Nintendo is 137 years old and older than sliced bread

GameSpot compares Nintendo’s start year with the commercial introduction of pre-sliced bread on July 7, 1928, in Chillicothe, Missouri. The same roundup also mentions the Eiffel Tower, the Wright Brothers’ first flight, penicillin, chocolate chip cookies, bubble wrap, and the film Pacific Rim.

What happened

The source describes Nintendo as a company that began in 1889 as a maker of hanafuda playing cards. Using that start year, GameSpot calls the company 137 years old, turning the piece into a historical comparison between Nintendo and later milestones. In the embedded text of the shared tweet, the same idea is repeated: Nintendo is said to be “officially 137 years old today” and to have started in 1889 with hanafuda playing cards before growing into a gaming powerhouse.

The core comparison is sliced bread. According to the source, commercially pre-sliced bread was first sold on July 7, 1928, by the Chillicothe Baking Company, using Otto Frederick Rohwedder’s bread-slicing machine. That makes Nintendo older than sliced bread in this timeline. GameSpot’s video description explicitly refers to “commercial pre-sliced bread” and notes that the commercial breakthrough came 38 years later, on July 7, 1928.

GameSpot applies the same logic to other references as well. The source mentions the public opening of the Eiffel Tower, the Wright Brothers’ first flight, the invention of penicillin, chocolate chip cookies, bubble wrap, and the film Pacific Rim as events or products that came after Nintendo’s founding. The fact report also says the source places Nintendo ahead of the Ottoman Empire, stretching the comparison into broader historical eras.

So this is not a product announcement or a new anniversary reveal, but a chronological list. The article’s publication date determines whether the 137-year figure lines up exactly, while the historical anchor remains 1889. The source uses that combination to make a striking but straightforward comparison between Nintendo and later cultural and technological milestones.

Timeline

1889 — Nintendo is founded in Japan as a maker of hanafuda playing cards.
1893 — The fact report mentions June 1893 as a historical date in the broader comparison, though it is not highlighted as a main fact in the source.
1903 — The Wright Brothers make their first flight, later than Nintendo’s founding.
1928 — The commercial introduction of pre-sliced bread is tied to this year in the source.
July 7, 1928 — The Chillicothe Baking Company first sells commercially pre-sliced bread, according to the source, using Otto Frederick Rohwedder’s machine.
1938 — Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night is placed in the same historical comparison as Nintendo’s start year in the source.
1957 — The fact report mentions 1957 as one of the dates referenced in the source context.
2013 — Pacific Rim is released and is cited in the source as coming much later than Nintendo.
2026 — The article and social post context present Nintendo as 137 years old in the publication year.

Background

Nintendo is now best known as a video game and hardware company, but its historical roots are in card production. The source emphasizes that the company began with hanafuda cards and only later grew into a global gaming brand. That matches the tweet from @miiyashei, which explicitly says Nintendo started as a maker of hanafuda playing cards in 1889 and then evolved over time.

The sliced-bread comparison is based on a specific date: July 7, 1928. That makes the headline mainly a chronological comparison between 1889 and 1928, rather than a separate Nintendo anniversary or a new company announcement. The external context reinforces that date multiple times: both the Chillicothe history reference and the GameSpot video description place the first commercial sale of sliced bread in Chillicothe, Missouri.

The comparison works because the source lines up several well-known milestones. The Eiffel Tower, the Wright Brothers, penicillin, chocolate chip cookies, bubble wrap, and Pacific Rim are all later than Nintendo’s founding. The fact report also notes that the source compares Nintendo with the Ottoman Empire, showing that the angle is mainly to place the company’s age in a wider historical context.

Nintendo’s 1889 origin is a fixed historical anchor. The source uses that anchor to rank a series of later events, including the commercial introduction of sliced bread in 1928. So the point of the story is not that Nintendo has announced something new, but that a company that began with playing cards is now older than an everyday product often used as a cultural benchmark.

Sources

GameSpot: Nintendo Turns 137 Today, Making It Older (And Better) Than Sliced Bread
Tweet by @miiyashei with the 137-year comparison and the reference to Nintendo’s start in 1889
GameSpot video description referencing commercial pre-sliced bread on July 7, 1928