10 Amazing Child Prodigies Across Time

10 Amazing Child Prodigies Across Time (Famous and Not)

A child prodigy is defined as someone under the age of 13 who is capable of excelling in at least one area of skill at a level that is considered to be an adult level in that field. There are child prodigies in all different skills areas including music, math, chess, the arts and even humanities. As long as the child shows demonstrable adult-level skill in one of these areas prior to that age 13 mark, he or she is considered a prodigy in that area. The most famous child prodigies include Mozart for music and Picasso for art. Let’s take a closer look at those two prodigies as well as eight other amazing child prodigies in different skills areas at different times throughout history.

1. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Mozart is widely considered to be one of the world’s greatest child prodigies in music because of the amazing musical feats that he mastered at an early age. It is unclear whether he had an eidetic memory or simply was trained so extensively that he was able to become so skilled at music so early on but whatever the case may be, he certainly excelled in this area. Born in 1756, Mozart began playing the harpsichord at age 3 and could read and play music by age 5. He debuted onto the classical music scene one year later and went on to be one of the most prolific composers of all time.

2. Pablo Picasso.

You know this Spanish artist because he is a famous artist but did you know that he was also a child prodigy in the arts. One of his most well-known pieces of artwork, The Picador, was created in the late nineteenth century when he was only eight years old. He began exhibiting his art by the age of 15. Picasso went on to not only create great works of art but to get deeply involved in the science and math of art, inventing numerous creations that did and did not come to fruition.

3. Sergey Karjakin.

This Ukranian boy achieved the title of Grandmaster in Chess at the tender age of 12, a record-breaking feat that happened in 2002. Chess is considered one of the few games in which child prodigies can truly exist and actually compete with adults on an equal playing field. As the youngest person to hold the title of Grandmaster, Karjakin is considered to be among the top chess prodigies of all times.

4. Cho Hunhyun.

Another game that sometimes finds itself played by child prodigies but which doesn’t get nearly as much attention as chess is the Chinese game of Go. This is a tough game to learn but there are people out there like this kid who managed to become a professional Go player in 1962 when he was only nine years old. This child prodigy is considered by many to be the best Go player of all time.

5. William James Sidis.

You know those people that you hear about primarily in fiction (or TV shows like Numb3rs) who are so smart that they go to college when they are still kids? That’s the real life story of this boy who was born at the turn of the twentieth century and who was such a prodigy in both math and linguistics that he was accepted to attend Harvard University when he was only eleven years old. Interestingly, he strayed away from math entirely in his later years but is still considered to be one of the most intelligent people ever born.

6. March Tian Boedihardjo.

 If you thought that the age of eleven was young for starting to attend college then you’ll be even more surprised by this child who got into a Hong Kong University at the age of 9, the youngest student ever accepted to college in Hong Kong. It will be interesting to see what this child prodigy opts to do with his life now that he’s getting closer to college graduation as well as to his teenage years!

7.Sufiah Yusof.

Ten years before March Tian Boedihardjo was acceted to that Hong Kong University, Sufiah Yusof was accepted to Oxford University to study mathematics there. She was only twelve years old. This particular child prodigy interests me because it is rare to see female child prodigies and it is still rare to see women in advanced math careers so her experience as a modern-day child prodigy female in math was truly unique. But there’s more to this story. The pressure of the life was too much for her and it is rumored that she has spent the past ten years bouncing from waitressing jobs to prostitution to back to school. Imagine that! Being smart isn’t always easy at all.

8. Lucretia Maria Davidson.

Here is a more positive example of a female child prodigy although one that does have a somewhat sad ending. This woman born in the early nineteenth century was a child prodigy of words who made her mark as an astounding poet of her time before the age of 11. Sadly, her work as a poet lasted only five years because her life was cut short due to death by tuberculosis but she did manage to make her mark on history as a child prodigy in the art of poetry.

9. William Cullen Bryant.

This man is another poet who gained adult-level praise for his work before the age of 13 and so is considered a child prodigy of poetry. Also born in the early nineteenth century, Bryant published his first book at the age of ten. By the age of 13, he had completed a book of satire poems that were widely recognized for their advanced quality. 

10. Jean-François Champollion.

I am totally fascinated by the life of this man who was born at the end of the eighteenth century. His work was in deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics which just sounds so interesting but he was considered a child prodigy before that due to the fact that he could speak several dead languages before the age of ten. By 16, he could speak more than one dozen languages in spite of the fact that his only teacher was a brother who himself was largely self-taught. Wow!

ANOTHER INDIAN TO MAKE US PROUD.

আচার্য জগদীশ চন্দ্র বসু Acharyo-Jogodiish-Chondro-Boshū Acharya Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose, CSI, CIE, FRS
Jagadish Chandra Bose in Royal Institution, London
Born	30 November 1858 Bikrampur, Bengal Presidency, British India
Died	23 November 1937 (aged 78) Giridih, Bengal, British India
Residence	Kolkata, Bengal, British India
Nationality	British Indian
Fields	Physics, Biophysics, Biology, Botany,Archaeology, Bengali Literature, Bangla Science Fiction
Institutions	University of Calcutta University of Cambridge University of London
Alma mater	St. Xavier's College, Calcutta University of Cambridge
Doctoral advisor	John Strutt (Lord Rayleigh)
Notable students	Satyendra Nath Bose
Known for	Millimetre waves Radio Crescograph Plant science
Notable awards	Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (CIE) (1903) Companion of the Order of the Star of India (CSI) (1911) Knight Bachelor (1917)

An Indian who makes us proud.

