---
title: "Which came first, Nintendo or Samsung?"
description: "Nintendo vs Samsung: Nintendo came first, by 49 years — 1889 against 1938. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/nintendo-vs-samsung/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, Nintendo or Samsung?

**Which came first, Nintendo or Samsung?: Nintendo**

1889 — 49 years before Samsung

Nintendo came first, by 49 years. Fusajiro Yamauchi began making hanafuda playing cards in Kyoto.

## Side by side

|  | Nintendo | Samsung |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1889 | 1938 |
| Date | 1889-09-23 | 1938-03-01 |
| Category | company | company |
| What happened | Fusajiro Yamauchi began making hanafuda playing cards in Kyoto. | Lee Byung-chul opened a trading company in Daegu, Korea. |

## 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.

## Samsung

Samsung began in 1938 as a grocery trading company dealing in dried fish, vegetables and noodles, which it exported to Manchuria. It moved into textiles, insurance and retail before making its first electronic product — a black-and-white television — in 1970. The name means "three stars".

## Common questions

### Which came first, Nintendo or Samsung?

Nintendo, by 49 years — 1889 against 1938.

### When did Nintendo start?

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

### When did Samsung start?

1938. Lee Byung-chul opened a trading company in Daegu, Korea.

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## Sources

- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]