Hello and welcome to the 2017 Worlds Fair Thread about one of the most popular Gaming and fun areas in the world...JAPAN!!!

In this magical thread we will talk about all the very fun things about Japan Like that it's the home of the mega giant video game company Nintendo and also how its home to MANY MANY Arcades of all types and some that are not in the states... So as the Great Mario Mario would say "LET'S A-GO!!"

Let's a Start with one of the hugest Video Game companies if not the biggest one: NINTENDO!!

Yes folks this is a picture of NINTENDO Headquarters in Kyoto, Japan. This is a recent picture but believe it or not the gaming giant wasn't into video games at first. See back in September of 1889, Fusajiro Yamauchi opened the first Hanafuda (Flower cards) card shop named "Nintendo Koppai". This was during a time when the Japan Government banned Playing cards from the public due to a tie with gambling BUT Yamauchi's cards were able to sell. After success with his first cards, Mr. Yamauchi went on to make more and even opened a card shop in Osaka, Japan as well. Mr. Yamauchi retired in 1929 leaving the card companies in the hands of his son-in-law Sekiryo Kaneda (whose name had changed to Sekiryo Yamauchi) Mr. Yamauchi sadly passed away in 1940 from a stroke after being out of the card business since he had left it to his son-in-law.

We now move to the year 1956 as Hiroshi Yamauchi the grandson of Mr. Yamauchi took a trip to America to go and visit The United States Playing Card Company which was a dominant playing card manufacturer in the U.S. What he found out though was that their office was very small and he then realized there was limited potential in that business and it was a turning point. He then acquired the rights to use Disney characters on his playing cards to try and drive sales.

Fast forward to 1963 as the company changed names from Nintendo Playing Card Co. Ltd. into Nintendo Co. Ltd. This change started an experiment of different types of product to make sales including: Dayia, a taxi service, a Love hotel chain and a TV network just to name a few. Those all failed though and after the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, playing card sales had dropped causing Nintendo's stock to plummet to the price of 60 yen.

1966...Oh was that a interesting year...see Nintendo had now moved into the Japanese toy industry with the creation of "The Ultra Hand"

      

This was created by Gunpei Yokoi, it's maintenance engineer in his free time. Gunpei was then moved to the new "Nintendo Games" Department as a product developer.  Nintendo then made more popular toys such as The Ultra Machine and the Love Tester but had a hard time competing with companies such as Tomy and Bandai.

Enter the year 1974 as Nintendo decided to venture into the video game industry as they got the rights to distribute the Magnavox Odyssey Video Game Console in Japan. In 1977 Nintendo produced there own system with The Color TV-Game, 4 versions of these were produced all carrying a variation of a single game (As an example Color TV Game 6 had 6 versions of Light Tennis)

Another huge thing to happen around this time was that a man by the name of Shigeru Miyamoto was hired, he worked for Yokoi and was the man who was able to create, direct and produce some of Nintendo's most famous video games and become one of the most recognizable figures in the video game industry.

In 1981 a major game was released called Donkey Kong that was designed by Miyamoto that changed Nintendo's fortunes drastically. The game was a hit and earned 3 other ports to other systems and introduced a early version of Mario known as Jumpman in Japan.

From 1983 till today Nintendo has been busy making Many games, consoles and even phone apps...when will it end?? Hopefully never!!!

(GiGO, a large 6 floor Sega game center on Chuo Dori, in front of the LAOX Aso-Bit-City in Akihabara, Tokyo, Japan)

Japan is also home to Many, Many Arcades and video game stores. There are 5,772 licensed arcades in Japan, according to data from the National Police Department (2014)

“Most of these licensed arcades are run by major game machine manufacturers, such as Sega, Namco and Taito,” said Keiichi Kouno, managing director of All Nippon Amusement Machine Operator’s Union.

There are 10,297 small game spaces located in shopping malls, hotels, theaters and bowling alleys. Game spaces that share less than 10 percent of whole facility can be operated without  a license, Kouno said.

Laws and regulations control the licensed arcades in terms of hours of operation and age limits. Arcades can only be open from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., and laws prohibit those under 18 from entering an arcade after 10 p.m. On Okinawa, those under 18 can’t go to an arcade after 8 p.m.

The 3 biggest game companies in japan are:

Sega
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Namco
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Taito
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