title: Nintendo

text: Yamauchi's experience with the previous initiatives led him to increase Nintendo's investment in a research and development department directed by Hiroshi Imanishi, an employee with a long history in other areas of the company. In 1969, Gunpei Yokoi joined the department and was responsible for coordinating various projects. Yokoi's experience in manufacturing electronic devices led Yamauchi to put him in charge of the company's games department, and his products would be mass-produced. During this period, Nintendo built a new production plant in Uji City, just outside of Kyoto, and distributed classic tabletop games such as chess, shogi, go, and mahjong, and other foreign games under the Nippon Game brand. The company's restructuring preserved a couple of areas dedicated to card manufacturing.


title: Nintendo

text: The early 1970s represented a watershed moment in Nintendo's history as it released Japan's first electronic toy—the Nintendo Beam Gun, an optoelectronic pistol designed by Masayuki Uemura. In total, more than a million units were sold. Nintendo partnered with Magnavox to provide a light gun controller based on the Beam Gun design for the company's new home video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey, in 1971. Other popular toys released at the time include the Ultra Hand, the Ultra Machine, the Ultra Scope, and the Love Tester, all designed by Yokoi. More than 1.2 million units of Ultra Hand were sold in Japan. During the early 1970s, Nintendo began trading on the main section of the Osaka stock exchange and opened a new headquarters.


title: Nintendo

text: The growing demand for Nintendo's products led Yamauchi to further expand the offices, for which he acquired the surrounding land and assigned the production of cards to the original Nintendo building. Meanwhile, Yokoi, Uemura, and new employees such as Genyo Takeda, continued to develop innovative products for the company. The Laser Clay Shooting System was released in 1973 and managed to surpass bowling in popularity. Though Nintendo's toys continued to gain popularity, the 1973 oil crisis caused both a spike in the cost of plastics and a change in consumer priorities that put essential products over pastimes, and Nintendo lost several billion yen.


title: Nintendo

text: In 1974, Nintendo released "Wild Gunman", a skeet shooting arcade simulation consisting of a 16 mm image projector with a sensor that detects a beam from the player's light gun. Both the Laser Clay Shooting System and "Wild Gunman" were successfully exported to Europe and North America. However, Nintendo's production speeds were still slow compared to rival companies such as Bandai and Tomy, and their prices were high, which led to the discontinuation of some of their light gun products. The subsidiary Nintendo Leisure System Co., Ltd., which developed these products, was closed as a result of the economic impact dealt by the oil crisis.


title: Nintendo

text: Yamauchi, motivated by the successes of Atari and Magnavox with their video game consoles, acquired the Japanese distribution rights for the Magnavox Odyssey in 1974, and reached an agreement with Mitsubishi Electric to develop similar products between 1975 and 1978, including the first microprocessor for video games systems, the Color TV-Game series, and an arcade game inspired by Othello. During this period, Takeda developed the video game "EVR Race", and Shigeru Miyamoto joined Yokoi's team with the responsibility of designing the casing for the Color TV-Game consoles. In 1978, Nintendo's research and development department was split into two facilities, Nintendo Research & Development 1 and Nintendo Research & Development 2, respectively managed by Yokoi and Uemura.


title: Nintendo

text: Shigeru Miyamoto brought distinctive sources of inspiration, including the natural environment and regional culture of Sonobe, popular culture influences like Westerns and detective fiction, along with folk Shinto practices and family media. These would each be seen in most of Nintendo's major franchises which developed following Miyamoto's creative leadership.


title: Nintendo

text: Two key events in Nintendo's history occurred in 1979: its American subsidiary was opened in New York City, and a new department focused on arcade game development was created. In 1980, one of the first handheld video game systems, the "Game & Watch", was created by Yokoi from the technology used in portable calculators. It became one of Nintendo's most successful products, with over 43.4 million units sold worldwide during its production period, and for which 59 games were made in total.


title: Nintendo

text: Nintendo entered the arcade video game market with "Sheriff" and "Radar Scope", released in Japan in 1979 and 1980 respectively. "Sheriff", also known as "Bandido" in some regions, marked the first original video game made by Nintendo, was published by Sega and developed by Genyo Takeda and Shigeru Miyamoto. While "Radar Scope", rivaled "Galaxian" in Japanese arcades but failed to find an audience overseas and created a financial crisis for the company. To try to find a more successful game, they put Miyamoto in charge of their next arcade game design, leading to the release of "Donkey Kong" in 1981, one of the first platform video games that allowed the player character to jump. The character, Jumpman, would later become Mario and Nintendo's official mascot. Mario was named after Mario Segale, the landlord of Nintendo's offices in Tukwila, Washington. "Donkey Kong" was a financial success for Nintendo both in Japan and overseas, and led Coleco to fight Atari for licensing rights for porting to home consoles and personal computers.


title: Nintendo

text: In 1983, Nintendo opened a new production facility in Uji and was listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Uemura, taking inspiration from the ColecoVision, began creating a new video game console that would incorporate a ROM cartridge format for video games as well as both a central processing unit and a picture processing unit. The Family Computer, or Famicom, was released in Japan in July 1983 along with three games adapted from their original arcade versions: "Donkey Kong", "Donkey Kong Jr." and "Popeye". Its success was such that in 1984, it surpassed the market share held by Sega's SG-1000. At this time, Nintendo adopted a series of guidelines that involved the validation of each game produced for the Famicom before its distribution on the market, agreements with developers to ensure that no Famicom game would be adapted to other consoles within two years of its release, and restricting developers from producing more than five games per year for the Famicom.


