Did You Know Nintendo Offered Vacuum Cleaners & Instant Rice Before Video Games?
Nintendo is one of the biggest names in gaming history. The company revolutionized the medium and the gaming industry time and time again, introducing not only some of the most iconic video games and characters, but also some of the most influential and innovative consoles. It's no wonder the company has produced some of the best-selling consoles of all time.
Like many companies, Nintendo has evolved with the times. It has modernized, changed focus, and, at times, completely pivoted from one industry to another. It's well known that Nintendo started as a company over 130 years ago, and back then, they sold handmade Japanese playing cards called Hanafuda. But the story doesn't end there.
Before they started taking all your money with games, Nintendo tried to sell things that were, well, more useful for day-to-day life — like vacuum cleaners and instant rice.
Nintendo instant rice — what a concept!
Nintendo has a fascinating history. In 1963, Nintendo tried to expand its blooming playing card business by tapping into other markets. At the time, this included establishing a company selling food. Specifically, Nintendo briefly sold instant rice — an attempt to compete with instant noodles, which at the time were everywhere. Of course, noodles continue to be widely available, but the instant rice branch of Nintendo quickly disappeared, with not even a footnote on their website.
Another similarly failed product was the Chiritory, which was essentially just a vacuum cleaner. This being Nintendo, it wasn't an ordinary vacuum cleaner; rather, it was a remote-controlled vacuum cleaner — like a Roomba but more complicated. Again, not as successful, but the legacy carried on, as "WarioWare, Inc." included a mini-game where you controlled a Chiritory.
The device was designed by Gunpei Yokoi, who designed various toys and gadgets for Nintendo, including a successful Love Tester (for testing, well, love attraction between two users). He stuck with Nintendo and created the Game & Watch handheld device, and he also worked on the design of the original Game Boy.
When the Game Boy got weird
Speaking of the Game Boy, even though Nintendo had moved past the appliances and food markets once they got into video games, it didn't mean the company's leaders forgot their roots.
The Game Boy famously had some pretty weird accessories. Granted, some were useful, like the Game Boy Light attachment so you could play in the dark or the Link Cable that allowed you to play games with your friends. But there were also some bizarre ones, like a working printer, a pocket sonar (meant to locate fish), and the Singer Izek.
The Singer Izek was a sewing machine — a real one at that. In the early 2000s, the Japanese company Jaguar Sewing Machines partnered with Nintendo to make a sewing machine that plugged into the Game Boy. Rather than play a sewing game, you'd use a special cartridge that allowed the user to pick a stitching pattern. Unsurprisingly, this sold about as well as the Nintendo toy vacuum cleaner, being unsuccessful amongst both gaming and sewing enthusiasts.