Nintendo Before They Were Famous - Founder Fusajiro Yamauchi created a company in 1889 called Nintendo Koppai, which originally produced and sold Hanafuda cards in a time when Japan was banned from gambling. The cards were a huge success and the company carried on for a long time, under several switches of ownership and several name changes, until it expanded into other business ventures. These included a taxi service, a vacuum, and even a love hotel. None of them did very well, but Nintendo finally hit the mark producing children’s toys, which encouraged them to go further into electronics and produce their first video game console.