The company was run by yamauchi s extended family for

were sold in Osaka and Kyoto, where the company's headquarters are still present. The
company was run by Yamauchi s extended family for over a century. The firm focused on ́
card business at first. But in 1959, the youthful CEO, Hiroshi Yamauchi procured the license
to have Disney characters printed on the playing cards giving them a state- of-the-art look.
[ CITATION Chr10 \l 16393 ] The success of these cards led to the fleeting expansion of the
business and in 1963, Yamauchi abbreviated the Nintendo Playing Card Company’s name to
Nintendo Company Limited, signaling the company's motive to enter other business fields.
 Surviving as a Toy Company

Nintendo entered into other sectors including food and toys in the early 1970s.“Ultra Hand,”
an extendable robotic arm was one unexpected success in the late 1970s.It was designed by
Gunpei Yokoi, an assembly line maintenance engineer who was then rewarded by a transfer
to product development where he came up with unique products like a baseball throwing
machine and a puzzle game in addition to overseeing Nintendo’s early video game efforts,
including the arcade version of Donkey Kong and the Game Boy.[ CITATION Lar07 \l 16393
]
 Nintendo Management Under Hiroshi Yamauchi
Hiroshi Yamauchi, a member of the founding family led the company from 1950-2002. He
was a charismatic leader with a vision and his management style had a strong influence on
Nintendo's modern organization structure. Nintendo was originally a family-owned and
-managed company and Yamauchi realized the necessity for a change in culture and soon
drove out the other family members from Nintendo’s board.[ CITATION Tak06 \l 16393 ]
Yamauchi was a hands-on leader, capable of making fast choices based on his business
vision. He was always thinking of ways to satisfy customers, and welcomed innovation,
experimentation, novel processes and products — including food, toys and eventually, video
games. This attitude extended to other competitors as well and as one engineer later described
that as Nintendo was always trying to do something creative and unique the development
partners of its competitors also had to present new technology and ideas. [ CITATION
Kou06 \l 16393 ] At Nintendo, Yamauchi set up a flat organisational structure, focusing on
customer satisfaction and quick decisions and believed an organization free from bureaucratic
rigidity was best suited to providing it. A risk taking culture was unusual for a large Japanese
company and thus when Iwata became the president of Nintendo in 2002, the company was
prepared to compete in a dynamic, erratic, and competitive environment.
 Iwata’s Influence
I wata, an experienced game developer and former president of game studio Hal Laboratory
succeeded Hiroshi in 2002 and despite not being a member of the founding family, Yamauchi
trusted Iwata to take Nintendo into the new millennium. [ CITATION Sat02 \l 16393 ] Iwata
believed that the process was more important than the result. As the CEO, He modified the
organization structure and asked the Nintendo executives to think about what made initiatives
succeed or fail. Even if sales were great, the Executives couldn't sit back and Iwata would