title: Nintendo

text: In the early 1980s, several video game consoles proliferated in the United States, as well as low-quality games produced by third-party developers, which oversaturated the market and led to the video game crash of 1983. Consequently, a recession hit the American video game industry, whose revenues went from over $3 billion to $100 million between 1983 and 1985. Nintendo's initiative to launch the Famicom in America was also impacted. To differentiate the Famicom from its competitors in America, Nintendo rebranded it as an entertainment system and its cartridges as Game Paks, and with a design reminiscent of a VCR. Nintendo implemented a lockout chip in the Game Paks for control on its third party library to avoid the market saturation that had occurred in the United States. The result is the Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES, which was released in North America in 1985. The landmark games "Super Mario Bros." and "The Legend of Zelda" were produced by Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka. Composer Koji Kondo reinforced the idea that musical themes could act as a complement to game mechanics rather than simply a miscellaneous element. Production of the NES lasted until 1995, and production of the Famicom lasted until 2003. In total, around 62 million Famicom and NES consoles were sold worldwide. During this period, Nintendo created a copyright infringement protection in the form of the Official Nintendo Seal of Quality, added to their products so that customers may recognize their authenticity in the market. By this time, Nintendo's network of electronic suppliers had extended to around thirty companies, including Ricoh (Nintendo's main source for semiconductors) and the Sharp Corporation.


title: Nintendo

text: In 1988, Gunpei Yokoi and his team at Nintendo R&D1 conceived the Game Boy, the first handheld video game console made by Nintendo. Nintendo released the Game Boy in 1989. In North America, the Game Boy was bundled with the popular third-party game "Tetris" after a difficult negotiation process with Elektronorgtechnica. The Game Boy was a significant success. In its first two weeks of sale in Japan, its initial inventory of 300,000 units sold out, and in the United States, an additional 40,000 units were sold on its first day of distribution. Around this time, Nintendo entered an agreement with Sony to develop the Super Famicom CD-ROM Adapter, a peripheral for the upcoming Super Famicom capable of playing CD-ROMs. However, the collaboration did not last as Yamauchi preferred to continue developing the technology with Philips, which would result in the CD-i, and Sony's independent efforts resulted in the creation of the PlayStation console.


title: Nintendo

text: The first issue of "Nintendo Power" magazine, which had an annual circulation of 1.5 million copies in the United States, was published in 1988. In July 1989, Nintendo held the first Nintendo Space World trade show with the name "Shoshinkai" for the purpose of announcing and demonstrating upcoming Nintendo products. That year, the first World of Nintendo stores-within-a-store, which carried official Nintendo merchandise, were opened in the United States. According to company information, more than 25% of homes in the United States had an NES in 1989.


title: Nintendo

text: In the late 1980s, Nintendo's dominance slipped with the appearance of NEC's PC Engine and Sega's Mega Drive, 16-bit game consoles with improved graphics and audio compared to the NES. In response to the competition, Uemura designed the Super Famicom, which launched in 1990. The first batch of 300,000 consoles sold out in hours. The following year, as with the NES, Nintendo distributed a modified version of the Super Famicom to the United States market, titled the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Launch games for the Super Famicom and Super NES include "Super Mario World", "F-Zero", "Pilotwings", "SimCity", and "Gradius III". By mid-1992, over 46 million Super Famicom and Super NES consoles had been sold. The console's life cycle lasted until 1999 in the United States, and until 2003 in Japan.


title: Nintendo

text: In March 1990, the first Nintendo World Championship was held, with participants from 29 American cities competing for the title of "best Nintendo player in the world". In June 1990, the subsidiary Nintendo of Europe was opened in Großostheim, Germany; in 1993, subsequent subsidiaries were established in the Netherlands (where Bandai had previously distributed Nintendo's products), France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Belgium, and Australia. In 1992, Nintendo acquired a majority stake in the Seattle Mariners baseball team, and sold most of its shares in 2016. Nintendo ceased manufacturing arcade games and systems in September 1992. In 1993, "Star Fox" was released, which marked an industry milestone by being the first video game to make use of the Super FX chip.


title: Nintendo

text: The proliferation of graphically violent video games, such as "Mortal Kombat", caused controversy and led to the creation of the Interactive Digital Software Association and the Entertainment Software Rating Board, in whose development Nintendo collaborated during 1994. These measures also encouraged Nintendo to abandon the content guidelines it had enforced since the release of the NES. Commercial strategies implemented by Nintendo during this time include the Nintendo Gateway System, an in-flight entertainment service available for airlines, cruise ships and hotels, and the "Play It Loud!" advertising campaign for Game Boys with different-colored casings. The Advanced Computer Modeling graphics used in "Donkey Kong Country" for the Super NES and "Donkey Kong Land" for the Game Boy were technologically innovative, as was the Satellaview satellite modem peripheral for the Super Famicom, which allowed the digital transmission of data via a communications satellite in space.


title: Nintendo

text: In mid-1993, Nintendo and Silicon Graphics announced a strategic alliance to develop the Nintendo 64. NEC, Toshiba, and Sharp also contributed technology to the console. The Nintendo 64 was marketed as one of the first consoles to be designed with 64-bit architecture. As part of an agreement with Midway Games, the arcade games "Killer Instinct" and "Cruis'n USA" were ported to the console. Although the Nintendo 64 was planned for release in 1995, the production schedules of third-party developers influenced a delay, and the console was released in June and September 1996 in Japan and the United States respectively, and in March 1997 in Europe. By the end of its production in 2002, around 33 million Nintendo 64 consoles were sold worldwide, and it is considered one of the most recognized video game systems in history. 388 games were produced for the Nintendo 64 in total, some of which – particularly "Super Mario 64", "", and "GoldenEye 007" – have been distinguished as some of the greatest of all time.


