About this episode
<p>You may think you know the Nintendo story: a plumber named Mario, a princess named Zelda… and didn’t they buy the Seattle Mariners at some point? We thought we knew it too. And then we started researching and were blown away.</p><p>The lovable Disney-like Nintendo that we know today is a 130 year-old a playing card company (i.e. gambling), forged in the shadowy world of the Yakuza and shaped by a four-generation cycle of bitter family betrayal. And its unlikely transformation into a global multi-billion dollar media monopoly was led by an iron-fisted patriarch who — amazingly — never played a video game in his life! Get ready for one of our favorite stories Acquired has ever told — we couldn’t make this one up if we tried!</p><p><br></p><p>Links:</p><ul><li><a href="https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/atari-with-nolan-bushnell">Our Atari episode with Nolan Bushnell</a></li><li><a href="https://vimeo.com/148909578">Video of id Software’s legendary PC “port” of Super Mario Brothers 3</a></li><li><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/11N6jjXkUpCoB2-8EQM3mYeJpr6X_A8NVgrlwYqX8ji0/edit">Episode sources</a></li></ul><p><br></p><p>Carve Outs:</p><ul><li><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6710474/">Everything Everywhere All At Once</a></li><li>Michael Lewis <a href="https://tim.blog/2020/05/01/michael-lewis/">on Tim Ferriss</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prW1KNJ8EtY">on CSPAN</a></li></ul><p></p><p><strong>Sponsors:</strong></p><ul><li>Anthropic: <a href="https://bit.ly/acquiredclaude25">https://bit.ly/acquiredclaude25</a></li><li>Sentry: <a href="https://bit.ly/acquiredsentry">https://bit.ly/acquiredsentry</a><ul><li>The Acquired Meetup (in SF!): <a href="https://bit.ly/sentryacquiredmeetup">https://bit.ly/sentryacquiredmeetup</a></li></ul></li><li>WorkOS: <a href="https://bit.ly/workos26">https://bit.ly/workos26</a> <ul><li>Full Acquired Unplugged Videos: <a href="https://acquired.fm/unplugged">https://acquired.fm/unplugged</a></li></ul></li><li>Statsig: <a href="https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26">https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26</a></li></ul><p><br></p><p><strong>More Acquired!</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://www.acquired.fm/email">Get email updates</a> with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodes</li><li><a href="http://acquired.fm/slack">Join the Slack</a></li><li><a href="https://pod.link/acquiredlp">Subscribe to ACQ2</a></li><li><a href="https://www.acquired.fm/store">Merch Store</a>!</li></ul><p><br>© Copyright 2015-2026 ACQ, LLC</p>