Nintendo is Now 128 Years Old

In my very first contact with Nintendo, Mario was the bad guy.

My favorite experience with Nintendo was having my dad hook up a GameCube for me. Best console ever (and I had played the ps2 and Sega genesis before, still thought what an amazing console).

Truly amazing. Wish i had a pack of those cards unopened tho. Happy 128 Nintendo and endlrss years to come.

Bar non for me is all the hours tied to mario zelda samus playing with friends my father having my mom collect rupees in the first zelda to today playing mario kart and arms with my Wife and splatoon 2 with my friends. Thank you Nintendo for ever single hour of fun

Doomed for 128 years...

Announce hidden built in hanafuda card app on Switch to celebrate

Coming home from my Dads to find my stepdad had got me a SNES, complete with A Link to the past. Life would never be the same again.

When I was 5, Super Mario World was the first video game I ever completed. It was so very epic to me. I even ran excitedly across the house and shouted, “I did it! I beat Bowser! I rescued Princess Toadstool!”

I cannot express in words how important Nintendo is to my cherished hobby. Thank you.

*Correction: I did not know her as Princess “Peach” at the time!

Happy Birthday Nintendo! I have adored the last few years of Wii U, mostly because my family, in particular my son, have been able to share it with me. Wii U era has been unforgettable for me, cannot wait to see my son make the Switch on Christmas morning...

Someone out there expects Super Mario 128 to come out now.

Happy Birthday Nintendo!

I never paid much attention to gaming consoles growing up as I had a PC for playing DOS, and later, edutainment CD-ROMs on Windows, but I was always awe-struck by the Game Boy and its portability. The Game Boy Color completely blew my mind at the time of its release. I couldn't believe that a portable device with a colour screen could run on a few AAs. I never thought to ask my struggling folks for one as it just seemed selfish to me to expect them to cough up $150 or so for a toy that would incur a further $50 or so cost per game. I would eventually buy a Nintendo DS shortly after its Australian launch in June 2005 with my pocket money, and I was broke for the rest of the year.

How times have changed. Nintendo's portable efforts have captured my imagination more than any other, and the ambitiousness of the Wii drew me into buying my first dedicated home console. I've been hooked ever since.

I haven't been a Nintendo fan for very long (first time was in 2009) but I've loved them since!

Most people forgot the fact that Nintendo started making portable gaming devices before home console. Switch being a portable is a very natural thing for Nintendo.

My first experience with Nintendo was double dash on the game cube. I’ve loved it ever since, but my favorite Nintendo experience was setting up my Nintendo Switch for the first time.

I've been in love with Nintendo since I first saw my neighbor's in 1990 at 3 years old. Super Mario/Duck Hunt, Solar Jetman, and Robo Warrior were amazing. I enjoyed watching the older kids play, but when I was 4 and the Super Nintendo lauched, my dad got my brother and I a barely used NES action set. Mario/Duckhunt, Mario 2, Mario 3, Zelda, Zelda II, Megaman 2, and Megaman 4, TMNT, and TMNT II were all amazing games my dad picked up for us, for good deals I'm told. We got our subscription to Nintendo Power, bought Valiant comics of Zelda, Mario, and of course Captain N. Saw Captain N and the Mario Super Show and Mario World on TV. I played Kirby, Contra, and the other Megaman games at friends houses, then my parents bought us an SNES and life got even better!
Super Mario World and F-Zero were soon followed by Link to the Past, Illusion of Gaia, Street Fighter II, and dozens more. I've loved Nintendo for as long as I can remember, and I am so happy they won't be leaving the entertainment industry anytime soon.
Happy Birthday Nintendo!

My first Nintendo console was Famicom, so fond memories of games and such a lame connection of gamepads, thanks god my dad has a soldering skill to rescue my childhood. But before that I've played to death of Game & Watch clones branded as Elektronika in USSR. Of course I've no idea it was originally made by Nintendo.

Otanjoubi Omedetto, Nintendo !
Happy 128 bit Anniversary !

Couldn't bring myself to ask my parents for a Game'n'Watch or GameBoy, but they seemed magical. Coveted my cousin's NES. First console I ever bought for myself was N64. When the step kids abandoned the GameCube for PS2 I gave it a good home. See, I've always gamed on home computers such as the Speccy and PC but Nintendo to me seemed like the epitome of console gaming. Such character and spirit, forging their own way.

Nintendo have a certain special flavour that I believe will see them endure beyond the generic. Companies have risen and fallen but Nintendo seem to always be there, doing their own thing and doing it well. Each time a new generation of Nintendo hardware is released I cannot help but think "The King is dead. Long live the King!"