title: Nintendo

text: In 1995, Nintendo released the Virtual Boy, a console designed by Gunpei Yokoi with stereoscopic graphics. Critics were generally disappointed with the quality of the games and red-colored graphics, and complained of gameplay-induced headaches. The system sold poorly and was quietly discontinued. Amid the system's failure, Yokoi formally retired from Nintendo. In February 1996, "Pocket Monsters Red" and "Green", known internationally as "Pokémon Red" and "Blue", developed by Game Freak was released in Japan for the Game Boy, and established the popular "Pokémon" franchise. The game went on to sell 31.37 million units, with the video game series exceeding a total of 300 million units in sales as of 2017. In 1997, Nintendo released the Rumble Pak, a plug-in device that connects to the Nintendo 64 controller and produces a vibration during certain moments of a game.


title: Nintendo

text: In 1998, the Game Boy Color was released. In addition to backward compatibility with Game Boy games, the console's similar capacity to the NES resulted in select adaptations of games from that library, such as "Super Mario Bros. Deluxe". Since then, over 118.6 million Game Boy and Game Boy Color consoles have been sold worldwide.


title: Nintendo

text: In May 1999, with the advent of the PlayStation 2, Nintendo entered an agreement with IBM and Panasonic to develop the 128-bit Gekko processor and the DVD drive to be used in Nintendo's next home console. Meanwhile, a series of administrative changes occurred in 2000, when Nintendo's corporate offices were moved to the Minami-ku neighborhood in Kyoto, and Nintendo Benelux was established to manage the Dutch and Belgian territories.


title: Nintendo

text: In 2001, two new Nintendo consoles were introduced: the Game Boy Advance, which was designed by Gwénaël Nicolas with stylistic departure from its predecessors, and the GameCube. During the first week of the Game Boy Advance's North American release in June 2001, over 500,000 units were sold, making it the fastest-selling video game console in the United States at the time. By the end of its production cycle in 2010, more than 81.5 million units had been sold worldwide. As for the GameCube, even with such distinguishing features as the miniDVD format of its games and Internet connectivity for a few games, its sales were lower than those of its predecessors, and during the six years of its production, 21.7 million units were sold worldwide. An innovative product developed by Nintendo during this time was the Nintendo e-Reader, a Game Boy Advance peripheral that allows the transfer of data stored on a series of cards to the console.


title: Nintendo

text: In 2002, the Pokémon Mini was released. Its dimensions were smaller than that of the Game Boy Advance and it weighed 70 grams, making it the smallest video game console in history. Nintendo collaborated with Sega and Namco to develop Triforce, an arcade board to facilitate the conversion of arcade titles to the GameCube. Following the European release of the GameCube in May 2002, Hiroshi Yamauchi announced his resignation as the president of Nintendo, and Satoru Iwata was selected by the company as his successor. Yamauchi would remain as advisor and director of the company until 2005, and he died in 2013. Iwata's appointment as president ended the Yamauchi succession at the helm of the company, a practice that had been in place since its foundation.


title: Nintendo

text: In 2003, Nintendo released the Game Boy Advance SP, an improved version of the Game Boy Advance with a foldable case, an illuminated display, and a rechargeable battery. By the end of its production cycle in 2010, over 43.5 million units had been sold worldwide. Nintendo also released the Game Boy Player, a peripheral that allows Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games to be played on the GameCube.


title: Nintendo

text: In 2004, the last remnants of Nintendo's original headquarters was reportedly demolished. Later that year, Nintendo released the Nintendo DS, which featured such innovations as dual screens – one of which being a touchscreen – and wireless connectivity for multiplayer play. Throughout its lifetime, more than 154 million units were sold, making it the most successful handheld console and the second best-selling console in history. In 2005, Nintendo released the Game Boy Micro, the last system in the Game Boy line. Sales did not meet Nintendo's expectations, with 2.5 million units being sold by 2007. In mid-2005, the Nintendo World Store was inaugurated in New York City.


title: Nintendo

text: Nintendo's next home console was conceived in 2001, although development commenced in 2003, taking inspiration from the Nintendo DS. Nintendo also considered the relative failure of the GameCube, and instead opted to take a "blue ocean strategy" by developing a reduced performance console in contrast to the high-performance consoles of Sony and Microsoft to avoid directly competiting with them. The Wii was released in November 2006, with a total of 33 launch games. With the Wii, Nintendo sought to reach a broader demographic than its seventh-generation competitors, with the intention of also encompassing the "non-consumer" sector. To this end, Nintendo invested in a $200 million advertising campaign. The Wii's innovations include the Wii Remote controller, equipped with an accelerometer system and infrared sensors that allow it to detect its position in a three-dimensional environment with the aid of a sensor bar; the Nunchuk peripheral that includes an analog controller and an accelerometer; and the Wii MotionPlus expansion that increases the sensitivity of the main controller with the aid of gyroscopes. By 2016, more than 101 million Wii consoles had been sold worldwide, making it the most successful console of its generation, a distinction that Nintendo had not achieved since the 1990s with the Super NES.


title: Nintendo

text: Several accessories were released for the Wii from 2007 to 2010, such as the Wii Balance Board, the Wii Wheel and the WiiWare download service. In 2009, Nintendo Iberica S.A. expanded its commercial operations to Portugal through a new office in Lisbon. By that year, Nintendo held a 68.3% share of the worldwide handheld gaming market. In 2010, Nintendo celebrated the 25th anniversary of Mario's debut appearance, for which certain allusive products were put on sale. The event included the release of "Super Mario All-Stars 25th Anniversary Edition" and special editions of the Nintendo DSi XL and Wii.


