Nintendo

Nintendo has long been the company that specializes in fun. They became world famous when they introduced the Nintendo Entertainment System (aka Famicom). It was a revolution in gaming and consoles took off from there. Ironic, considering they got their start creating hand made playing cards.

The company and that system made Mario and his plumber friend Luigi international superstars. Just about everyone at least tried playing Super Mario Bros in its platforming perfection. To this day, the popularity endures to the point where Universal is building theme parks based on Nintendo intellectual property.

Nintendo practically owned the RPG genre with its Zelda games. Following Link’s adventures to save princess Zelda from Ganon. Several of the games in the series top all time best lists across the world. Even the most recent Breath of the Wild game managed to outdo the masterpieces that came before it.

They defined portable gaming with the Nintendo Gameboy, DS, 3DS and now Switch. A vast majority of gamers have played something on at least one of those platforms. They made gaming on the go popular well before cell phone games were a thing.

In recent years, Nintendo has not been an innovator on the graphics front, but their gameplay can be hard to match. They shocked the world with the Wii system and its innovative motion controls. People around the world felt more immersed in the game with the ability to swing their arms like they were hold a bat, tennis racket, baseball and more.

With so many iconic characters and innovative systems, Nintendo has still managed to outdo themselves by combining their mobile gaming expertise with their motion controls. This combination made the Switch the latest winner in a long line of great systems.