Nintendo's Origins
Acquired
Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal
4.7 • 5.2K Ratings
🗓️ 16 March 2023
⏱️ 208 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
You may think you know the Nintendo story: a plumber named Mario, a princess named Zelda… and didn’t they buy the Seattle Mariners at some point? We thought we knew it too. And then we started researching and were blown away.
The lovable Disney-like Nintendo that we know today is a 130 year-old a playing card company (i.e. gambling), forged in the shadowy world of the Yakuza and shaped by a four-generation cycle of bitter family betrayal. And its unlikely transformation into a global multi-billion dollar media monopoly was led by an iron-fisted patriarch who — amazingly — never played a video game in his life! Get ready for one of our favorite stories Acquired has ever told — we couldn’t make this one up if we tried!
Links:
- Our Atari episode with Nolan Bushnell
- Video of id Software’s legendary PC “port” of Super Mario Brothers 3
- Episode sources
Carve Outs:
- Everything Everywhere All At Once
- Michael Lewis on Tim Ferriss and on CSPAN
Sponsors:
- Anthropic: https://bit.ly/acquiredclaude25
- Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentry
- WorkOS: https://acquired.fm/unplugged
- Playing Cards: https://bit.ly/workOSshop (Code: ACQDECK)
- Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26
More Acquired!
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- Join the Slack
- Subscribe to ACQ2
- Merch Store!
© Copyright 2015-2026 ACQ, LLC
Transcript
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| 0:00.5 | Oh, have I ever done my Mario impression for you? |
| 0:04.1 | No, I would not expect you to have a Mario impression. |
| 0:07.8 | I don't know where this came from, |
| 0:08.9 | maybe all the Super Smash I was playing in college, |
| 0:10.8 | on N64, but here it goes. |
| 0:12.8 | He-he-he, ho-ho, ho-ho, ho-ho. |
| 0:16.6 | That is amazing. |
| 0:18.6 | Wow, I had no idea you had that in you. |
| 0:22.2 | I'm very impressed. |
| 0:25.8 | See, have you been storing that up for this episode? |
| 0:28.0 | Wow. |
| 0:29.6 | When Charles Martin Im moves on from this mortal coil, |
| 0:32.2 | I think Nintendo knows who the replacement is going to be. |
| 0:34.4 | Oh, that is so good. |
| 0:39.9 | I'm never going to be able to lick it you the same. |
| 0:41.8 | Good. That was the goal. |
| 0:43.2 | All right, let's do it. |
| 0:44.5 | Let's go. |
| 0:46.1 | Who got the truth? |
| 0:49.0 | Is it you, is it you, is it you? |
| 0:51.2 | Who got the truth now? |
| 0:54.0 | Is it you, is it you, is it you? |
... |
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