title: Nintendo

text: Following an announcement in March 2010, Nintendo released the Nintendo 3DS in 2011. The console produces stereoscopic effects without 3D glasses. By 2018, more than 69 million units had been sold worldwide; the figure increased to 75 million by the start of 2019. In 2011, Nintendo celebrated the 25th anniversary of "The Legend of Zelda" with the orchestra concert tour and the video game "".


title: Nintendo

text: In 2012 and 2013, two new Nintendo game consoles were introduced: the Wii U, with high-definition graphics and a GamePad controller with near-field communication technology, and the Nintendo 2DS, a version of the 3DS that lacks the clamshell design of Nintendo's previous handheld consoles and the stereoscopic effects of the 3DS. With 13.5 million units sold worldwide, the Wii U is the least successful video game console in Nintendo's history. In 2014, a new product line was released consisting of figures of Nintendo characters called amiibos.


title: Nintendo

text: On 25 September 2013, Nintendo announced its acquisition of a 28% stake in PUX Corporation, a subsidiary of Panasonic, for the purpose of developing facial, voice, and text recognition for its video games. Due to a 30% decrease in company income between April and December 2013, Iwata announced a temporary 50% cut to his salary, with other executives seeing reductions by 20%–30%. In January 2015, Nintendo ceased operations in the Brazilian market due in part to high import duties. This did not affect the rest of Nintendo's Latin American market due to an alliance with Juegos de Video Latinoamérica. Nintendo reached an agreement with NC Games for Nintendo's products to resume distribution in Brazil by 2017, and by September 2020, the Switch was released in Brazil.


title: Nintendo

text: On 11 July 2015, Iwata died of bile duct cancer, and after a couple of months in which Miyamoto and Takeda jointly operated the company, Tatsumi Kimishima was named as Iwata's successor on 16 September 2015. As part of the management's restructuring, Miyamoto and Takeda were respectively named creative and technological advisors.


title: Nintendo

text: The financial losses caused by the Wii U, along with Sony's intention to release its video games to other platforms such as smart TVs, motivated Nintendo to rethink its strategy concerning the production and distribution of its properties. In 2015, Nintendo formalized agreements with DeNA and Universal Parks & Resorts to extend its presence to smart devices and amusement parks respectively. In March 2016, Nintendo's first mobile app for the iOS and Android systems, "Miitomo", was released. Since then, Nintendo has produced other similar apps, such as "Super Mario Run", "Fire Emblem Heroes", "", "Mario Kart Tour", and "Pokémon Go", the last being developed by Niantic and having generated $115 million in revenue for Nintendo. The theme park area Super Nintendo World opened at Universal Studios Japan in 2020. In March 2016, the loyalty program My Nintendo replaced Club Nintendo.


title: Nintendo

text: The NES Classic Edition was released in November 2016. The console is a version of the NES based on emulation, HDMI, and the Wii remote. Its successor, the Super NES Classic Edition, was released in September 2017. By October 2018, around ten million units of both consoles combined had been sold worldwide.


title: Nintendo

text: The Wii U's successor in the eighth generation of video game consoles, the Nintendo Switch, was released in March 2017. The Switch features a hybrid design as a home and handheld console, Joy-Con controllers that each contain an accelerometer and gyroscope, and the simultaneous wireless networking of up to eight consoles. To expand its library, Nintendo entered alliances with several third-party and independent developers; by February 2019, more than 1,800 Switch games had been released. Worldwide sales of the Switch exceeded 55 million units by March 2020. In April 2018, the Nintendo Labo line was released, consisting of cardboard accessories that interact with the Switch and the Joy-Con controllers. More than one million units of the Nintendo Labo Variety Kit were sold in its first year on the market.


title: Nintendo

text: In 2018, Shuntaro Furukawa replaced Kimishima as company president, and in 2019, Doug Bowser succeeded Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé. In April 2019, Nintendo formed an alliance with Tencent to distribute the Nintendo Switch in China starting in December. In April 2020, ValueAct Capital Partners announced an acquisition of $1.1 billion in Nintendo stock purchases, giving them an overall stake of 2% in Nintendo. On 6 January 2020, hotel and restaurant development company Plan See Do announced that it would refurbish the former headquarters of Marufuku Nintendo Card Co. as a hotel, with plans to add 20 guest rooms, a restaurant, bar, and gym, with a planned opening date of mid 2021. The building belongs to Yamauchi Co., Ltd., an asset management company of Nintendo's founding family. It was further reported that the original 19th-century headquarters was apparently demolished and turned into a parking lot. Although the COVID-19 pandemic caused delays in the production and distribution of some of Nintendo's products, the situation "had limited impact on business results"; in May 2020, Nintendo reported a 75% increase in income compared to the previous fiscal year, mainly contributed by the Nintendo Switch Online service. In August 2020, Nintendo was named the richest company in Japan.


title: Nintendo

text: Nintendo announced plans in June 2021 to convert its former Uji Ogura plant, where it had previously made playing and hanafuda cards, into a museum for the company to be completed by the 2023 fiscal year. The building has been vacant since these functions were transferred to a new Uji plant in 2016.


