---
title: "Which came first, the lightbulb or Nintendo?"
description: "the lightbulb vs Nintendo: the lightbulb came first, by 10 years — 1879 against 1889. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/lightbulb-vs-nintendo/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, the lightbulb or Nintendo?

**Which came first, the lightbulb or Nintendo?: the lightbulb**

1879 — 10 years before Nintendo

the lightbulb came first, by 10 years. Edison's carbon filament lamp burned for over 13 hours.

## Side by side

|  | the lightbulb | Nintendo |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1879 | 1889 |
| Date | 1879-10-22 | 1889-09-23 |
| Category | invention | company |
| What happened | Edison's carbon filament lamp burned for over 13 hours. | Fusajiro Yamauchi began making hanafuda playing cards in Kyoto. |

## the lightbulb

Edison did not invent the electric light. Humphry Davy demonstrated an arc lamp in 1802, and at least twenty inventors produced incandescent bulbs before him; Joseph Swan demonstrated one in Newcastle in 1878 and was granted a British patent, which is why Edison eventually had to merge with him as Ediswan. What Edison produced in October 1879 was a bulb that lasted long enough and cost little enough to sell, together with the generating and wiring system to make it useful.

## Nintendo

Nintendo was founded in 1889 to make handmade hanafuda cards, and it was a playing-card company for about eighty years. It is older than the Ford Motor Company (1903), older than the aeroplane, older than the Eiffel Tower by five months, and older than the modern Olympic Games. Before settling on video games in the 1970s it tried taxis, instant rice and a chain of love hotels.

## Common questions

### Which came first, the lightbulb or Nintendo?

the lightbulb, by 10 years — 1879 against 1889.

### When did the lightbulb start?

1879. Edison's carbon filament lamp burned for over 13 hours.

### When did Nintendo start?

1889. Fusajiro Yamauchi began making hanafuda playing cards in Kyoto.

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## Sources

- Typical range compiled from manufacturer specifications — At One Place (/about/)
- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]