In 1889 a 29 year old Fusajiro Yamauchi opened the doors to his company Nintendo Koppai, which manufactured Hanafuda cards made up of paintings on cards from the bark of a mulberry tree. Fusajiro sold the cards at two Nintendo Koppai stores and the quality of the art and design broke Hanafuda into enormous popularity and establish Nintendo as the top game company in Japan.
The same year Fusajiro started Nintendo Koppai, the Japanese government put into effect the first general election for the House of Representatives of Japan and instituted the Constitution of the Empire of Japan, called the Meiji Constitution. These government changes lead to the revision of numerous laws which included relaxing the ban on countless types of playing cards. As Nintendo was the most popular card company they were able to expand faster than any of the competition.
Over the next 40 years, under Fusajiro Yamauchi tutelage, Nintendo Koppai remained the top card company in Japan as they continued adding the most popular games as well as inventing several of their own. At the age of 70, Fusajiro retired and his adopted son-in-law Sekiryo Kaneda (who changed his name to Sekiryo Yamauchi) took over the business in 1929.
After continuing to run the company as the largest Japanese card manufacturer, Sekiryo sought to expand the company and established a joint venture which renamed the company Yamauchi Nintendo & Company in 1933, and formed a card game distributor called Marufuku Company, Ltd. These two companies continued to grow the business into a corporate giant. After running the company for 20 years, Sekiryo suffered a stroke in 1949 forcing him to retire. Sekiryo called for his grandson Hiroshi Yamauchi, who was in law school at the time, and asked him to take over the family business.
