Nintendo

Nintendo Co., Ltd. (Japanese: 任天堂株式会社, Hepburn: Nintendō Kabushiki gaisha) is a Japanese multinational consumer electronics and software company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. Nintendo is the world's largest video game company by revenue. Founded on September 23, 1889, by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it originally produced handmade hanafuda playing cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as cab services and love hotels.

Abandoning previous ventures in favor of toys in the 1960s, Nintendo then developed into a video game company in the 1970s, ultimately becoming one of the most influential in the industry and Japan's third most-valuable company with a market value of over $85 billion. Nintendo of America is also the majority owner of Major League Baseball's Seattle Mariners.

The word Nintendo can be roughly translated from Japanese to English as "leave luck to heaven".As of March 31, 2014, Nintendo has cumulative sales of over 670.43 million hardware units and 4.23 billion software units. The company is known for creating some of the most iconic video game franchises, including Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Pokémon.

Nintendo 64

The Nintendo 64 (Japanese: ニンテンドー64, Hepburn: Nintendō Rokujūyon), stylized as NINTENDO⁶⁴ and often referred to as N64, is Nintendo's third home video game console for the international market. Named for its 64-bit central processing unit, it was released in June 1996 in Japan, September 1996 in North America, March 1997 in Europe and Australia, September 1997 in France and December 1997 in Brazil. It is the industry's last major home console to use the cartridge as its primary storage format, although current handheld systems (such as the PlayStation Vita and Nintendo 3DS) also use cartridges. While the Nintendo 64 was succeeded by Nintendo's MiniDVD-based GameCube in November 2001, the consoles remained available until the system was retired in late 2003.

Code named Project Reality, the console's design was mostly finalized by mid-1995, though Nintendo 64's launch was delayed until 1996. As part of the fifth generation of gaming, the system competed primarily with the PlayStation and the Sega Saturn. The Nintendo 64 was launched with three games: Super Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64, released worldwide; and Saikyō Habu Shōgi, released only in Japan. The Nintendo 64's suggested retail price at launch was US$199.99 and it was later marketed with the slogan "Get N, or get Out!". With 32.93 million units worldwide, the console was ultimately released in a range of different colors and designs, and an assortment of limited-edition controllers were sold or used as contest prizes during the system's lifespan. IGN named it the 9th greatest video game console of all time; and in 1996, Time Magazine named it Machine of the Year.

GameCube

The GameCube (Japanese: ゲームキューブ, Hepburn: Gēmukyūbu, officially called the Nintendo GameCube, abbreviated NGC in Japan and GCN in Europe and North America) is a home video game console released by Nintendo in Japan on September 14, 2001; in North America on November 18, 2001; in Europe on May 3, 2002; and in Australia on May 17, 2002. The sixth-generation console is the successor to the Nintendo 64 and competed with Sony Computer Entertainment's PlayStation 2 and Microsoft's Xbox.

The GameCube is the first Nintendo console to use optical discs as its primary storage medium. The discs are similar to the miniDVD format; as a result of their smaller size and the console's small disc compartment, the system was not designed to play standard DVDs or audio CDs. The console supports online gaming for a small number of titles via the broadband or modem adapter and connects to the Game Boy Advance via the link cable, allowing players to access exclusive in-game features using the handheld as a second screen and controller.