Rise of Nintendo

After the video game crash, the Japanese company Nintendo would decide to enter the North American market. They had already released several toys and electronic devices before entering American markets. Nintendo would release the Famicom in 1983 in Japan only. Then it would be released to the rest of the world from 1985-87 leading to a revival of the entire industry. However Nintendo did things differently than Atari. It created a system to prevent anyone from releasing a game onto the system. This system is the Nintendo quality seal. Nintendo also decided to restrict box art to combat false marketing which had aided in the crash of the market.

After seeing the profitability of the industry, many new companies would try to produce their own console to compete with Nintendo. At first none of them succeeded. However, over time Nintendo had alienated third party developers with monopolistic practices. This would lead to Sega to release its own consoles. One of these consoles, the Sega Genesis, was a great success across the world. This would land Sega in some controversy as some games featured blood and violence in an industry still widely considered to be for kids. Sega would fail to overtake Nintendo and would stop producing consoles after their final console, the Dreamcast, was a commercial failure.

Nintendo would directly compete with Sony until the release of the Gamecube. The Gamecube's failure was part of a trend of diminishing sales that Nintendo had been struggling with. This would lead Nintendo to try more experimental console designs such as the Wii. This would put Nintendo into a less direct competition with Sony as it targeted casual audiences with the Wii and with the DS. Nintendo would become the king of handheld gaming.

Nintendo has numerous flagship series on its consoles. Some of the biggest are Super Mario Bros, Legend of Zelda, and Metroid. Nintendo focuses the most on its exclusives of the big console manufacturers. Nintendo is also the most aggressive with perceived violations of intellectual property. Nintendo has entered many lawsuits with those who they deem as violators of their intellectual property.