Srinivasa Ramanujam

Born	22 December 1887 Erode, India
Died	26 April 1920 (aged 32) Chetput, (Madras), India
Residence	India, U.K.
Nationality	Indian
Fields	Mathematics
Alma mater	Government Arts College Pachaiyappa's College Cambridge University
Academic advisors	G. H. Hardy J. E. Littlewood
Known for	Landau–Ramanujan constant Mock theta functions Ramanujan conjecture Ramanujan prime Ramanujan–Soldner constant Ramanujan theta function Ramanujan's sum Rogers–Ramanujan identities

Invention of the Telescope////Sorce 'The net'

Johannes Hevelius observing with one of his telescopes [click for larger image] The Telescope The telescope was one of the central instruments of what has been called the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century. It revealed hitherto unsuspected phenomena in the heavens and had a profound influence on the controversy between followers of the traditional geocentric astronomy and cosmology and those who favored the heliocentric system of Copernicus. It was the first extension of one of man's senses, and demonstrated that ordinary observers could see things that the great Aristotle had not dreamed of. It therefore helped shift authority in the observation of nature from men to instruments. In short, it was the prototype of modern scientific instruments. But the telescope was not the invention of scientists; rather, it was the product of craftsmen. For that reason, much of its origin is inaccessible to us since craftsmen were by and large illiterate and therefore historically often invisible. Although the magnifying and diminishing properties of convex and concave transparent objects was known in Antiquity, lenses as we know them were introduced in the West [1] at the end of the thirteenth century. Glass of reasonable quality had become relatively cheap and in the major glass-making centers of Venice and Florence techniques for grinding and polishing glass had reached a high state of development. Now one of the perennial problems faced by aging scholars could be solved. With age, the eye progressively loses its power to accommodate, that is to change its focus from faraway objects to nearby ones. This condition, known aspresbyopia, becomes noticeable for most people in their forties, when they can no longer focus on letters held at a comfortable distance from the eye. Magnifying glasses became common in the thirteenth century, but these are cumbersome, especially when one is writing. Craftsmen in Venice began making small disks of glass, convex on both sides, that could be worn in a frame--spectacles. Because these little disks were shaped like lentils, they became known as "lentils of glass," or (from the Latin) lenses. The earliest illustrations of spectacles date from about 1350, and spectacles soon came to be symbols of learning. The Spectacle Vendor by Johannes Stradanus, engraved by Johannes Collaert, 1582 [click for larger image] These spectacles were, then, reading glasses. When one had trouble reading, one went to a spectacle-maker's shop or a peddler of spectacles (see figs. 2 and 3) and found a suitable pair by trial and error. They were, by and large, glasses for the old. spectacles for the young, concave lenses[2] that correct the refractive error known as myopia, were first made (again in Italy) in the middle of the fifteenth century. So by about 1450 the ingredients for making a telescope were there. The telescopic effect can be achieved by several combinations of concave and convex mirrors and lenses. Why was the telescope not invented in the fifteenth century? There is no good answer to this question, except perhaps that lenses and mirrors of the appropriate strengths were not available until later. In the literature of white magic, so popular in the sixteenth century, there are several tantalizing references to devices that would allow one to see one's enemies or count coins from a great distance. But these allusions were cast in obscure language and were accompanied by fantastic claims; the telescope, when it came, was a very humble and simple device. It is possible that in the 1570s Leonard and Thomas Digges in England actually made an instrument consisting of a convex lens and a mirror, but if this proves to be the case, it was an experimental setup that was never translated into a mass-produced device.[3] The earliest known illlustration of a telescope. Giovanpattista della Porta included this sketch in a letter written in August 1609 [click for larger image] The telescope was unveiled in the Netherlands. In October 1608, the States General (the national government) in The Hague discussed the patent applications first of Hans Lipperhey of Middelburg, and then of Jacob Metius of Alkmaar, on a device for "seeing faraway things as though nearby." It consisted of a convex and concave lens in a tube, and the combination magnified three or four times.[4] The gentlemen found the device too easy to copy to award the patent, but it voted a small award to Metius and employed Lipperhey to make several binocular versions, for which he was paid handsomely. It appears that another citizen of Middelburg, Sacharias Janssen had a telescope at about the same time but was at the Frankfurt Fair where he tried to sell it. Galileo's telescopes [click here for larger image] The news of this new invention spread rapidly through Europe, and the device itself quickly followed. By April 1609 three-powered spyglasses could be bought in spectacle-maker's shops on the Pont Neuf in Paris, and four months later there were several in Italy. (fig. 4) We know that Thomas Harriot observed the Moon with a six-powered instrument early in August 1609. But it was Galileo who made the instrument famous. He constructed his first three-powered spyglass in June or July 1609, presented an eight-powered instrument to the Venetian Senate in August, and turned a twenty-powered instrument to the heavens in October or November. With this instrument (fig. 5) he observed the Moon, discovered four satellites of Jupiter, and resolved nebular patches into stars. He published Sidereus Nuncius in March 1610. Verifying Galileo's discoveries was initially difficult. In the spring of 1610 no one had telescopes of sufficient quality and power to see the satellites of Jupiter, although many had weaker instruments with which they could see some of the lunar detail Galileo had described in Sidereus Nuncius. Galileo's lead was one of practice, not theory, and it took about six months before others could make or obtain instruments good enough to see Jupiter's moons. With the verification of the phases of Venus by others, in the first half of 1611, Galileo's lead in telescope-making had more or less evaporated. The next discovery, that of sunspots, was made by several observers, including Galileo, independently. ??? A typical Galilean telescope with which Jupiter's moons could be observed was configured as follows. It had a plano-convex objective (the lens toward the object) with a focal length of about 30-40 inches., and a plano-concave ocular with a focal length of about 2 inches. The ocular was in a little tube that could be adjusted for focusing. The objective lens was stopped down to an aperture of 0.5 to 1 inch. , and the field of view was about 15 arc-minutes (about 15 inches in 100 yards). The instrument's magnification was 15-20. The glass was full of little bubbles and had a greenish tinge (caused by the iron content of the glass); the shape of the lenses was reasonable good near their centers but poor near the periphery (hence the restricted aperture); the polish was rather poor. The limiting factor of this type of instrument was its small field of view--about 15 arc-minutes--which meant that only a quarter of the full Moon could be accommodated in the field. Over the next several decades, lens-grinding and polishing techniques improved gradually, as a specialized craft of telescope makers slowly developed. But although Galilean telescopes of higher magnifications were certainly made, they were almost useless because of the concomitant shrinking of the field. As mentioned above, a the telescopic effect can be achieved with different combinations of lenses and mirrors. As early as 1611, in his Dioptrice,Johannes Kepler had shown that a telescope could also be made by combining a convex objective and a convex ocular. He pointed out that such a combination would produce an inverted image but showed that the addition of yet a third convex lens would make the image erect again. This suggestion was not immediately taken up by astronomers, however, and it was not until Christoph Scheiner published his Rosa Ursina in 1630 that this form of telescope began to spread. In his study of sunspots, Scheiner had experimented with telescopes with convex oculars in order to make the image of the Sun projected through the telescope erect.