Wii(-U), 3DS and now Switch have brought my family together in gaming, something I didn't think would happen, especially with regard to having the hardware in common. I'm forever grateful for that. Truly a lifelong love affair for me, and I look forward to what comes next.

It all started for me with a new N64 on christmas morning and a copy of super mario 64. Little did I know how much that experience would change my life.

Shoutout to the Gameboy Color with Super Mario bros DX😄

Don't forget that Nintendo actually started as an hourly hotel business.

I hope there is an afterlife so I will not miss out on new Mario, Zelda and Pokémon games after I die.

I'll never forget unwrapping my brand new Nintendo Gameboy along with a copy of gargoyles quest. I don't think I communicated with my parents for the rest of Christmas!

Being 35 and a lifetime Nintendo fan I have more memories then I can even fit in the comment box. But my now 7 year old has beat Mario 3D world/land and now botw. We working on twilight princess and I am looking forward to playing Nintendo games with my other 2 boys as well . Thanks Nintendo for a lifetime of fun.

Two of Nintendo's earlier systems changed my life: The SNES that used to be hooked up in my aunt's basement, and the silver Pikachu Game Boy Color that I received for my tenth birthday over a decade and a half ago. I've been playing video games ever since.

Happy birthday, Nintendo!

The fondest memory I have is playing The Legend of Zelda a Link to the Past with my mom translating for me, because I didn't speak english at the time (I am from Venezuela).

My first Nintendo memory was my NES bundled with Super Mario 2, which I thought was the standard for Mario games... Little did I know.

Nintendo is a huge part of my life. I made a lot of great friends sharing Nintendo games back when it was almost impossible to buy new ones in my home country.

My first experience with Nintendo was the Super Mario Bros. Super Show. It was my favorite show as a kid. Later, I got to play my first video game: Super Mario Bros. on NES.

We've come a long way since then, and that was only part of Nintendo's history.

I think my first moment with Nintendo was when I got to play the Nintendo Entertainment System at my aunt's house. I remember playing Super Mario Bros. 3 there and not knowing how to enter a door. 5-year old me did not think to press Up on the D-pad. A year later I got my own Nintendo system (albeit a Super Nintendo) with Super Mario All-Stars+Super Mario World. I have been hooked ever since, buying all Nintendo systems (well, excluding all the different Game&Watches, which, much as I'd love to own them all, are super expensive these days) and building a neat collection that I plan to continue on with for as long as I possibly can. Man, how time flies.

I don't really know what my absolute favourite moment with Nintendo was, but it's definitely got something to do with playing any of their games with my friends and family. Most notably Mario Kart. And more recently Splatoon of course.

Here's to another 128 years for all our children and grandchildren and further generations to enjoy!

Without Nintendo my interest in serious gaming, in videogame collecting, and in speedrunning, would drop to zero instantly.

Without Nintendo I would be a casual gamer with a bunch of smartphone games and a PC with a handfull of classics.

Happy Birthday Nintendo!

I think the most interesting thing about the first video is that the lyrics, "Anytime - GAME WATCH! Anywhere - GAME WATCH! Anyone - GAME WATCH" basically unchanged with their current slogan of "Anytime, anywhere, with anyone - Nintendo Switch!". Same same slogan still is used in both English and Japanese promotions, so I'm sure there it's more than coincidence.

Anyway, happy birthday to the Biggest of Big Ns. Stay old. Stay fresh. Stay freaky.

Woo, here's to 128 more!

Happy birthday, Nintendo! My favorite Nintendo memories have been all the hundreds of hours I've spent playing games and having fun with my family and friends

My first game I played by nintendo was Donkey Kong on the Atari. It wasn't until later, after the hype from my friends in elementary school that I purchased an NES console and never looked back! Great console and many long hours of classic gaming. Skipped the Super for the Genesis instead, kind of liked the N64 but thought the controller was horrible, LOVED the Gamecube, and I even owned a Dreamcast and PS2 at the time, ok with the Wii, HATE the Wii U (only had for about a year) and the Switch isn't too bad. Also, I remember when I first purchased the Gameboy and fell in love with the black and green colors. Somewhere in my collection of nintendo...where every single issue of Nintendo Power is, is also some music cassette tapes that have their logo on it. I'm surprised that this is still never covered throughout this site, as they seemed to be in the music business for a short while (the artists sure were not any good). Anyways, Happy Birthday Nintendo, and hope you have many more!

