what is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word Nintendo I mean it's almost
like McDonald's in the food industry when you hear the word Nintendo in the gaming industry
you just think of one of the most successful video game companies of all time one of the most
iconic worldwide right but just how well do you guys know this company how well do you know the
past the history of Nintendo well after this video today if you stick with me through the whole thing
you're going to know it very well welcome to the page everybody chaos today we are going to go over
20 crazy Nintendo facts that there's a chance you didn't know every one of these so watch all the
way through the entire video you let me know in the comments how many of these you actually did
know and how many of them actually shocked you be sure to drop a like on the video if you like these
fact videos of the gaming uh sector we can do more you just give me suggestions and let's get started
at number 20 Nintendo started as a playing card company now this is an easy Google most of you
probably know this despite being known as a video game company it is actually well over a hundred
years old I've been to the Nintendo store downtown New York City Times Square I've seen the old cards
I can verify this it actually started out as a playing card manufacturer in the late 1800s
that's right the Western times guys seriously they eventually moved into board games and then various
toys but the company was over 70 years old by the time they actually made their first video game and
they've obviously never looked back since but now you know that Nintendo is making games long
before video games were invented how does that make you feel fact number 19 Mario's original
name was not Mario it was Jump Man Mario's first appearance in the video game was in 1981 with the
arcade game Donkey Kong however his name could only be found in the game's instructions of the
English version the original Japanese version of Donkey Kong left Mario completely unnamed
but in the English version he was referred to Simply as Jump Man not Michael Jordan Jumpman
Mario Jumpman eventually the name was officially changed to little Mario in the Donkey Kong sales
brochure and then briefly called Mr video that's right Mario was actually called Mr video before
later being permanently renamed to Mario the lack of a solid name stemmed from the fact that
nobody involved with the game had any idea that it would end up being so popular but once it became
clear that the character was here to stay and and everybody was attached to him the team settled on
a permanent simple and recognizable name for their new mascot could you imagine him being called
anything else what if his name was Lewis What If His Name Was Harold it just it has to be Mario
fact 18. Nintendo hated the Game Boy following the success of the NES Nintendo wanted to Branch out
they wanted to make a hand to Hell gaming device but according to numerous development reports many
of the engineers at that time thought this thing was terrible many Nintendo employees nicknamed
it the Dame game Dame was the Japanese slang for useless or hopeless the Game Boy ended up
being a huge success of course it proved all the haters wrong but who would have thought
that the original Game Boy haters were actually Engineers that worked for Nintendo themselves
fact 17. the Mario Bros power up sound was an accident everyone knows the iconic sound that
Mario makes when he picks up a mushroom but did you guys know that sound was completely
accidental it was not planned the game's composer made a mistake while recording
the soundtrack but the team absolutely loved it they loved it so much they Incorporated
it into the gameplay it's now known as one of the most iconic sounds in gaming history
tell me another iconic sound from any video game that is up there with the power up sound
fact 16. the NES was the best-selling console of all time shouldn't be too shocking that the
Nintendo Entertainment System was hands down the best-selling console of its time and it's largely
credited with ending the video game Crash of the 1980s as of 2023 the NES has sold over 61 million
units absolutely destroying just about every other game machine release prior the only one that even
comes close is the Nintendo Game and Watch which launched three years prior and sold about 43
million units but even to this day the NES is the 13th best-selling gaming console of all time and
it absolutely stomp some future Nintendo consoles like the GameCube the Wii U and yes even the n64.
