In an attempt to boost sales, Nintendo introduced several different and unique card decks.

The success of the Disney cards was so substantial that Nintendo's profits tripled and they were allowed to join the Osaka and Kyoto stock exchange. With access to several Disney characters, Nintendo aired their first television commercial. He successfully bargained with them and returned home with one of the most lucrative licenses in the entire world. There, he would discuss the possibility of distributing playing cards bearing the likenesses of Disney's properties in Japan.

His second visit was to The Walt Disney Company. On his visit there he had hoped to find ways in which to enlarge his own company, but went away in astonishment that it was very similar in size to Nintendo. His first visit was to the United States Playing Card Company, at the time the largest card making company in the world. In the late 1950s, Hiroshi Yamauchi, then-president of Nintendo, made two consequential visits to the United States. Original card games were also created by Nintendo.Ī Nintendo Ace card (this particular one is from the Middle Ages deck). The early success of Nintendo's hanafuda cards led them to produce different types of cards from both Eastern and Western origin. The Yamauchi family would find very few successes outside of the playing card industry, and thus for most of the company's early life they remained dedicated to the business of making cards. Yamauchi's business flourished and his cards were among the most popular in the entire country. Upon hearing that the ban on his hobby had been lifted, he was overjoyed and soon opened up his very own company where he could manufacture his own cards. In the eighteen hundreds the ban was lifted.įusajiro Yamauchi was a young man who played card games illegally in Japan. This practice remained successful for a short time before the government caught on to their mischief and banned them. Hanafuda card games, which replaced numbers with the 12 seasons of the year, were created during this period. Japanese citizens attempted to find ways around this ban by creating their own card games called Karuta (Karuta initially applied to card games in general though today refer to games of Japanese origin). This ban included anything originating from Western cultures and was not limited solely to cards. The Japanese government banned the Portuguese-introduced card games after their reservations on Christian missionaries from Europe began to increase.

Who made the 1st playing cards