My favourite Nintendo experiences have been Gamecube, Wii and now Switch. I love them all. I also enjoyed a lot the old Game boy, it was my first console ever!
I'm sure I would have loved a SNes too but back then my parents decided to buy me an Amiga computer instead. I didn't care that much back then I just wanted something to play videogames.

The Game & Watch commercial is so cute lol
The "Super Mario 128" demo reminds me of Pikmin

Just as old as me

@LuckyLand mine NES/SNES and Gamecube. The others... just no

Today would be very apt for the Super Mario 128 trailer to be shown by Nintendo. Direct footage, not the poor quality off screen video we got back at Spaceworld 2000. Happy Birthday Nintendo.

@Donutman beautiful, love it!

Congrats Nintendo!

I have some Ninty hanafuda shamelessly for sale: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/162683230899?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

I'm almost that old 😁

Nin128do. Um.............I'll show myself the door and think about my action...

And now I'm reminded of some commenter I saw on a Nintendo hate video trying to argue they only started in the 80's.

Well... my earliest gaming memory, I actually must give to Sonic, and his first game. But since then, Nintendo rapidly overtook Sega as purveyor of my most cherished memories. Earliest Nintendo one is good ol' Mario 3, which I used to play with my sister, and to this day consider one of the best games ever made. Other memories: my mom waking me up with Yoshi's Island, crying at the end of Ocarina of Time (come back, Navi!!), being scared to death of the eel at the bottom of Jolly Roger Bay, and enjoying the endless speculation at the roster of Smash 4 on Smashboards.

Thanks for everything, Nintendo.

Sweet effin' happy birthday to you, big enn.

My first memory of a Nintendo experience was my brother buying a NES for us. Track n Field was the game we played the most initially. There are many fond memories throughout the years. One that immediately stands out was my first impression of Metroid Prime. I remember thinking to myself how amazing it was despite my initial hesitation from abandoning the 2d plane. To this day, Nintendo still has a knack for impressive surprises.

My favorite and most fondest Nintendo memories will always remain in the early 90's with the whole family sitting in my grandmother's den some nights and playing Super Mario World, Dr. Mario, Contra, and Legend of Kage for hours and hours. These are also some of my earliest memories as I was barely a toddler.

Large part of why Nintendo remains the gaming company I display any kind of loyalty to. I grew up with their games and consoles. Even my high school graduation present was a DS Lite.

It's a darn shame Super Mario 128 wasn't released this year to celebrate the anniversary.

@Shiryu I found one of those (it was even missing the battery cover like the one pictured) at a yard sale years ago and foolishly sold it on eBay during college because I needed to pay student loans. It was such a neat piece of Nintendo history. :’(

I’ve been a fan of Nintendo since the early 90’s. I picked up Super Mario World and DKC at age 3 and Nintendo gaming has been my main hobby ever since. I still remember how excited I was to get past the second Koopa Kid’s castle in SMW (it seemed impossible at the time due to my age). It was the first game I ever beat. Finding the secret world blew my mind. Yoshi’s Island, Super Mario Kart, DKC2, Mario All-Stars, and Mario Paint cemented my love of gaming. DKC2 and Yoshi’s Island remain two of my all-time favorites. Happy Birthday, Nintendo!

My first experience with Nintendo was with the original Gameboy bundled with Tetris. First games I finished were Turtles: Fall of the foot clan and super Mario land. Never thought I'd be completing Super Mario Land again on the 3DS many years later and playing Tetris. No Turtles game though.

First game for the nes was rainbow island. Good times

My first experience with Nintendo was watching Mr. Rogers on TV as they opened up a Donkey Kong cabinet to show how the game works. From the joystick and buttons, coin mech, and to the PCB, I was just blown away! Since that, I wasn't able to find a Donkey Kong cabinet during our outings/errands. But when we got our Coleco Vision and Donkey Kong, it was definitely on...ahem, like Donkey Kong. And the family played the heck out of it. Those were good times.

@justin233 That picture is not my own, but I still have it on the shelf next to my Game Boy collection.

@WiltonRoots LMAO that was pretty good

Crazy to think the Big N has been around that long! Still going strong in 2017!

@PlywoodStick Can you imagine the flack they got back then for not having western AAA card games...

