You may think you know the Nintendo story: a plumber named Mario, a princess named Zelda… and didn’t they buy the Seattle Mariners at some point? We thought we knew it too. And then we started researching and were blown away.

The lovable Disney-like Nintendo that we know today is a 130 year-old a playing card company (i.e. gambling), forged in the shadowy world of the Yakuza and shaped by a four-generation cycle of bitter family betrayal. And its unlikely transformation into a global multi-billion dollar media monopoly was led by an iron-fisted patriarch who — amazingly — never played a video game in his life! Get ready for one of our favorite stories Acquired has ever told — we couldn’t make this one up if we tried!

Links:

• Our Atari episode with Nolan Bushnell
• Video of id Software’s legendary PC “port” of Super Mario Brothers 3
• Episode sources

Carve Outs:

• Everything Everywhere All At Once
• Michael Lewis on Tim Ferriss and on CSPAN

Sponsors:

• Legora: https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora
• Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
• ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredservicenow26
• Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26

More Acquired!

• Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodes
• Join the Slack
• Subscribe to ACQ2
• Merch Store!

© Copyright 2015-2026 ACQ, LLC