---
title: "Which came first, Nintendo or the telephone?"
description: "Nintendo vs the telephone: the telephone came first, by 13 years — 1876 against 1889. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/nintendo-vs-telephone/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, Nintendo or the telephone?

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

1876 — 13 years before Nintendo

the telephone came first, by 13 years. Bell was granted US patent 174,465.

## Side by side

|  | Nintendo | the telephone |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1889 | 1876 |
| Date | 1889-09-23 | 1876-03-07 |
| Category | company | invention |
| What happened | Fusajiro Yamauchi began making hanafuda playing cards in Kyoto. | Bell was granted US patent 174,465. |

## 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.

## the telephone

Bell's patent was granted on 7 March 1876 and he made the famous call to Watson three days later. Elisha Gray filed a caveat for a similar device on the same day in February that Bell filed his application, and the priority dispute has never entirely gone away. Antonio Meucci had demonstrated a working voice telegraph in New York in 1860 but could not afford to renew his caveat.

## Common questions

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

the telephone, by 13 years — 1876 against 1889.

### When did Nintendo start?

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

### When did the telephone start?

1876. Bell was granted US patent 174,465.

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## Sources

- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]
- Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History — Smithsonian Institution (https://naturalhistory.si.edu/)