Nintendo: Before the First "Nintendo"

"Do you have a Knave?" "No, go Sakana". (via)

As a long-time video game fan, a broad interest in Japanese culture, and a new interest in playing-card history and collecting, I've come across some really fun history I never knew about coming from the Nintendo Corporation out of Kyoto, Japan. Nintendo was founded in the year 1889, and from 1889 to 1956, Nintendo primarily made and sold decks of Hanafuda cards, which are basically a much different version of the standard 52-card playing card decks than we are used to here in the states, but with Japanese origins which actually developed from imported 16th-century Portuguese playing cards.

Nintendo later ventured into various other kinds of businesses, including a taxi company, and love hotels.

sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo & http://www.wopc.co.uk/japan/kabufuda.html