[5] But when he happened to view an object directly through such an instrument, he found that, although the image was inverted, it was much brighter and the field of view much larger than in a Galilean telescope. Since for astronomical observations an inverted image is no problem, the advantages of what became known as the astronomical telescope led to its general acceptance in the astronomical community by the middle of the century. The Galilean telescope could be used for terrestrial and celestial purposes interchangeably. This was not true for the astronomical telescope with its inverted image. Astronomers eschewed the third convex lens (the erector lens) necessary for re-inverting the image because the more lenses the more optical defects multiplied. In the second half of the seventeenth century, therefore, the Galilean telescope was replaced for terrestrial purposes by the "terrestrial telescope," which had four convex lenses: objective, ocular, erector lens, and a field lens (which enlarged the field of view even further). Hevelius's 60- and 140-foot telescopes (Machina Coelestis, 1673) [click for larger image] With the acceptance of the astronomical telescope, the limit on magnification caused by the small field of view of the Galilean telescope was temporarily lifted, and a "telescope race" developed. Because of optical defects, the curvature of lenses had to be minimized, and therefore (since the magnification of a simple telescope is given roughly by the ratio of the focal lengths of the objective and ocular) increased magnification had to be achieved by increasing the focal length of the objective. Beginning in the 1640s, the length of telescopes began to increase. From the typical Galilean telescope of 5 or 6 feet in length, astronomical telescopes rose to lengths of 15 or 20 feet by the middle of the century. A typical astronomical telescope is the one made by Christiaan Huygens, in 1656. It was 23 feet long; its objective had an aperture of several inches, it magnified about 100 times, and its field of view was 17 arc-minutes. Aerial telescope (Christiaan Huygensm Astroscopium Compendiaria,1684) [click for larger image] Telescopes had now again reached the point where further increases in magnification would restrict the field of view of the instrument too much. This time another optical device, the field lens came to the rescue. Adding a third convex lens--of appropriate focal length, and in the right place--increased the field significantly, thus allowing higher magnifications. The telescope race therefore continued unabated and lengths increased exponentially. By the early 1670s, Johannes Hevelius had built a 140-foot telescope. But such long telescopes were useless for observation: it was almost impossible to keep the lenses aligned and any wind would make the instrument flutter. After about 1675, therefore, astronomers did away with the telescope tube. The objective was mounted on a building or pole by means of a ball-joint and aimed by means of a string; the image was found by trial and error; and the compound eyepiece (field lens and ocular), on a little stand, was then positioned to receive the image cast by the objective. Such instruments were called "aerial telescopes." Although some discoveries were made with these very long instruments, this form of telescope had reached its limits. By the beginning of the eighteenth century very long telescopes were rarely mounted any more, and further increases of power came, beginning in the 1730s, from a new form of telescope, the reflecting telescope. Since it was known that the telescopic effect could be achieved using a variety of combinations of lenses and mirrors, a number of scientists speculated on combinations involving mirrors. Much of this speculation was fueled by the increasingly refined theoretical study of the telescope. In his Dioptrique, appended to his Discourse on Method of 1637, René Descartes addressed the problem of spherical aberration, already pointed out by others. In a thin spherical lens, not all rays from infinity--incident parallel to the optical axis--are united at one point. Those farther from the optical axis come to a focus closer to the back of the lens than those nearer the optical axis. Descartes had either learned the sine law of refraction from Willebrord Snell (Snell's Law)[6] or had discovered it independently, and this allowed him to quantify spherical aberration. In order to eliminate it, he showed, lens curvature had to be either plano-hyperboloidal or spherico-ellipsoidal. His demonstration led many to attempt to make plano-hyperboloidal objectives, an effort which was doomed to failure by the state of the art of lens-grinding. Others began considering the virtues of a concave paraboloidal mirror as primary receptor: it had been known since Antiquity that such a mirror would bring parallel incident rays to a focus at one point. Newton's reflecting telescope (1671) [click for larger image] A second theoretical development came in 1672, when Isaac Newton published his celebrated paper on light and colors. Newton showed that white light is a mixture of colored light of different refrangibility: every color had its own degree of refraction. The result was that any curved lens would decompose white light into the colors of the spectrum, each of which comes to a focus at a different point on the optical axis. This effect, which became known as chromatic aberration, resulted in a central image of, e.g., a planet, being surrounded by circles of different colors. Newton had developed his theory of light several years before publishing his paper, when he had turned his mind to the improvement of the telescope, and he had despaired of ever ridding the objective of this defect. He therefore decided to try a mirror, but unlike his predecessors he was able to put his idea into practice. He cast a two-inch mirror blank of speculum metal (basically copper with some tin) and ground it into spherical curvature. He placed it in the bottom of a tube and caught the reflected rays on a 45� secondary mirror which reflected the image into a convex ocular lens outside the tube (see fig. 12). He sent this little instrument to the Royal Society, where it caused a sensation; it was the first working reflecting telescope. But the effort ended there. Others were unable to grind mirrors of regular curvature, and to add to the problem, the mirror tarnished and had to be repolished every few months, with the attending danger of damage to the curvature. Hevelius's rooftop observatory, (Machina Coelestis, 1673) [click for larger image] The reflecting telescope therefore remained a curiosity for decades. In second and third decades of the eighteenth century, however, the reflecting telescope became a reality in the hands of first James Hadley and then others. By the middle of the century, reflecting telescopes with primary mirrors up to six inches in diameter had been made. It was found that for large aperture ratios (the ratio of focal length of the primary to its aperture, as the f-ratio in modern cameras for instance), f/10 or more, the difference between spherical and paraboloidal mirrors was negligible in the performance of the telescope. In the second half of the eighteenth century, in the hands of James Short and then William Herschel, the reflecting telescope with parabolically ground mirrors came into its own.

