First Nintendo?

Factual Questions
1

This is sure to be a quick and easy one for you guys - in which year did Nintendo launch its first home gaming system and what was it? I have a bet with a friend and would really like to win 10 bucks…

Anyone?

2

Nintendo launched the Magnavox Odyssey in Japan in 1975 - it wasn’t their own-developed product though.

3
4

1889, if we can trust wikipedia, and it appears that we can.

5

Nice.

OK, I think perhaps we need a clearer definition of ‘home gaming system’

6

Will “games console” do?

And I thought that the NES was their first, am I wrong?

7

Nintendos FIRST home gaming system? Is it not the NES? Sure, they’ve had lots of arcades, and of course the one you mentioned, the Odyssey. But Nintendo’s very own home gaming system I believe is the NES.

Correction, 1985:

8

Especially considering that:

Nintendo Company History

9

Well, yes - that’s what I meant.

10

The Famicom, the Japanese version of the NES (assuming we’re talking about home video game consoles) was released in 1983.

11

Come on guys, it’s gotta be the Famicom. If I invited you all over to play on my new “home gaming system” and it turned out to be poker night instead, you would all think I was crazy. No one calls Magic: The Gathering a “home gaming system” either (it’s a CCG).

I hardly think you can count the Odyssy either, especially since Nintendo had no involvment with it at all until it had been out for 3 years already. They functioned as an importer/reseller only.

12

Famicom, the Japanese NES, came out in 1983.

13

That Odyssey game brings back memories. Sticking those plastic overlays on the TV with static electricity. It sure seems sucky in retrospect, but I was so amazed at the time.