What did Nintendo make before they had video game consoles, and what year did they begin?

Strbrstgrl28

Nintendo used to sell playing cards instead of game consoles. They started in either 1889 or 1899. Jun 25 04, 10:56 AM

Valf

Try this site GCNmaster22 http://www.nintendoland.com/home2.htm?history/ "Did you know that Nintendo started it's enterprise more than a century ago?! It was back in 1889 when the great grandfather of the current Nintendo president, Fusajiro Yamauchi, founded "Nintendo Koppai". Of course they weren´t making videogames back in 1889, they started out making special playing cards called Hanafunda ("flower cards"). The special thing about these cards were that they had different symbols on them instead of numbers. Later in 1959 they signed an agreement with Disney to make playing cards featuring Disney´s characters. Nintendo is however still producing playing-cards but only in a small scale to private customers." Jun 25 04, 10:56 AM