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Nintendo Co., Ltd. is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes and releases both video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as Nintendo Karuta by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade hanafuda playing cards. After venturing into various lines of business during the 1960s and acquiring a legal status as a public company, Nintendo distributed its first console, the Color TV-Game, in 1977. It gained international recognition with the release of Donkey Kong in 1981 and the Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Mario Bros. in 1985. Since then, Nintendo has produced some of the most successful consoles in the video game industry, such as the Game Boy, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the Nintendo DS, the Wii, and the Switch. It has created numerous major franchises, including Mario, Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Fire Emblem, Kirby, Star Fox, Pokémon, Super Smash Bros., Animal Crossing, Xenoblade Chronicles, and Splatoon, and Nintendo's mascot, Mario, is internationally recognized. The company has sold more than 5.592 billion video games and over 836 million hardware units globally, as of March 2023. Nintendo has multiple subsidiaries in Japan and abroad, in addition to business partners such as The Pokémon Company and HAL Laboratory. Nintendo and its staff have received awards including Emmy Awards for Technology & Engineering, Game Awards, Game Developers Choice Awards, and British Academy Games Awards. It is one of the wealthiest and most valuable companies in the Japanese market. History of Nintendo Nintendo was founded as Nintendo Karuta on 23 September 1889 by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi in Shimogyō-ku, Kyoto, Japan, as an unincorporated establishment, to produce and distribute Japanese playing cards, or karuta, most notably "flower cards". The name "Nintendo" is commonly assumed to mean "leave luck to heaven", but the assumption lacks historical validation; it can alternatively be translated as "the temple of free hanafuda".