title: Nintendo

text: Nintendo is co-producing an animated film "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" alongside Universal Pictures and Illumination, with Miyamoto and Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri producing, set for release in April 2023. In 2021, Furukawa indicated Nintendo's plan to create more animated projects based on their work outside the "Mario" film, and by July, Melendandri joined the board of directors "as an independent and non-executive outside director", to help Nintendo produce further movies through his filmmaking experience, and Furukawa confirmed that work on other animated projects was currently underway. According to Furukawa, the company's expansion toward animated production is to keep "[the] business [of producing video games] thriving and growing", realizing the "need to create opportunities where even people who do not normally play on video game systems can come into contact with Nintendo characters". That day, Miyamoto said that "[Melendandri] really came to understand the Nintendo point of view" and that "asking for [his] input, as an expert with many years of experience in Hollywood, will be of great help to" Nintendo's transition into film production. Later, in July 2022, Nintendo acquired Dynamo Pictures, a Japanese CG company founded by Hiroshi Hirokawa on March 18, 2011. Dynamo had worked with Nintendo on digital shorts in the 2010s, including for the "Pikmin" series, and Nintendo said that Dynamo would continue their goal of expanding into animation. Following the completion of the acquisition in October 2022, Nintendo renamed Dynamo as Nintendo Pictures.


title: Nintendo

text: In February 2022, Nintendo announced the acquisition of SRD Co., Ltd. (Systems Research and Development) after 40 years, a major contributor of Nintendo's first-party games such as "Donkey Kong" and "The Legend of Zelda" until the 1990s, and then support studio since.


title: Nintendo

text: In May 2022, it was reported by Bloomberg that Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund had purchased a 5% stake in Nintendo.


title: Nintendo

text: Nintendo's central focus is the research, development, production, and distribution of entertainment productsprimarily video game software and hardware and card games. Its main markets are Japan, America, and Europe, and more than 70% of its total sales come from the latter two territories. As of 2022, Nintendo has sold more than 5.4 billion video games and over 800 million hardware units.


title: Nintendo

text: Since the launch of the Color TV-Game in 1977, Nintendo has produced and distributed home, handheld, dedicated and hybrid consoles. Each has a variety of accessories and controllers, such as the NES Zapper, the Game Boy Camera, the Super NES Mouse, the Rumble Pak, the Wii MotionPlus, the Wii U Pro Controller, and the Switch Pro Controller.


title: Nintendo

text: Nintendo's first electronic games are arcade games. "EVR Race" (1975) was the company's first electromechanical game, and "Donkey Kong" (1981) was the first platform game in history. Since then, both Nintendo and other development companies have produced and distributed an extensive catalogue of video games for Nintendo's consoles. Nintendo's games are sold in both removable media formats such as optical disc and cartridge, and online formats which are distributed via services such as the Nintendo eShop and the Nintendo Network.


title: Nintendo

text: Nintendo of America has engaged in several high-profile marketing campaigns to define and position its brand. One of its earliest and most enduring slogans was "Now you're playing with power!", used first to promote its Nintendo Entertainment System. It modified the slogan to include "SUPER power" for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and "PORTABLE power" for the Game Boy.


title: Nintendo

text: Its 1994 "Play It Loud!" campaign played upon teenage rebellion and fostered an edgy reputation. During the Nintendo 64 era, the slogan was "Get N or get out". During the GameCube era, the "Who Are You?" suggested a link between the games and the players' identities. The company promoted its Nintendo DS handheld with the tagline "Touching is Good". For the Wii, they used the "Wii would like to play" slogan to promote the console with the people who tried the games including "Super Mario Galaxy" and "Super Paper Mario". The Nintendo 3DS used the slogan "Take a look inside". The Wii U used the slogan "How U will play next". The Nintendo Switch uses the slogan "Switch and Play" in North America, and "Play anywhere, anytime, with anyone" elsewhere.


title: Nintendo

text: During the peak of Nintendo's success in the video game industry in the 1990s, its name was ubiquitously used to refer to any video game console, regardless of the manufacturer. To prevent its trademark from becoming generic, Nintendo pushed the term "game console", and succeeded in preserving its trademark.


title: Nintendo

text: Used since the 1960s, Nintendo's most recognizable logo is the racetrack shape, especially the red-colored wordmark typically displayed on a white background, primarily used in the Western markets from 1985 to 2006. In Japan, a monochromatic version that lacks a colored background is on Nintendo's own Famicom, Super Famicom, Nintendo 64, GameCube, and handheld console packaging and marketing. Since 2006, in conjunction with the launch of the Wii, Nintendo changed its logo to a gray variant that lacks a colored background inside the wordmark, making it transparent. Nintendo's official, corporate logo remains this variation. For consumer products and marketing, a white variant on a red background has been used since 2015, and has been in full effect since the launch of the Nintendo Switch in 2017.


title: Nintendo

text: The Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development division is the primary software development, production, and supervising division at Nintendo, formed as a merger between their former Entertainment Analysis & Development and Software Planning & Development divisions in 2015. Led by Shinya Takahashi, the division holds the largest concentration of staff at the company, housing more than 800 engineers, producers, directors, coordinators, planners, and designers.


title: Nintendo

text: The Nintendo Platform Technology Development division is a combination of Nintendo's former Integrated Research & Development (or IRD) and System Development (or SDD) divisions. Led by Ko Shiota, the division is responsible for designing hardware and developing Nintendo's operating systems, developer environment, and internal network, and maintenance of the Nintendo Network.


title: Nintendo

text: The Nintendo Business Development division was formed following Nintendo's foray into software development for smart devices such as mobile phones and tablets. It is responsible for refining Nintendo's business model for the dedicated video game system business, and development for smart devices.