 Galileo disproved that the earth is the center of the universe

.

Two Inventions that changed mankind.

10: The Plow

Compared to some of the gleaming, electronic inventions that fill our lives today, the plow doesn't seem very exciting. It's a simple cutting tool used to carve a furrow into the soil, churning it up to expose nutrients and prepare it for planting. Yet the plow is probably the one invention that made all others possible.

No one knows who invented the plow, or exactly when it came to be. It probably developed independently in a number of regions, and there is evidence of its use in prehistoric eras. Prior to the plow, humans were subsistence farmers or hunter/gatherers. Their lives were devoted solely to finding enough food to survive from one season to the next. Growing food added some stability to life, but doing it by hand was labor intensive and took a long time. The plow changed all that.

Plows made the work easier and faster. Improvements in the plow's design made farming so efficient that people could harvest far more food than they needed to survive. They could trade the surplus for goods or services. And if you could get food by trading, then you could devote your day-to-day existence to something other than growing food, such as producing the goods and services that were suddenly in demand.

The ability to trade and store materials drove the invention of written language, number systems, fortifications and militaries. As populations gathered to engage in these activities, cities grew. It's not a stretch to say that the plow is responsible for the creation of human civilization.

The Cas Chrom, or Foot Plough, was a simple but labour intensive tool for the preparation and cultivation of the soil. Highland land was farmed and divided on the basis of runrig, or lazy-beds. This method of land distribution was often communal, and the layout of the lazy-beds had to accommodate the contours and features of the rugged land. Use of the Cas Chrom and the runrig system extended well into the 20th century.

The Cas Chrom was often fabricated by the crofters themselves from available material such as driftwood found on the beaches. This implement has a long handle attached by an iron binding to a carved and formed knee of driftwood. This example has an iron sock bent around the tip, which is pushed into the ground using the foot peg. The handle is used to turn over the soil in a twisting motion. Though the Cas Chrom was suited to the rough land of the highlands, the crofter would have taken several days of hard work to plough his small lazy-bed.

9. Wheel

Baerbel Schmidt/Getty Images
The invention of the wheel enabled a variety of elaborate mechanisms like this water pump.

The wheel is another invention so ancient that we have no way of knowing who first developed it. The oldest wheel and axle mechanism we've found was near Ljubljana, Slovenia, and dates to roughly 3100 B.C.

The wheel made the transportation of goods much faster and more efficient, especially when affixed to horse-drawn chariots and carts. However, if it had been used only for transportation, the wheel wouldn't have been as much of a world-changer as it was. In fact, a lack of quality roads limited its usefulness in this regard for thousands of years.

A wheel can be used for a lot of things other than sticking them on a cart to carry grain, though. Tens of thousands of other inventions require wheels to function, from water wheels that power mills to gears and cogs that allowed even ancient cultures to create complex machines. Cranks and pulleys need wheels to work. A huge amount of modern technology still depends on the wheel, like centrifuges used in chemistry and medical research, electric motors and combustion engines, jet engines, power plants and countless others.

Discovery of "Nintendo" Card game

Nintendo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the Nintendo corporation. For the third-generation video game console, see Nintendo Entertainment System.
Nintendo Co., Ltd.

