Nintendo Co., Ltd. (任天堂株式会社, Nintendō Kabushiki gaisha?) (TYO: 7974) is a Japanese multinational consumer electronics company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. Nintendo is the world's largest video game company by revenue. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it originally produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel.
Abandoning previous ventures, Nintendo developed into a video game company, becoming one of the most influential in the industry and Japan's third most valuable listed company with a market value of over US$85 billion. Nintendo of America is also the majority owner of the Seattle Mariners Major League Baseball team.
The name Nintendo can be roughly translated from Japanese to English as "leave luck to heaven". As of September 30, 2012, Nintendo has sold over 637.7 million hardware units and 4.01 billion software units.