title: Nintendo

text: Although most of the research and development is being done in Japan, there are some R&D facilities in the United States, Europe, and China that are focused on developing software and hardware technologies used in Nintendo products. Although they all are subsidiaries of Nintendo (and therefore first-party), they are often referred to as external resources when being involved in joint development processes with Nintendo's internal developers by the Japanese personnel involved. This can be seen in the "Iwata Asks" interview series. Nintendo Software Technology (NST) and Nintendo Technology Development (NTD) are located in Redmond, Washington, United States, while Nintendo European Research & Development (NERD) is located in Paris, France, and Nintendo Network Service Database (NSD) is located in Kyoto, Japan.


title: Nintendo

text: Most external first-party software development is done in Japan, because the only overseas subsidiaries are Retro Studios in the United States (acquired in 2002) and Next Level Games in Canada (acquired in 2021). Although these studios are all subsidiaries of Nintendo, they are often referred to as external resources when being involved in joint development processes with Nintendo's internal developers by the Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development (EPD) division. 1-Up Studio and NDcube are located in Tokyo, Japan, and Monolith Soft has one studio located in Tokyo and another in Kyoto.


title: Nintendo

text: Nintendo also established The Pokémon Company alongside Creatures and Game Freak to manage the Pokémon brand. Similarly, Warpstar Inc. was formed through a joint investment with HAL Laboratory, which was in charge of the "" animated series. Both companies are investments from Nintendo, with Nintendo holding 32% of the shares of The Pokémon Company and 50% of the shares of Warpstar Inc.


title: Nintendo

text: In total there are 25 subsidiaries reported by the company with 21 being known as of November 2022 via the Annual Report:


title: Nintendo

text: Bergsala, a third-party company based in Sweden, exclusively handles Nintendo operations in the Nordic region. Bergsala's relationship with Nintendo was established in 1981 when the company sought to distribute "Game & Watch" units to Sweden, which later expanded to the NES console by 1986. Bergsala were the only non-Nintendo owned distributor of Nintendo's products, until 2019 when Tor Gaming gained distribution rights in Israel.


title: Nintendo

text: Nintendo has partnered with Tencent to release Nintendo products in China, following the lifting of the country's console ban in 2015. In addition to distributing hardware, Tencent helps with the governmental approval process for video game software.


title: Nintendo

text: In January 2019, Ynet and IGN Israel reported that negotiations about official distribution of Nintendo products in the country were ongoing. After two months, IGN Israel announced that Tor Gaming Ltd., a company established in earlier 2019, gained a distribution agreement with Nintendo of Europe, handling official retailing beginning at the start of March, followed by opening an official online store the next month. In June 2019, Tor Gaming launched an official Nintendo Store at Dizengoff Center in Tel Aviv, making it the second official Nintendo Store worldwide, 13 years after NYC.


title: Nintendo

text: Headquartered in Kyoto, Japan since the beginning, Nintendo Co., Ltd. oversees the organization's global operations and manages Japanese operations specifically. The company's two major subsidiaries, Nintendo of America and Nintendo of Europe, manage operations in North America and Europe respectively. Nintendo Co., Ltd. moved from its original Kyoto location to a new office in Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto, in 2000; this became the research and development building when the head office relocated to its location in Minami-ku, Kyoto.


title: Nintendo

text: Nintendo founded its North American subsidiary in 1980 as Nintendo of America (NoA). Hiroshi Yamauchi appointed his son-in-law Minoru Arakawa as president, who in turn hired his own wife and Yamauchi's daughter Yoko Yamauchi as the first employee. The Arakawa family moved from Vancouver, British Columbia to select an office in Manhattan, New York, due to its central status in American commerce. Both from extremely affluent families, their goals were set more by achievement than moneyand all their seed capital and products would now also be automatically inherited from Nintendo in Japan, and their inaugural target is the existing $8 billion-per-year coin-op arcade video game market and largest entertainment industry in the US, which already outclassed movies and television combined. During the couple's arcade research excursions, NoA hired gamer youths to work in the filthy, hot, ratty warehouse in New Jersey for the receiving and service of game hardware from Japan.


title: Nintendo

text: In late 1980, NoA contracted the Seattle-based arcade sales and distribution company Far East Video, consisting solely of experienced arcade salespeople Ron Judy and Al Stone. The two had already built a decent reputation and a distribution network, founded specifically for the independent import and sales of games from Nintendo because the Japanese company had for years been the under-represented maverick in America. Now as direct associates to the new NoA, they told Arakawa they could always clear all Nintendo inventory if Nintendo produced better games. Far East Video took NoA's contract for a fixed per-unit commission on the exclusive American distributorship of Nintendo games, to be settled by their Seattle-based lawyer, Howard Lincoln.


title: Nintendo

text: Based on favorable test arcade sites in Seattle, Arakawa wagered most of NoA's modest finances on a huge order of 3,000 "Radar Scope" cabinets. He panicked when the game failed in the fickle market upon its arrival from its four-month boat ride from Japan. Far East Video was already in financial trouble due to declining sales and Ron Judy borrowed his aunt's life savings of $50,000, while still hoping Nintendo would develop its first "Pac-Man"-sized hit. Arakawa regretted founding the Nintendo subsidiary, with the distressed Yoko trapped between her arguing husband and father.