Nintendo's logo, which dates back to the 1980s. The current color was adopted in 2006; the previous red version is still used on some properties.[1]
Type Public
TYO: 7974
Osaka SE: 7974
Pink Sheets: NTDOY
FWB: NTO
Industry Card games (previously)
Video games
Founded September 23, 1889[2]
Headquarters Original office
Kyoto, Japan
International offices:[3]
Redmond, Washington, United States
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Großostheim, Germany
Scoresby, Victoria, Australia
Suzhou, PRC (as iQue, Ltd.)
Seoul, South Korea
Taiwan, ROC (via Nintendo Co., Ltd. and Haku Yu)
Windsor, Berkshire, UK
Sao Paulo, Brazil
Area served Worldwide
Key people Satoru Iwata: President and CEO
Reggie Fils-Aime: President and COO of NOA
Shigeru Miyamoto: Game Designer
Conrad Abbott: President of NOC
Rose Lappin: Managing Director of Nintendo Australia
Gunpei Yokoi (deceased): Creator of Game Boy, Game & Watch and Metroid video game series
Hiroshi Yamauchi: Former President and Chairman
Minoru Arakawa: Former head of NOA
Satoru Shibata: President of NOE
Satoshi Tajiri: Creator of the Pokémon franchise
Products Game Boy line, Color TV Game, NES, SNES, Virtual Boy, Nintendo 64, Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo DS, Wii, Nintendo 3DS, and various video games
Revenue ¥1 trillion (2011)[4]
Operating income ¥171 billion (2011)[4]
Net income ¥77.6 billion (2011)[4]
Total assets ¥1.6 trillion (2011)[4]
Total equity ¥1.2 trillion (2011)[4]
Employees 4,712 (2011)[5]
Website Nintendo Japan
Nintendo of America
Nintendo of Canada (English)
Nintendo of Europe
Nintendo Australia
Nintendo Taiwan
Nintendo of Korea
Nintendo Co., Ltd. (任天堂株式会社 Nintendō Kabushiki gaisha?) is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889[2] by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards.[6] By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel.[7]
Nintendo developed into a video game company, becoming one of the most influential in the industry, and Japan's third most valuable listed company, with a market value of over US$85 billion.[8] Also, Nintendo of America is the majority owner of the Seattle Mariners Major League Baseball team.[9]
The name Nintendo can be roughly translated from Japanese to English as "leave luck to heaven".[10] As of October 18, 2010, Nintendo has sold over 565 million hardware units and 3.4 billion software units.[11]
Contents [hide]
1 History
1.1 As a card company (1889–1956)
1.2 New ventures (1956–1974)
1.3 Electronic era (since 1974)
1.3.1 Handheld console history
2 Infrastructure
2.1 Key Executives
2.2 Offices and locations
3 Software development studios
3.1 First-party studios
3.2 Second-party studios
3.3 Former affiliates
4 Policy
4.1 Emulation
4.2 Content guidelines
4.3 License guidelines
4.4 Seal of Quality
4.4.1 NTSC regions
4.4.2 PAL regions
4.5 Environmental record
5 See also
6 Notes
7 References
8 Further reading
9 External links
History

Main article: History of Nintendo


Former headquarters plate, from when Nintendo was solely a playing card company
As a card company (1889–1956)
Nintendo was founded as a card company in late 1889, originally named Nintendo Koppai. Based in Kyoto, Japan, the business produced and marketed a playing card game called Hanafuda. The handmade cards soon became popular, and Yamauchi hired assistants to mass produce cards to satisfy demand. Nintendo continues to manufacture playing cards in Japan[12] and organizes its own contract bridge tournament called the "Nintendo Cup".[13]
New ventures (1956–1974)
In 1956, Hiroshi Yamauchi (grandson of Fusajiro Yamauchi) visited the U.S. to talk with the United States Playing Card Company, the dominant playing card manufacturer there. He found that the world's biggest company in his business was only using a small office. This was a turning point when Yamauchi realized the limitations of the playing card business. He then gained access to Disney's characters and put them on the playing cards to drive sales.


The Nintendo Love Tester
In 1963, Yamauchi renamed Nintendo Playing Card Co. Ltd. to Nintendo Co., Ltd.[14] The company then began to experiment in other areas of business using newly injected capital. During this period of time between 1963 and 1968, Nintendo set up a taxi company, a love hotel chain, a TV network, a food company (selling instant rice, similar to instant noodles) and several other things. All of these ventures eventually failed, and after the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, playing card sales dropped, and Nintendo's stock price plummeted to ¥60.
In 1966, Nintendo moved into the Japanese toy industry with the Ultra Hand, an extendable arm developed by its maintenance engineer Gunpei Yokoi in his free time. Yokoi was moved from maintenance to the new "Nintendo Games" department as a product developer. Nintendo continued to produce popular toys, including the Ultra Machine, Love Tester and the Kousenjuu series of light gun games. Despite some successful products, Nintendo struggled to meet the fast development and manufacturing turnaround required in the toy market, and fell behind the well-established companies such as Bandai and Tomy.
In 1973, its focus shifted to family entertainment venues with the Laser Clay Shooting System, using the same light gun technology used in Nintendo's Kousenjuu series of toys, and set up in abandoned bowling alleys. Following some success, Nintendo developed several more light gun machines for the emerging arcade scene. While the Laser Clay Shooting System ranges had to be shut down following excessive costs, Nintendo had found a new market.
Electronic era (since 1974)
Nintendo's first venture into the video-gaming industry was securing rights to distribute the Magnavox Odyssey video game console in Japan in 1974. Nintendo began to produce its own hardware in 1977, with the Color TV Game home video game consoles. Four versions of these consoles were produced, each including variations of a single game (for example, Color TV Game 6 featured six versions of Light Tennis).
A student product developer named Shigeru Miyamoto was hired by Nintendo at this time.[15] He worked for Yokoi, and one of his first tasks was to design the casing for several of the Color TV Game consoles. Miyamoto went on to create, direct and produce some of Nintendo's most famous video games and become one of the most recognizable figures in the video game industry.[15]
In 1975, Nintendo moved into the video arcade game industry with EVR Race, designed by their first game designer, Genyo Takeda,[16] and several more titles followed. Nintendo had some small success with this venture, but the release of Donkey Kong in 1981, designed by Miyamoto, changed Nintendo's fortunes dramatically. The success of the game and many licensing opportunities (such as ports on the Atari 2600, Intellivision and ColecoVision) gave Nintendo a huge boost in profit.


