Super Nintendo: How One Japanese Company Helped the World Have Fun

“The story of Nintendo... is the story of video games as a whole,” asserts journalist MacDonald (You Died) in this entertaining history of the Japanese gaming company. Founder Fusajiro Yamauchi started Nintendo in the 1890s to sell illustrated handmade playing cards known as hanafuda. Decades later, the company brought on engineer Gunpei Yokoi, who created one of Nintendo’s first successful toys, an extendable plastic gripper known as the Ultra Hand. Nintendo’s first gaming console, the Color TV-Game 6, entered the market in 1977 and hit games, like Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros, The Legend of Zelda, and Pokémon, launched the company into global prominence. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata saw games not just as a form of entertainment, MacDonald explains, but as a way of improving quality of life. She chronicles how the company helped popularize handheld gaming with the creation of the Game Boy in 1989 and innovated touch-screen controls, as seen on the Nintendo DS, before smartphones were commonplace. MacDonald writes with a gamer’s keen eye for the intricacies of play and a thoughtful appreciation for Nintendo’s commitment to innovate and have fun. This is a must-read for gamers. (Feb.)