The secret to Nintendo's success (Encore)
The Indicator from Planet Money
NPR
4.7 • 9.2K Ratings
🗓️ 26 December 2025
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For the next week, we're running some of our favorite shows from this year. On today's show, a brief history of Nintendo and how a small playing card company in Japan became a gaming juggernaut.
This piece originally aired June 16, 2025.
Related episodes:
Inside video game economics
Forever games: the economics of the live service model
The boom and bust of esports
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, everyone. Hope you're having a great holiday break. For the next week, we are running some of our favorite shows from this year. |
| 0:07.0 | Today's episode is about how Nintendo became a gaming juggernaut. |
| 0:12.0 | NPR. |
| 0:27.4 | In the world of consumer electronics, being number one is usually an advantage. |
| 0:32.8 | Like, if your product has the newest tech, the most features, the fastest processors, |
| 0:35.8 | chances are people will line up to buy it. |
| 0:39.3 | Sometimes, though, it pays not to be number one. Take Nintendo. |
| 0:40.9 | Earlier this month, it released its latest console, the Switch 2. |
| 0:44.7 | Now, as a piece of video game machinery, |
| 0:47.0 | the new Switch is nowhere near as powerful as its competitors, |
| 0:50.7 | like the Sony PlayStation or the Microsoft Xbox. |
| 0:54.1 | And yet, when the Switch 2 was released a little over a week ago, competitors like the Sony PlayStation or the Microsoft Xbox. |
| 0:57.8 | And yet, when the Switch 2 was released a little over a week ago, gamers in New York camped out on the sidewalk outside a Nintendo store for hours, just to snag one. |
| 1:08.0 | She's been here since 1230. |
| 1:10.6 | Oh my God. So much longer than I thought. She's been here since 1230. Oh my God. |
| 1:12.1 | So much longer than I thought. |
| 1:13.9 | I've been here for now 18 days. |
| 1:16.8 | And me and my buddy, Chris and or Chicken Dog, have been planning this for two years. |
| 1:22.2 | Chicken Dog is such a great name. |
| 1:24.4 | Anyway, despite the hype around this new product, today's episode is not about the Switch 2, |
| 1:30.6 | because we think that the story of Nintendo itself is a lot more interesting. |
| 1:35.5 | This is the indicator for Planet Money. |
... |
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