Assignment 7 - Joshua Pe

On September 23 in 1889, Fusajiro Yamauchi founded Nintendo Koppai to produce and sell Hanafuda playing cards. Nintendo would eventually explore other areas of business and find success in video games. To me and to several million people, this event is important because it marks the beginning of Nintendo, which has created awesome video games like Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, Metroid, Earthbound, and Pokemon. Nintendo has impacted popular culture. Everyone knows of Mario and Luigi, of Donkey Kong, and of Pikachu and Pokemon. Nintendo also revived the video game market, after the crash between 1983 and 1985. Nintendo’s video game franchises have helped to tie together different nations. The closing ceremony of this year’s summer Olympics had a segment in which Japan’s prime minister dressed as Mario. Personally, Nintendo was my first entry into video games. When I was little, I played Super Mario Bros. and Pokemon Diamond on my DS, and I got a Gamecube one year for Christmas and a Nintendo Wii a couple years later. I was a shy kid, and Nintendo video games helped me make a connection with other kids.