Nintendo’s bold new era is full of safe bets

Nintendo is entering a new era. While most everyone associates the company with video games, for the last few years the brand behind Mario has been steadily expanding itself into something much larger.

"I think people view Nintendo as a gaming company, but we have always thought of ourselves as an entertainment company," Nintendo's senior managing executive officer, Shinya Takahashi, told me in 2023. Design legend Shigeru Miyamoto echoed the same idea at the opening of Nintendo's first museum last year.