fact 15 speaking of the GameCube it wasn't going to be called the GameCube it was actually going
to be called the dolphin have you ever wondered why the most popular Gamecube Emulator is called
dolphin it's because it's actually a reference to the console's original name the system announced
in 1999 under the codename dolphin and many of the hardware pieces also had a fun animal themed
codes or code name such as the CPU code name Gekko and the graphics processor was
codenamed flipper in August of 2000 Nintendo re-announced the console is the GameCube to
go along with its cube-shaped appearance but the original name lives on in Retro Gaming Community
fact 14. Nintendo partially owned the Seattle Mariners yeah during the early 90s major league
baseball team Seattle Mariners was in a lot of financial trouble desperately needed a big
investor in order to in order to avoid a buyout and a few days before Christmas of 1991 a deal
was struck between the team and Nintendo yeah the game developer bought a majority stake in
the team reported it was a way to say thank you to the state of Washington for helping Nintendo
find its footing in America Nintendo paid a hundred million dollars for the Mariners in
another 25 for reorganization of the team ultimately resulting in Nintendo holding a
60 stake in the Seattle baseball team now the deal was facilitated by Hiroshi uh yamachi and that was
Nintendo's owner at the time he reportedly had zero interest in baseball but simply wanted to
help the team out and Juice the Washington State economy as a favor after how much they helped
Nintendo in early 2023 Nintendo sold most of their interest but they do retain a 10 stake in the team
to this day that's actually pretty cool fact 13. the N64 was originally going to be disc based now
the PlayStation made great strides in the gaming industry by moving things from cartridges to disks
which they were capable of much more storage and were obviously a lot smaller disk based media was
a future but Nintendo they chose to use cartridges for their 5th gen console the Nintendo 64 but
originally they were actually going to jump on the disc based bandwagon but Nintendo ultimately
decided to go with the beefed up cartridge system due to their uncertainty surrounding the new
technology and this wouldn't be the last time Nintendo was hesitant to use more future-proof
Tech in their consoles the N64 was a huge success and technically it was an impressive machine but
the decision to stick with cartridges instead of moving to disk based media actually pushed
some third-party Publishers away during the fifth console generation I would say that's their loss
fact number 12. Mario was originally a licensed game as I mentioned earlier Mario's original name
was Jumpman but that change came after a previous idea for the game fell through originally the
Donkey Kong arcade game that created the entire Mario franchise was going to be a licensed game
based on the classic cartoon Popeye the Sailor Man Mario would have been Popeye Donkey Kong
would have been Bluto and the point of the game would have been to rescue olive oil when Nintendo
was denied permission to use the Popeye characters they changed course they made a cast of Originals
so just think if Nintendo had actually landed that Popeye deal back in the 80s we probably never
would have gotten the Super Mario franchise at all it wouldn't exist fact 11. the switch is code name
was the NX now some of you may have known this one but for the longest time Nintendo would only refer
to the switch as the n x following the failure of the Wii U Nintendo needed a new console to
replace it as soon as possible the rumors of a new system called the NX started spreading
around the internet like wildfire I mean it was to the point that many of us thought the console
was actually going to launch is the Nintendo NX sounds pretty cool the new console was publicly
announced in 2015 as code name in X and it wasn't until late 2016 that the name switch was ever said
publicly the reason behind the code name was simple it was the 10th Nintendo console in the
Roman numeral for 10 is X so you have the Nintendo NX fact number 10. the NES and the famicom were
technically different here's another that some of you may have known but others may have missed not
always the NES known as the famicon in Japan but the famicom and NES are actually technically two
different consoles Nintendo released the console in July of 1983 in Japan is the family computer
commonly referred to as the famicom and after its success Nintendo wanted to test it out in other
markets they redesigned the machine to look more like a game machine and they released it in North
America in 1985 as the Nintendo entertainment system or NES so releasing the console in North
America it was a huge risk due to the gaming industry crashed just a couple years prior but
the NES was a success it's one of the main reasons the Western games industry actually exists today
fact number nine Kirby wasn't the original protagonist of the Kirby series Kirby is one
of the most adorable characters in gaming history in a series of 2D Platformers are some of the most
influential ever made but originally the character you were controlling was not named Kirby the first
kirby video game was Kirby's Dreamland for the Game Boy 1992 but originally the game was
going to start a pink puffball named uh popo yeah po-po-po actually po-po-po three pose p-o-p-o-p-o
Po and the franchise would have been called the twinkle popo Series yeah I'm not making this up
according to the story's programming issues during dreamland's development led to Popo popo being
given a placeholder Sprite referred to as Kirby although nobody on the original team seems to know
why they settled on that name but they did to this day nobody knows why the Kirby name stuck with the
game's main character nor is it entirely clear why the placeholder Kirby Sprite ended up permanently
replacing the original popo popo Sprite but whatever it all worked out fact number eight
the Wii's original name was the revolution the GameCube may be one of the most iconic consoles in