title: Nintendo

text: Amid financial threat, Nintendo of America relocated from Manhattan to the Seattle metro to remove major stressors: the frenetic New York and New Jersey lifestyle and commute, and the extra weeks or months on the shipping route from Japan as was suffered by the "Radar Scope" disaster. With the Seattle harbor being the US's closest to Japan at only nine days by boat, and having a lumber production market for arcade cabinets, Arakawa's real estate scouts found a warehouse for rent containing three officesone for Arakawa and one for Judy and Stone. This warehouse in the Tukwila suburb was owned by Mario Segale after whom the Mario character would be named, and was initially managed by former Far East Video employee Don James. After one month, James recruited his college friend Howard Phillips as assistant, who soon took over as warehouse manager. The company remained at fewer than 10 employees for some time, handling sales, marketing, advertising, distribution, and limited manufacturing of arcade cabinets and "Game & Watch" handheld units, all sourced and shipped from Nintendo.


title: Nintendo

text: Arakawa was still panicked over NoA's ongoing financial crisis. With the parent company having no new game ideas, he had been repeatedly pleading for Yamauchi to reassign some top talent away from existing Japanese products to develop something for Americaespecially to redeem the massive dead stock of "Radar Scope" cabinets. Since all of Nintendo's key engineers and programmers were busy, and with NoA representing only a tiny fraction of the parent's overall business, Yamauchi allowed only the assignment of Gunpei Yokoi's young assistant who had no background in engineering, Shigeru Miyamoto.


title: Nintendo

text: NoA's staffexcept the sole young gamer Howard Phillipswere uniformly revolted at the sight of the freshman developer Miyamoto's debut game, which they had imported in the form of emergency conversion kits for the overstock of "Radar Scope" cabinets. The kits transformed the cabinets into NoA's massive windfall gain of from Miyamoto's smash hit "Donkey Kong" in 1981–1983 alone. They sold 4,000 new arcade units each month in America, making the 24-year-old Phillips "the largest volume shipping manager for the entire Port of Seattle". Arakawa used these profits to buy of land in Redmond in July 1982 and to perform the $50 million launch of the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985 which revitalized the entire video game industry from its devastating 1983 crash. A second warehouse in Redmond was soon secured, and managed by Don James. The company stayed at around 20 employees for some years.


title: Nintendo

text: The organization was reshaped nationwide in the following decades, and those core sales and marketing business functions are now directed by the office in Redwood City, California. The company's distribution centers are Nintendo Atlanta in Atlanta, Georgia, and Nintendo North Bend in North Bend, Washington. , the Nintendo North Bend facility processes more than 20,000 orders a day to Nintendo customers, which include retail stores that sell Nintendo products in addition to consumers who shop Nintendo's website. Nintendo of America operates two retail stores in the United States: Nintendo New York on Rockefeller Plaza in New York City, which is open to the public; and Nintendo Redmond, co-located at NoA headquarters in Redmond, Washington, which is open only to Nintendo employees and invited guests. Nintendo of America's Canadian branch, Nintendo of Canada, is based in Vancouver, British Columbia with a distribution center in Toronto, Ontario. Nintendo Treehouse is NoA's localization team, composed of around 80 staff who are responsible for translating text from Japanese to English, creating videos and marketing plans, and quality assurance.


title: Nintendo

text: Nintendo of America announced in October 2021 that it will be closing its offices in Redwood City, California and Toronto and merging their operations with their Redmond and Vancouver offices.


title: Nintendo

text: Nintendo's European subsidiary was established in June 1990, based in Großostheim, Germany. The company handles operations across Europe (excluding Scandinavia, where operations are handled by Bergsala), as well as South Africa. Nintendo of Europe's United Kingdom branch (Nintendo UK) handles operations in that country and in Ireland from its headquarters in Windsor, Berkshire. In June 2014, NOE initiated a reduction and consolidation process, yielding a combined 130 layoffs: the closing of its office and warehouse, and termination of all employment, in Großostheim; and the consolidation of all of those operations into, and terminating some employment at, its Frankfurt location. As of July 2018, the company employs 850 people. In 2019, NoE signed with Tor Gaming Ltd. for official distribution in Israel.


title: Nintendo

text: Nintendo's Australian subsidiary is based in Melbourne. It handles the publishing, distribution, sales, and marketing of Nintendo products in Australia and New Zealand. It also manufactures some Wii games locally.


title: Nintendo

text: Nintendo's South Korean subsidiary was established on 7 July 2006, and is based in Seoul. In March 2016, the subsidiary was heavily downsized due to a corporate restructuring after analyzing shifts in the current market, laying off 80% of its employees, leaving only ten people, including CEO Hiroyuki Fukuda. This did not affect any games scheduled for release in South Korea, and Nintendo continued operations there as usual.


title: Nintendo

text: For many years, Nintendo had a policy of strict content guidelines for video games published on its consoles. Although Nintendo allowed graphic violence in its video games released in Japan, nudity and sexuality were strictly prohibited. Former Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi believed that if the company allowed the licensing of pornographic games, the company's image would be forever tarnished. Nintendo of America went further in that games released for Nintendo consoles could not feature nudity, sexuality, profanity (including racism, sexism or slurs), blood, graphic or domestic violence, drugs, political messages, or religious symbolswith the exception of widely unpracticed religions, such as the Greek Pantheon. The Japanese parent company was concerned that it may be viewed as a "Japanese Invasion" by forcing Japanese community standards on North American and European children. Past the strict guidelines, some exceptions have occurred: "Bionic Commando" (though swastikas were eliminated in the US version), "Smash TV" and "" contain human violence, the latter also containing implied sexuality and tobacco use; "River City Ransom" and "" contain nudity, and the latter also contains religious images, as do "" and "".


