In 1889, Fusajiro Yamauchi began manufacturing Hanafuda cards, a type of Japanese playing card, in Kyoto, Japan, for his company, Nintendo Koppai.

Japanese Hanafuda ("flower cards" in Japanese) playing cards. MakotoK/Getty

Playing cards had been popular in Japan for centuries when Fusajiro Yamauchi decided to sell a type of playing cards, Hanafuda cards, through his new company, Nintendo Koppai.

Nintendo's cards were hand-painted and high quality, and they quickly gained popularity. In 1902, the company began creating and selling western-style playing cards in Japan, too, which caught on both locally and in the rest of the world.

For decades, Nintendo was the top-selling card company in Japan.