Nintendo's lineup but it didn't actually sell that well Nintendo kind of struggled during the six
console Generations so they really needed their 7th gen effort to blow everyone out of the water
which is probably why the Wii started production is the revolution Not only was this meant to Hype
up Nintendo's plan return to dominance but it was also a reference to the fact that this
was the first video game console to primarily use motion controls and speaking of the wheat
fact number seven the Wii should have failed funny enough just about everyone expected the
weed a flop leading up to its release in 2006 and there have been many accounts from people working
on the PS3 and the Xbox 360 that basically said nobody took Nintendo seriously it was
the era of HD gaming and both Microsoft and Sony were marketing to hardcore Gamers with their new
machines so when Nintendo revealed their new motion controlled system targeted at families
and casual gamers they were written off they were they were written off by the entire industry but
ironically the Wii ended up destroying the PS3 and 360. it sold over a hundred million copies
it largely restored Nintendo's reputation as the number one name in gaming all because of the Wii
fact number six the Game Boy Advance was the first rechargeable Nintendo console this may
be hard to believe but there was a time when handheld consoles actually required disposable
batteries to run the original Game Boy required four double a batteries while the Game Boy Color
managed to get that down to two double a batteries it wasn't until the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo
actually built the machine with a rechargeable battery which was a massive Improvement and it
helped push the system even further into the mainstream since you wouldn't have to
keep burning through batteries to use it fact number five Pokemon is not the original name I
know Pokemon isn't technically a Nintendo property but since they publish all the games we're going
to put it on the list today the Pokemon franchise was originally called pocket monsters and it all
started with the original video games Pocket Monsters Red version and Green version the
franchise's tagline was quickly shortened to just Pokemon in the original games were re-released
as red and blue they changed the name from Pocket Monsters to Pokemon and it was a good idea because
it not only gave the franchise a recognizable Snappy title but it also got the word monster
off the box as this likely would have pushed some parents away from buying it for their kids I know
it sounds silly now but remember this was the 90s the world was a lot more innocent back then
fact number four the GameCube was the first Home console with a carrying handle one of the benefits
of having a video game console is the fact you can easily throw in your backpack and take it
to a friend's house and Nintendo was banking on that during the gamecube's development in fact
they were so confident that people were gonna travel with it they made it the very first ever
video game console with a carrying handle now honestly I think it was a brilliant move it was
because the gamecube's rather compact design made it perfect for taking with you on the going if you
were a GameCube kid you probably took it to your friend's house fact number three the NES zapper
was originally called the beam gun I kind of like it the duck hunt zapper is one of the most iconic
video game accessories of all time but Nintendo initially was just going to call it the beam gun
Not only was this name super boring to a lot of people but it also had the word gun in it
which may have angered parents who bought their kids the family-friendly game console and it was
also to comply with the 1988 U.S law that declared that toy guns had to be unmistakably distinct from
real guns the neighbors changed to the zapper and surprise surprise it was a best seller
fact number two the Nintendo DS was going to have two Game Boy cartridge slots one of the coolest
features of the original DS was the fact that it could play Game Boy Advance games which made it
really easy to transition from One console to the next as you probably know the original DS
had two cartridge slots one on the top for DS games one on the bottom for Game Boy games but
originally the plan was to have two Game Boy slots functionally this wouldn't have served much of a
purpose because obviously you would only have been able to play one game at a time but it would have
been convenient for carrying cartridges I guess and you presumably would have been able to select
a game you wanted to play at the home screen the same way you selected between the DS and the Game
Boy game in the final version now eventually the plans for the second GBA cart GBA cartridge slot
were dropped due to technical limitations and a lack of actual usefulness and I'm pretty sure
Nintendo was only going to throw that second GBA slot as a way to show off their technical skills
But ultimately cooler heads prevailed and the system launched with just one GBA slot which is
all it needed in the first place fact number one the GameCube is not a cube my friends I hate to
break it to you but the GameCube isn't actually a cube sure it's a great name for a console and
the system is widely loved by Gamers worldwide largely for the iconic shape but the name is
actually misleading contrary to popular belief the GameCube is actually closer to a rectangular prism
due to its Dimensions being roughly 5.9 inches by 6.3 inches by 4.3 inches exposed obviously if
it were truly going to be a GameCube all three of those measurements would be identical you
were this close to Nintendo you almost got it and then you just misled everybody and there you have
it my friends those are 20 very interesting facts about Nintendo it's fun to look back in retrospect
it's fun to look at the history of video games if you would like more facts videos of other things
whether it be Xbox or Playstation or individual things in the gaming World definitely let me know
if you made it all the way at the end of the video thank you very much I'll see you soon
thank you