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Nintendo is one of the most popular gaming companies in the world. The publisher and developer has created games including “The Legend of Zelda,” “Super Mario Bros,” and “Pokémon.” However, before it made consoles, hardware, and video games, Nintendo began by making and selling playing cards in Kyoto, Japan. The company was originally founded in 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi and is a publicly traded entertainment and video game business owned by shareholders, but it’s more complex than that.
The first console Nintendo released was the 1983 Family Computer (Famicom) system in Japan. Today, it manufactures the fastest-selling console in Nintendo’s history, the Nintendo Switch 2, and a few other products that aren’t the Switch. As for who owns Nintendo, well, it’s largely owned by major shareholders and minor shareholders. The major shareholders are listed on Nintendo’s website and include the following: The Master Trust Bank of Japan, Ltd. (Trust Account), Custody Bank of Japan, Ltd. (Trust Account), JP Morgan Chase Bank 380752, The Bank of Kyoto, Ltd., State Street Bank and Trust Company 505001, and more. The shares are split between each individual company and owner.
Nintendo releases annual reports detailing its sales, shareholders, and other additional details regarding the company. As for the people who are in charge of the day-to-day procedures at Nintendo, the company has had several leaders who have made some major waves in the industry.
Who is Nintendo’s CEO?
Today, Nintendo is run by President and Representative Director Shuntaro Furukawa. He’s a Japanese businessman who is currently the company’s sixth president, which is impressive as the company has been around for 137 years. He replaced Tatsumi Kimishima, after Kimishima’s retirement in 2018, who took over after the death of Satoru Iwata. As President of Nintendo, Furukawa oversees the entirety of Nintendo, including Nintendo of America.
He oversaw a few of Nintendo’s most recent games and served as executive producer on “Star Fox,” “Pokémon Pokopia,” and “Metroid Prime 4: Beyond.” As the head honcho of Nintendo, Furukawa is also responsible for everything the company makes, even if it chooses to make something odd like it did with the Virtual Boy, which is one of the weirdest products ever made by Nintendo.
Furukawa worked with some of Nintendo’s more well-known leaders, such as former President and Chief Operating Officer of Nintendo of America, Reggie Fils-Aimé. Reggie wrote a book titled “Disrupting the Game: From the Bronx to the Top of Nintendo” detailing the inner workings of Nintendo, which includes him meeting Shuntaro Furukawa and former President Satoru Iwata. Furukawa also worked with Fils-Aimé’s replacement, Doug Bowser (who has no relation to the king of the Koopas).
Is Sony or Nintendo bigger?
Nintendo is renowned among the gaming industry for its characters, worlds, and longstanding history of game development. For nearly fourteen decades, Nintendo has released flagship titles in the gaming industry with names including Link, Zelda, Mario, Samus, and Pikachu. Compared to other gaming developers and publishers such as Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo is the oldest on the block, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a larger company when it comes to revenue.
Sony began in 1946 in Japan, making it much younger than Nintendo. Still, the company generally turns a higher profit than Nintendo, due to Sony managing gaming, entertainment, electronics, and music. Meanwhile, Nintendo just focuses on gaming. Nintendo had a reported market cap of $67 billion linked to its Switch 2 and first-party games as of May of 2026, whereas Sony had $131 billion throughout its entirety.
Even with Nintendo’s full year net sales and profits growing after the first fiscal year of the Switch 2, the Nintendo Switch 2 did see price hikes. At a recent shareholder meeting, it was also revealed by Furukawa that the company raised base salaries by 10% in April 2023. In a time of turmoil in the gaming industry with layoffs and studio sales, Nintendo seems to be doing the exact opposite.