The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
In 1980, Nintendo launched Game & Watch—a handheld video game series developed by Yokoi where each game was played on a separate device—to worldwide success. In 1983, Nintendo launched the Family Computer (commonly shortened "Famicom"), known outside Japan as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), home video game console in Japan, alongside ports of its most popular arcade titles. In 1985, the NES launched in North America, and was accompanied by Super Mario Bros., currently one of the best-selling video games of all time.[17]
In 1989, Yokoi developed the Game Boy handheld game console.
The Nintendo Entertainment System was superseded by the Super Famicom, known outside Japan as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). This was Nintendo's console of the 16-bit 4th generation, following the Famicom of the 8-bit 3rd generation, whose main rival was the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis. A fierce console war between Sega and Nintendo ensued.[18] The SNES eventually sold 49.10 million consoles,[19] around 20 million more than the Mega Drive/Genesis.
During the dominance of the Game Boy line, its creator, Yokoi, designed the Virtual Boy, a table-mounted semi-portable console featuring stereoscopic graphics. Users view games through a binocular eyepiece and control games using a gamepad. Rushed to market in 1995 to compensate for development delays with the upcoming Nintendo 64, the Virtual Boy was a commercial failure due to poor third-party support and a large price point. Amid the systems's failure, Yokoi was asked to leave Nintendo.[20]
The company's next home console, the Nintendo 64, was released in 1996 and features 3D graphics capabilities and built-in multiplayer for up to four players. The system's controller introduced the analog stick. Nintendo later introduced the Rumble Pak, an accessory for the Nintendo 64 controller that produced force feedback with compatible games. It was the first such device to come to market for home console gaming and eventually became an industry standard.[21]
The Nintendo GameCube followed in 2001 and was the first Nintendo console to utilize optical disc storage instead of cartridges.[22] The most recent home console, the Wii, uses motion sensing controllers[23] and has on-board online functionality used for services such as Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection and Internet Channel[24] (in contrast to GameCube's limited functionality on select games with an additional modem accessory[25]). The Wii's success, as well as the success of the DS, introduced an expansion of audience to broader and non-traditional demographics, a business model with which Nintendo has had success.[citation needed] Contrarily, the new business model has also resulted in some long-time gamers abandoning the Nintendo console for its competitors.[26]
Nintendo unveiled their newest home console, the Wii U, on June 7, 2011 at the Electronic Entertainment Expo.[27]
Handheld console history


The Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo's latest handheld video game system which features autostereoscopic 3D.
After the successful Game & Watch, the handheld development continued with the Game Boy, the Game Boy Pocket and Game Boy Color, with the latter two differing in fairly minor aspects. The Game Boy, the best-selling handheld and third best-selling console of all time, continued for more than a decade until the release of the Game Boy Advance, featuring improved technical specifications similar to those of the SNES. The Game Boy Advance SP, a frontlit (backlit in later editions), flip-screen version, introduced a rechargeable, built-in battery, which ended the need for AA batteries in previous consoles. The Game Boy Micro was released in 2005, after the Nintendo DS's release, but did not sell as well as its predecessors.
The Nintendo DS replaced the Game Boy line sometime after its initial release in 2004, originally advertised as an alternative to the Game Boy Advance.[28] It was distinctive because it had two screens and a microphone, in a clamshell design continuing on from the Game Boy Advance SP.
The Nintendo DS Lite, a remake of the DS, improved several features of the original model, including the battery life and screen brightness. It was designed to be sleeker, more beautiful, and more aesthetically pleasing than the original, in order to appeal to a broader audience.[29] On November 1, 2008, Nintendo released, in Japan, the Nintendo DSi, an improved version featuring larger screens, improved sound quality, an AAC music player and two cameras—one on the outside and one facing the user.[30] It was released in North America, Europe, and Australia at the start of April, 2009. The successor of the DSi, with an expanded screen, is the Nintendo DSi XL, which was released on November 21, 2009 in Japan and the first half of 2010 in other regions.[31]
The successor to the Nintendo DS line, the Nintendo 3DS, uses the process of autostereoscopy to produce a stereoscopic three-dimensional effect and was released in Japan on February 26, 2011, launched in Europe on March 25, 2011 and North America on March 27, 2011.[32] The console got off to a slow start, initially missing many key features that were promised before the system launched. Between the lack of features and many missing first-party games from Nintendo, the 3DS has not sold on par with Nintendo's expectations.[33]
Infrastructure

Key Executives
Satoru Iwata, President and Representative Director
Yoshihiro Mori, Senior Managing Director, General Manager of Corporate Analysis & Administration Division, and Representative Director
Shinji Hatano, Senior Managing Director, General Manager of Licensing Division, and Representative Director
Masaharu Matsumoto, Managing Director
Shigeru Miyamoto, Senior Managing Director and Representative Director[34]
Offices and locations
Nintendo Co., Ltd. (NCL)[35] is based in Minami-ku, Kyoto, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan (34°58′11.89″N 135°45′22.33″E). Its pre-2000 office, now its research and development building, is located in Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan (34°58′29.00″N 135°46′10.48″E). Its original Kyoto headquarters can still be found at (34°59′30.03″N 135°45′58.66″E).
Nintendo of America, Incorporated (NOA), its U.S. division, is based in Redmond, Washington. It has distribution centers in Atlanta, Georgia (Nintendo Atlanta) and North Bend, Washington (Nintendo North Bend).
Nintendo of Canada, Ltd. (NOCL) is based in Vancouver, BC, with its distribution center in Toronto, Ontario.
Nintendo Australia Pty Ltd (NAL) is based in Melbourne, Victoria. It handles the distribution, sales and marketing of Nintendo products in Australia and New Zealand. It also manufactures some of the Wii games locally.
Nintendo of Europe (NOE) is based in Großostheim (established in 1990),[36] close to Frankfurt, Germany.
Nintendo UK is based in Windsor, Berkshire.
iQue, Ltd., a Chinese joint venture between its founder, Doctor Wei Yen, and Nintendo, manufactures and distributes official Nintendo consoles and games for the mainland Chinese market, under the iQue brand.
Nintendo also established Nintendo of Korea (NoK) on July 7, 2006.[37]

