sleepy by Western standards. But that's the thing about crime and Japan. Like yakuza tattoos, it seethes just underneath the surface. In the late 19th century, thirty-year-old Fusajiro Yamauchi saw an opportunity when the Meiji Government legalized hanafuda playing cards in 1886 after opening itself to the West. Those like Yamauchi who previously played cards illicitly were permitted to openly indulge in their pastime. Yamauchi set up shop in fall 1889, producing hand-made hanafuda cards. The stone building, erected in 1933, often referred to as the original Nintendo headquarters, is not where the card company was born. The first Nintendo office was in a small, two-story building next to the stone structure. It's here that Yamauchi started crafting and selling Nintendo hanafuda. The original building has since been bulldozed. It is now a parking lot. In recent years, a more sanitized version of Nintendo's history was embraced by the company, one in which Nintendo went from a humble playing card company to an international and iconic game company. Rags to riches. The truth is actually riches to even more riches. It involves Japanese organized crime and gambling, sex, and even linguistics. READ MORE HERE : http://kotaku.com/5784314/the-nintendo-theyve-tried-to-forget-gambling-gangsters-and-love-hotels
I'm surprised people don't know this. They've been around like 100 years. They stated of making Japanese playing cards and crap. Sent from my VK700 using Tapatalk
I wonder how much those cards are worth today. I always knew about the cards though just not the sex.
Well japan likes to portray itself as hardworking and honest, but the country really has a history of anything but. Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk
