<P> In 1963, Yamauchi renamed Nintendo Playing Card Co. Ltd. to Nintendo Co., Ltd . The company then began to experiment in other areas of business using newly injected capital during the period of time between 1963 and 1968 . Nintendo set up a taxi company called Daiya . This business was initially successful . However, Nintendo was forced to sell it because problems with the labour unions were making it too expensive to run the service . It also set up a love hotel chain, a TV network, a food company (selling instant rice) and several other ventures . All of these ventures eventually failed, and after the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, playing card sales dropped, and Nintendo's stock price plummeted to its lowest recorded level of ¥ 60 . </P> <P> In 1966, Nintendo moved into the Japanese toy industry with the Ultra Hand, an extendable arm developed by its maintenance engineer Gunpei Yokoi in his free time . Yokoi was moved from maintenance to the new "Nintendo Games" department as a product developer . Nintendo continued to produce popular toys, including the Ultra Machine, Love Tester and the Kousenjuu series of light gun games . Despite some successful products, Nintendo struggled to meet the fast development and manufacturing turnaround required in the toy market, and fell behind the well - established companies such as Bandai and Tomy . In 1973, its focus shifted to family entertainment venues with the Laser Clay Shooting System, using the same light gun technology used in Nintendo's Kousenjuu series of toys, and set up in abandoned bowling alleys . Following some success, Nintendo developed several more light gun machines (such as the light gun shooter game Wild Gunman) for the emerging arcade scene . While the Laser Clay Shooting System ranges had to be shut down following excessive costs, Nintendo had found a new market . </P> <P> Nintendo's first venture into the video gaming industry was securing rights to distribute the Magnavox Odyssey video game console in Japan in 1974 . Nintendo began to produce its own hardware in 1977, with the Color TV - Game home video game consoles . Four versions of these consoles were produced, each including variations of a single game (for example, Color TV Game 6 featured six versions of Light Tennis). </P> <P> A student product developer named Shigeru Miyamoto was hired by Nintendo at this time . He worked for Yokoi, and one of his first tasks was to design the casing for several of the Color TV - Game consoles . Miyamoto went on to create, direct and produce some of Nintendo's most famous video games and become one of the most recognizable figures in the video game industry . </P>

When did the first nintendo game come out