Really nice to read all these great comments! My first experience with nintendo was the moment my brother and I received an NES with super mario bros and duck hunt on 1 cartridge. We have all been a Nintendo fan ever since

I grew up in a house surrounded by electronics, which wasn't as common in the early 90s. My father was an IT specialist and always had several computers in the house, and I'd sometimes even get stuff like Operating Systems before they were publicly released to play on with the caveat I had to let him know if I found any bugs (so he could tell his work). So at the age of 2 I was already starting to play games on my own on the computer. I'll never forget the day I got my first gaming console though, it was Christmas of 1994 (and I was 5). It came packaged with Super Mario World and Super Mario All Stars, and I also got Disney's Aladdin with it. I don't know if anything could ever give me more nostalgia than those three games. I soon was beating him at games. My mother later told me that at some point they were a little worried by how much time I spent gaming until they talked to a therapist and found out that I had an "addictive personality" and it was likely I'd be addicted to something and games were way better than drugs or alcohol, which put things in perspective and they continued to encourage my hobbies.

These days I'm just as into table top games as video games (plus other hobbies like writing) but I'll probably always be a Nintendo fan, even when they make choices I completely disagree with.

I discovered Nintendo by playing the NES at a friend when we were kids. Fell in love right away. I bought more or less all the consoles that followed (with exception of the gameboy color and gamecube somehow)

My first contact was with the cartoons made by DIC,(now called Cookie Jar).

My favorite experience was playing Super Smash Bros for the first time(I started with Brawl).Almost all the characters I first saw in cartoons based on videogames were in it.And more were added in Smash 4.

The first video games I ever played were Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. for NES when I was about 4 years old. Not a bad start. My favorite genres were platformers, action-adventures, and RPG's from then onwards.

Now might be a good time to release an actual Mario 128 game!

@WiltonRoots Yeah, considering Japan's long-time contact with the Netherlands, it's unbelievable that Nintendo never even tried to make a deal to port the Dutch Klaverjas (Jack of Clubs) series to the Hanafuda Entertainment System. Nintendo has a long history of rejecting western 3rd parties, so disgraceful! No wonder Nintendo barely sells in the Netherlands to this day.

Loving some of the stories in this comments section.

One of my greatest "Nintendo moments" was on my 11th birthday. I was late on the Mario Party 3 wagon due to playing the hell out of MP1 and MP2, and as a little kid I didn't know about release dates and such. To my displeasure, all the shopkeepers told my dad that they didn't sell MP3 anymore. My dad saw me gawking at the GameCube systems set up around the store. I wanted it instead deep down, but I knew it was too much to ask for and was more than content with MP3. My dad then told me to wait outside while he "checked something". He then surprised me by the car boot with a GCN and Melee. I was nearly teary-eyed, and hugged my dad, which I never often did. That 10-minute car journey home felt like an eternity. One of the best moments ever, especially in hindsight as Melee is one of the few games that changed my life!

My second one was on Christmas morning of 1999. For months, my older brothet and I were fighting for the "single game of choice" our parents promised us for Christmas - I know, spoilt right? He wanted WrestleMania 2000, I wanted Smash 64. We both liked each other's picks too, but we were both passionate for our own choices. Christmas morning hits, and my parents tell us before opening any of our presents that they didn't get either game as we couldn't be sensible and agree to a single game. We were disheartened, but we didn't complain. Finally, after all the unwrapping of old socks and generic chocolates was done, my mum and dad gave us each an oddly shaped box and told us to check if the contents of each box were the presents she bought for our cousins. We reluctantly did with frowns on both our faces. But, lo and behold, he pulled Smash 64 out his box, and I pulled WM2000 out of mine, and as we saw what each of us held, we jumped up, screamed the house down, and hugged each other and our parents. You could say we were spoilt rotten that day, but that's a memory we'll both never forget.

Happy 128, Nintendo!

I will always remember my Dad taking me to Target to get my first Game Boy. It wasn't my first exposure to Nintendo, since my Dad had an NES and my friend had a Game Boy, but it was such a big deal for me to get my own. Still have it too.

Happy Birthday, Nintendo! The first games I played were Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt and Mario Bros. 3 on my parent's NES when I was four, and I immediately fell in love. That was right around when the Gamecube released, and my parents decided to get one for me and my brother. Needless to say, this changed my life. I have many great memories of playing Mario Party 4, Super Mario Sunshine, Luigi's Mansion, Sonic Adventure 1 & 2... they're still some of my favorite games to this day! Can't thank Nintendo enough for giving me all these great childhood memories, and for still making great games and systems that I love! Looking forward to the future, with hopefully Luigi's Mansion 3 sooner rather than later!

128 and still staying fresh.

@BigYellow Super Magio 64 Deluxe (Special 128 Edition) for Switch confirmed!

"So we want to salute Nintendo and wish them another 128 years of success so we can all celebrate the 256th birthday next century."

See ya all in Heaven when that day comes, guys. Hope Jesus joins in on the fun.