The exterior of Nintendo's main headquarters in Kyoto, Japan



The Nintendo of America headquarters in Redmond, United States



Nintendo Europe headquarters in Großostheim, Germany


Software development studios

First-party studios
EAD Comprehensive Group –Super Mario 64 DS, Star Fox 64 3D,
EAD Group 1 – Mario Kart series, Nintendogs series, Luigi's Mansion,[38]
EAD Group 2 – Animal Crossing series, Wii-branded games
EAD Group 3 – The Legend of Zelda series
EAD Group 4 – Pikmin series, New Super Mario Bros., Big Brain Academy
EAD Group 5 – Wii Fit, Steel Diver with Vitei
EAD Tokyo – Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, Super Mario Galaxy
Nintendo SPD – WarioWare series, Friend Collection, Rhythm Heaven series, Metroid: Other M with Team Ninja[39]
Nintendo NSD – Personal Trainer: Walking,
Nintendo SDD – Brain Age series
Nintendo Software Technology - Mario vs. Donkey Kong, Crosswords DS, Metroid Prime Hunters[40]
Monolith Soft – Disaster: Day of Crisis, Xenoblade[41]
Retro Studios – Metroid Prime series, Donkey Kong Country Returns[42]
Brownie Brown – Mother 3, A Kappa's Trail
Intelligent Systems – Paper Mario series with Nintendo, Fire Emblem series, Advance Wars series,[43] WarioWare series
Project Sora – Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Kid Icarus Uprising
Nd Cube – Wii Party
HAL Laboratory – Kirby series, Mother series, Super Smash Bros series,
Second-party studios
Since the 1980s, Nintendo has built up a large group of second-party partners, through publishing agreements or collaboration.
AlphaDream – Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story
Ambrella – Pokémon Dash, Pokémon Rumble, Pokémon Channel, My Pokémon Ranch,[44]
Arika - Endless Ocean series
Creatures Inc. – EarthBound (Mother) series
Camelot Software Planning – Golden Sun series, Mario Power Tennis
Eighting - Kuru Kuru Kururin series
Game Freak - Pokémon
Genius Sonority – Pokémon Colosseum, Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, Pokémon Battle Revolution
Good-Feel – Wario Land Shake It, Kirby's Epic Yarn with HAL Laboratory
Grezzo - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D
Monster Games – Excitebike series,[45] Pilotwings Resort
n-Space, Inc. - Geist
Next Level Games – Super Mario Strikers, Punch-Out!! (Wii), Luigi's Mansion 2
Noise – Custom Robo series [46]
Paon – Donkey Kong Barrel Blast, DK Jungle Climber, DK King of Swing
Suzak - Wario: Master of Disguise, F-Zero: Climax, F-zero: GP Legend
Tose - The Legendary Starfy series, Game & Watch Gallery series, Super Princess Peach
Skip Ltd. – Chibi-Robo! series
Vitei - Steel Diver with EAD Group 5
Treasure - Sin & Punishment, Sin & Punishment: Star Successor
Former affiliates
Rare - Donkey Kong Country, GoldenEye 007, Star Fox Adventures, Diddy Kong Racing
Sold to Microsoft Game Studios in 2002.[47]
Cing – Hotel Dusk: Room 215, Another Code: Two Memories
Filed for bankruptcy in 2010.
Silicon Knights – Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem
Publishing contract with Nintendo ended in 2004.[48]
Factor 5
Closed in 2009.
Left Field Productions – Kobe Bryant in NBA Courtside series
Bought out Nintendo's stake in the company in 2002.[49]
Marigul Management
Closed in 2003.
St.GIGA - Games for the Satellaview
Stopped making games for Nintendo when the Satellaview was discontinued. Eventually, they went out of business.
Policy

