Tradition
Legacy brands often don’t age well. Most hit their prime, get bloated with bureaucracy, and slowly fade into irrelevance, staggering along on nostalgia and licensing deals. IBM, Kodak, GE—each was once a giant, now mostly a cautionary tale. But then there’s Nintendo. A company so old it predates the lightbulb, yet somehow, instead of becoming a relic, it remains a cultural juggernaut. How? By knowing exactly when to throw out the old playbook and start fresh.
Founded in 1889, Nintendo began as a playing card company in Kyoto—which made sense at the time; Kyoto was the cultural epicenter of Japan. For decades, it cranked out hanafuda cards, but by the mid-20th century, Japan’s entertainment landscape had moved on. Nintendo could have gone the way of every other legacy brand that refused to evolve—but instead, it did what any desperate company does: it started throwing ideas at the wall. Love hotels? Sure. Instant rice? Why not. A taxi service? Let’s give it a shot. Most of these ventures failed spectacularly, but they taught Nintendo a critical lesson: survival means knowing when to pivot.
Legacy
That mindset came from Hiroshi Yamauchi, who, at just 22 years old, was handed control of the family business in 1949. With zero experience and no real interest in playing cards, he did what any young CEO with unchecked power would do—fired half the company and rebuilt it in his own image. Yamauchi wasn’t sentimental about Nintendo’s past; he was interested in dominance. Under his rule, the company pivoted to toys and electronics, hiring a young designer named Shigeru Miyamoto, whose creations (Donkey Kong, Mario, Zelda) would launch Nintendo into gaming superstardom. Then there was Gunpei Yokoi, the mastermind behind the Game Boy, whose philosophy—use cheap, existing technology in clever ways—became Nintendo’s signature move.
But the real reinvention came under Satoru Iwata, a rare CEO who actually understood games because he made them. Taking over in 2002, he realized Nintendo couldn’t win the graphics arms race against PlayStation (Sony) and Xbox (Microsoft). So instead, he steered the company toward accessibility, resulting in the Nintendo DS and Wii—two consoles that made gaming mainstream again. Iwata also had a leadership style unheard of in corporate Japan; when Nintendo faced financial trouble, he cut his own salary in half rather than fire employees. Bitches, try finding a CEO who’d do that today.
Of course, while Nintendo has always been a pioneer in gaming, its leadership has historically been a boys’ club. But that’s starting to shift. Aya Kyogoku, the first woman to direct a Nintendo game, helped shape Animal Crossing into a cultural phenomenon. The Animal Crossing team, in particular, has a strong female presence, proving that Nintendo’s next great reinvention might not be technological—it might be cultural.
And that’s the thing about Nintendo; while other legacy brands in corporate hell are busy writing their own obituaries, Nintendo keeps finding ways to surprise us. Reinvention isn’t just something they do—it’s their entire identity. And if history is any indication, they’re not done changing yet.
Is your company trying to reinvent itself? How’s that going?