@sillygostly
I love stories like this, just goes to show that those elitists are wrong and "real" Nintendo fans don't only consist of people playing from the NES and SNES era.

Love Nintendo's hanafuda cards...wished they made hyakunin isshu karuta cards though.

@Radbot42
No, they actually started as a Hanafuda playing card company.

When my great grandfather's brother hooked up a Wii U with Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze. It was the first game I ever beat, life was never the same again.

May us hope that unlike SMB's lives counter, Nintendo's age counter is properly coded and continues to function correctly.

It's nice to see here so many stories of people that grew up with Nintendo games, in all the different ages. I stille remember the day my parents brought my sister and me to a store and gave us one game boy each, two tetris cartridges and a cable to play together. When i was ill and didn't go to school an older guy in the neighborhood gave me his NES, I remember being ill as a highlight in my childhood! The the SNES for my birthday with Super Mario World and... Street Fighter 2! Friends came to my house just to play SF2. From then I always got all Nintendo consoles and have lots of great memories and emotions. Thank you Nintendo and Happy Birthday!

Dear Nintendo. Congrats on your 128th birthday! Can you please make me a switch that runs splatoon2 at 1080p consistently with some AA thrown in for good measure? I promise to buy lots of them. Thanks so much.

@John_Mcclane Almost correct, save for the part where "Nintendo 128 years old" needs to be replaced with Mario 128...

@John_Mcclane Ah... Smileys or quotation marks would certainly have helped, in that case. It's hard to read jokes or sarcasm out of plain text...

P.S.

Funny to see that, as a European, you've chosen such a typical piece of Hollywood Americana as your avatar...

@OuterTsuchinoko

I thought they did the hourly hotels before that. It's not something easily found online but I thought they went from hotels, to hanafuda, to videogames, might be more things between hanafuda and videogames but IDK

@Radbot42 Yup, they were called Love Hotels:
https://kotaku.com/5784314/the-nintendo-theyve-tried-to-forget-gambling-gangsters-and-love-hotels

http://www.businessinsider.com/before-mario-nintendos-playing-cards-toys-and-love-hotels-2011-8?international=true&r=US&IR=T

@John_Mcclane Calling John McClane aka Bruce Willis an anti-hero is probably stepping on a heck of a lot of American toes.

Not my toes, however: they've been living in Europe for so long now, I practically am European...

@Radbot42
https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Corporate/Nintendo-History/Nintendo-History-625945.html#1889

The hotels were not the first thing. Check out that link and you can see. And there are documentaries on Nintendo on Youtube also. Hanafuda is the first. I wanted to get you a straight source from Nintendo itself.

My first Nintendo experience was in the arcade with many of the upcoming releases on the Switch, such as Mario Bros. and Punchout! My first console experience, per say, was with Octopus, from Game & Watch.

My favorite Nintendo experience is seeing Miyamoto do a photo shoot, with real life MarioKarts, in my local mall about half a decade ago.

Nintendo taking grown mens lunch money since 1889.

Still 3 years younger then coca cola and dr pepper ( order ) 1886.

@Nincompoop No, Nintendo Of America had portable devices before home systems, because the Color TV games was at the time a home console, being a Pong clone, and released in 1977, 3 years before the Game & Watch line debuted. Also, in 1977 Nintendo, Co Ltd didn't have any subsidiaries- ie there was no Nintendo of America in 1977.

Nintendo Co Ltd (Nintendo, Japan) is a far different company today than they were in 1889. That company wasn't even called the same. Today's Nintendo really began in the 70's after years of branching out trying to find a niche that would make them an international company. In 1980 they struck gold with the Game & Watch, allowing them to set up the company responsible for opening up and operating the world's largest video game market- Nintendo of America. NOA didn't begin until 1980, that's really the true birth of modern Nintendo. They went from being all over the place in toys, cards, taxis, to being 99% focused as a game maker. Not to mention that before 1980 they were strictly a Japan only company, not an international conglomerate that they are today, owning (albeit partly after the sale of their majority stake) a major league baseball team. North America is above and beyond the largest video game market on the planet. When Nintendo setup Nintendo Of America, they officially became an international company, introducing not only their Game & Watch line, but also multiple arcade cabinets which were popular at the time. Until the 1950's, all Nintendo was is just some small card maker located in Kyoto, Japan. The 1980's saw them grow into the largest player in a market originally created and owned by America. Miyamoto and Yokoi's creations really allowed them to go international with Donkey Kong and Game & Watch. Those two should really be celebrated for making modern Nintendo Nintendo.