Emulation

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Nintendo, particularly Nintendo of America, is known for a "no tolerance" stance for emulation of its video games and consoles, stating that it is the single largest threat to the intellectual rights of video game developers.[50] Nintendo claims that copyright-like rights in mask works protect its games from the exceptions that United States copyright law otherwise provides for personal backup copies. Nintendo uses the claim that emulators running on personal computers have no use other than to play pirated video games, though a use that doesn't involve intellectual property in this way is seen in the development and testing of independently produced "homebrew" software on Nintendo's platforms. It is also claimed that Nintendo's claims contradict copyright laws, mainly that ROM image copiers are illegal (they are legal if used to dump unprotected ROM images on to a user's computer for personal use, per 17 U.S.C. § 117(a)(1) and foreign counterparts)[51] and that emulators are illegal (if they do not use copyrighted BIOS, or use other methods to run the game, they are legal; see Console emulator for further information about the legality of emulators). This stance is largely apocryphal, however; Nintendo remains the only modern console manufacturer that has not sued an emulator manufacturer.[citation needed]
Emulators have been used by Nintendo and licensed third party companies as a means to re-release older games (e.g. Virtual Console).
Content guidelines
For many years, Nintendo had a policy of strict content guidelines for video games published on its consoles. Although Nintendo of Japan allowed graphic violence in its video games, nudity and sexuality were strictly prohibited. Former Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi believed that if the company allowed the licensing of pornographic games, the company's image would be forever tarnished.[52] Nintendo of America and Nintendo of Europe went further in that games released for Nintendo consoles could not feature nudity, sexuality, profanity (including racism, sexism or slurs), blood, graphic or domestic violence, drugs, political messages or religious symbols (with the exception of widely unpracticed religions, such as the Greek Pantheon).[53] The Japanese parent company was concerned that it may be viewed as a "Japanese Invasion" if it introduced adult content to North American and European children. U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman praised this zero tolerance policy, but others criticized the policy, claiming that gamers should be allowed to choose the content they want to see. Despite the strict guidelines, some exceptions have occurred: Bionic Commando (though swastikas were eliminated in the US version), Smash TV and Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode contained human violence, the latter also containing implied sexuality and tobacco use; River City Ransom and Taboo: The Sixth Sense contained nudity, and the latter also contained religious images, as did Castlevania II and III.
A known side effect of this policy was the Sega Genesis version of Mortal Kombat selling over double the number of the Super NES version, mainly because Nintendo had forced publisher Acclaim to recolor the red blood to look like white sweat and replace some of the more gory graphics in its release of the game, making it non-violent.[54] By contrast, Sega allowed blood and gore to remain in the Genesis version (though a code was required to unlock the gore). Nintendo allowed the Super NES version of Mortal Kombat II to ship uncensored the following year with a content warning on the packaging.[55]
In 1994 and 2003, when the ESRB and PEGI (respectively) video game ratings systems were introduced, Nintendo chose to abolish most of these policies in favor of consumers making their own choices about the content of the games they played. Today, changes to the content of games are done primarily by the game's developer or, occasionally, at the request of Nintendo. The only clear-set rule is that ESRB AO-rated games will not be licensed on Nintendo consoles in North America,[56] a practice which is also enforced by Sony and Microsoft, its two greatest competitors in the present market. Nintendo has since allowed several mature-content games to be published on its consoles, including: Perfect Dark, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Doom and Doom 64, BMX XXX, the Resident Evil series, killer7, Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, BloodRayne, Geist and Dementium: The Ward. Certain games have continued to be modified, however. For example, Konami was forced to remove all references to cigarettes in the 2000 Game Boy Color game Metal Gear Solid (although the previous NES version of Metal Gear and the subsequent Gamecube game Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes both included such references, as did Wii title MadWorld), and maiming and blood were removed from the Nintendo 64 port of Cruis'n USA.[57] Another example is in the Game Boy Advance game Mega Man Zero 3, in which one of the bosses, called Hellbat Schilt in the Japanese and European releases, was renamed Devilbat Schilt in North America. localization. In North America releases of the Mega Man Zero games, enemies and bosses killed with a saber attack would not gush blood as they did in the Japanese versions. However, the release of the Wii has been accompanied by a number of even more controversial mature titles, such as Manhunt 2, No More Heroes, The House of the Dead: Overkill and MadWorld, the latter three of which are published exclusively for the console. The Nintendo DS also has violent games, such as Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, Dementium: The Ward, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and Resident Evil: Deadly Silence.
License guidelines
Nintendo of America also had guidelines before 1993 that had to be followed by its licensees to make games for the Nintendo Entertainment System, in addition to the above content guidelines:.[52] Guidelines were enforced through the 10NES lockout chip.
Licensees were not permitted to release the same game for a competing console until two years had passed.
Nintendo would decide how many cartridges would be supplied to the licensee.
Nintendo would decide how much space would be dedicated for articles, advertising, etc. in the Nintendo Power magazine.
There was a minimum number of cartridges that had to be ordered by the licensee from Nintendo.
There was a yearly limit of five games that a licensee may produce for a Nintendo console.[58] This rule was created to prevent market over-saturation, which caused the North American video game crash of 1983.
The last rule was circumvented in a number of ways; for example, Konami, wanting to produce more games for Nintendo's consoles, formed Ultra Games and later Palcom to produce more games as a technically different publisher.[52] This disadvantaged smaller or emerging companies, as they could not afford to start additional companies. In another side effect, Square Co. (now Square Enix) executives have suggested that the price of publishing games on the Nintendo 64 along with the degree of censorship and control that Nintendo enforced over its games, most notably Final Fantasy VI, were factors in switching its focus towards Sony's PlayStation console.[citation needed]
Seal of Quality


Official Nintendo Seal in NTSC regions


Nintendo's Official Seal of Quality in PAL regions
The gold starburst seal was first used by Nintendo of America, and later Nintendo of Europe. It is displayed on any game, system, or accessory licensed for use on one of its video game consoles, denoting the game has been properly licensed by Nintendo.[citation needed]
NTSC regions
In NTSC regions, this seal is an elliptical starburst titled "Official Nintendo Seal". Originally, for NTSC countries, the seal was a large, black and gold circular starburst. The seal read as follows: "This seal is your assurance that NINTENDO has approved and guaranteed the quality of this product." This seal was later altered in 1988: "approved and guaranteed" was changed to "evaluated and approved". In 1989, the seal became gold and white, as it currently appears, with a shortened phrase, "Official Nintendo Seal of Quality". It was changed in 2003 to read "Official Nintendo Seal".[citation needed]
PAL regions
In PAL regions, the seal is a circular starburst titled, "Original Nintendo Seal of Quality". Text near the seal in the Australian Wii manual states:
This seal is your assuranace that Nintendo has reviewed this product and that it has met our standards for excellence in workmanship, reliability and entertainment value. Always look for this seal when buying games and accessories to ensure complete compatibility with your Nintendo product.[59]
Environmental record
Greenpeace's October 2010 "Guide to Greener Electronics" report ranks Nintendo last on a list of electronics manufacturers, with the same score (1.8 out of 10) as in the previous version of the guide (May 2010). The report cites increasing carbon dioxide emissions (failed to be reduced per target) and a lack of waste management. Limited praise focuses on satisfactory energy efficiency of the DSi's AC adapter, the reduction of PVC usage in wiring (and new chemical regulations) and the disclosure of carbon dioxide emissions.[60]
In the January 2010 version of the ranking, Nintendo scored 1.4 points, at which, three days later, Nintendo issued a response that addressed primary concerns, highlighting a policy to indicate the materials used in each product, which makes end-of-life recycling of products easier.[61]