Nintendo of America Inc.

Moby ID: 6034

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This subsidiary of Nintendo Co., Ltd. is based in Redmond, Washington. It began its operations in 1980 and was initially headed by Hiroshi Yamuachi's son-in-law, Minoru Arakawa. Since then they have exclusively published and localized games.

After the video game crash in 1983, Arakawa decided to take advantage of this by bringing the Famicom to America. He feared that cheap games from Taiwan might flood the market and he got Nintendo's engineers to create a lockout chip, therefore Nintendo would only manufacture the cartridges for the console (unlike in Japan, where Nintendo, Konami, Namco, Bandai, Capcom and Jaleco made their own cartridges, custom chips, etc;). This also pushed for Nintendo to license all games in North America. Arakawa also feared that companies would also produce a bunch of low quality games, thus created the rule where a publisher can only publish five games per year. This rule was dropped after 1991, as companies such as Konami would own a second publishing label (i.e. Konami's Ultra Games/Palcom software).

Nintendo of America has always had a strong censoring policy on games.

The company has also been a strong supporter of Rare, Ltd during the time that Nintendo owned the company. It also has had a key role in publishing and localizing some games that were popular in other areas of the world and would bring them to North America for North American audiences.

Credited on 1,111 Games from 1981 to 2024

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Another Code: Recollection (2024 on Nintendo Switch)
Super Mario RPG (2023 on Nintendo Switch)
Detective Pikachu Returns (2023 on Nintendo Switch)
F-Zero 99 (2023 on Nintendo Switch)
Pikmin Finder (2023 on Browser)
Pikmin 4 (2023 on Nintendo Switch)
Everybody 1-2 Switch! (2023 on Nintendo Switch)
Pikmin 1+2 (2023 on Nintendo Switch)
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (2023 on Nintendo Switch)
Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp (2023 on Nintendo Switch)
Kirby's Return to Dream Land: Deluxe (2023 on Nintendo Switch)
Metroid Prime: Remastered (2023 on Nintendo Switch)
Fire Emblem: Engage (2023 on Nintendo Switch)
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe + Booster Course Pass (2022 on Nintendo Switch)
Pokémon Scarlet (2022 on Nintendo Switch)
Pokémon Violet (2022 on Nintendo Switch)
Bayonetta 3 (2022 on Nintendo Switch)
Splatoon 3 (2022 on Nintendo Switch)
Kirby's Dream Buffet (2022 on Nintendo Switch)
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (2022 on Nintendo Switch)

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History +

1991

The company begins opening several Repair Centers in USA and Canada.

1985

The company moves to Redmond, Washington.

1982

Merged New York subsidiary into Nintendo of America Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary headquartered in Seattle, Washington, U.S.A., with a capital of $600,000.

Source: NoA's Homepage

1980