14 DAY TRIAL // There are a lot of companies in the gaming industry that pride themselves on a vast number of released titles and an outstanding history in the business. But no matter how proud they are, and what their achievements may be, none can really stand up to Nintendo. This isn't just some random fanboy propaganda, since the company was originally founded not before the first video game was made, not before the first television set was made, but before even the first radio was patented. First born in 1887, Nintendo started out by selling Japanese playing cards, a business that eventually led it to be one of the biggest corporations in the world.
Even so, it took quite a while before the United States ever heard of the company, which they now wait day and night to release a new Wii game. The first time the name of Nintendo appeared in the American press was in October 8, 1955, in the "Patent Notice" section of New York Times. The exact mention of the company states, "Among the notices of trademark applications published this week is one from Nintendo Playing Card Company, Ltd., Kyoto City, Japan." For the remainder of the article, the author tries to translate to the best of their abilities the name of the company.
"The notice explains that one of the Japanese characters in the mark means 'happiness, fortune, or wealth.' Three other characters, pronounced 'nintendo,' are harder to translate. They constitute a fanciful expression having no precise dictionary meaning either in Japanese or English, but the application gives them the approximate sense of 'a corporation whose fortune or prosperity should be left to the mercy of heaven.'"
A broken-down explanation of the name, though as inaccurate as it may be, considering that it's meant to be interpreted as a whole, would be "the group that follows the path of the heavens." "Ten" is the general term used to refer to heaven, or something divine, while "do" is translated as "the way of" or "the path of." One way to interpret "nin" is group, or organization, but that is a bit of a stretch, considering the ambiguous and highly diplomatic Japanese language. Still, the name does explain a lot, especially the company's prolonged existence, as well as its success. Today's "Visceral Games" or "Naughty Dog" don't have a bad ring to them, but you can't really expect them to compete with the heavens themselves.