title: Nintendo

text: A known side effect of this policy is the Genesis version of "Mortal Kombat" having more than double the unit sales of the Super NES version, mainly because Nintendo had forced publisher Acclaim to recolor the red blood to look like white sweat and replace some of the more gory graphics in its release of the game, making it less violent. By contrast, Sega allowed blood and gore to remain in the Genesis version (though a code is required to unlock the gore). Nintendo allowed the Super NES version of "Mortal Kombat II" to ship uncensored the following year with a content warning on the packaging.


title: Nintendo

text: Video game ratings systems were introduced with the Entertainment Software Rating Board of 1994 and the Pan European Game Information of 2003, and Nintendo discontinued most of its censorship policies in favor of consumers making their own choices. Today, changes to the content of games are done primarily by the game's developer or, occasionally, at the request of Nintendo. The only clear-set rule is that ESRB AO-rated games will not be licensed on Nintendo consoles in North America, a practice which is also enforced by Sony and Microsoft, its two greatest competitors in the present market. Nintendo has since allowed several mature-content games to be published on its consoles, including these: "Perfect Dark", "Conker's Bad Fur Day", "Doom", "Doom 64", "BMX XXX", the "Resident Evil" series, "Killer7", the "Mortal Kombat" series, "", "BloodRayne", "Geist", "", "Bayonetta 2", "Devil's Third", and "". Certain games have continued to be modified, however. For example, Konami was forced to remove all references to cigarettes in the 2000 Game Boy Color game "Metal Gear Solid" (although the previous NES version of "Metal Gear" and the subsequent GameCube game "" both included such references, as did Wii game "MadWorld"), and maiming and blood were removed from the Nintendo 64 port of "Cruis'n USA".


title: Nintendo

text: Another example is in the Game Boy Advance game "Mega Man Zero 3", in which one of the bosses, called Hellbat Schilt in the Japanese and European releases, was renamed Devilbat Schilt in the North American localization. In North America releases of the "Mega Man Zero" games, enemies and bosses killed with a saber attack do not gush blood as they do in the Japanese versions. However, the release of the Wii was accompanied by several even more controversial games, such as "Manhunt 2", "No More Heroes", "", and "MadWorld", the latter three of which were initially published exclusively for the console.


title: Nintendo

text: Nintendo of America also had guidelines before 1993 that had to be followed by its licensees to make games for the Nintendo Entertainment System, in addition to the above content guidelines. Guidelines were enforced through the 10NES lockout chip.


title: Nintendo

text: The last rule was circumvented in several ways; for example, Konami, wanting to produce more games for Nintendo's consoles, formed Ultra Games and later Palcom to produce more games as a technically different publisher. This disadvantaged smaller or emerging companies, as they could not afford to start additional companies. In another side effect, Square Co. (now Square Enix) executives have suggested that the price of publishing games on the Nintendo 64 along with the degree of censorship and control that Nintendo enforced over its games, most notably "Final Fantasy VI", were factors in switching its focus towards Sony's PlayStation console.


title: Nintendo

text: In 1993, a class action suit was taken against Nintendo under allegations that their lockout chip enabled unfair business practices. The case was settled, with the condition that California consumers were entitled to a $3 discount coupon for a game of Nintendo's choice.


title: Nintendo

text: Nintendo has generally been proactive to assure its intellectual property in both hardware and software is protected. Nintendo's protection of its properties began as early as the arcade release of "Donkey Kong" which was widely cloned on other platforms, a practice common to the most popular arcade games of the era. Nintendo did seek legal action to try to stop release of these unauthorized clones, but estimated they still lost in potential sales to these clones.


title: Nintendo

text: Nintendo became more proactive as they entered the Famicom/NES period. Nintendo had witnessed the events of a flooded game market that occurred in the United states in the early 1980s that led to the 1983 video game crash, and with the Famicom had taken business steps, such as controlling the cartridge production process, to prevent a similar flood of video game clones. However, the Famicom had lacked any lockout mechanics, and numerous unauthorized bootleg cartridges were made across the Asian regions. Nintendo took to creating its "Nintendo Seal of Quality" stamped on the games it made to dissuade consumers from purchasing these bootlegs, and as it prepared the Famicom for entry to Western regions as the NES, incorporated a lock-out system that only allowed authorized game cartridges they manufactured to be playable on the system. After the NES's release, Nintendo took legal action against companies that attempted to reverse-engineer the lock-out mechanism to make unauthorized games for the NES.


title: Nintendo

text: Nintendo has used emulation by itself or licensed from third parties to provide means to re-release games from their older platforms on newer systems, with Virtual Console, which re-released classic games as downloadable titles, the NES and Super NES library for Nintendo Switch Online subscribers, and with dedicated consoles like the NES and Super NES Classic Editions. However, Nintendo has taken a hard stance against unlicensed emulation of its video games and consoles, stating that it is the single largest threat to the intellectual property rights of video game developers. Further, Nintendo has taken action against fan-made games which have used significant facets of their IP, issuing cease & desist letters to these projects or Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)-related complaints to services that host these projects. The company has also taken legal action against those that made modchips for its hardware; notably, in 2020 and 2021, Nintendo took action against Team Xecuter which had been making modchips for Nintendo's consoles since 2013, after members of that team were arrested by the United States Department of Justice.


title: Nintendo

text: In a related action, Nintendo sent a cease and desist letter to the organizers of the 2020 The Big House "Super Smash Bros." tournament that was held entirely online due to the COVID-19 pandemic that year. Nintendo had taken issue with the tournament using emulated versions of "Super Smash Bros. Melee" which had included a user mod for networked play, as this would have required ripping a copy of "Melee" to play, an action they do not condone.


title: Nintendo

text: Fangames that reuse or recreate Nintendo assets also have been targeted by Nintendo typically through cease and desist letters or DMCA-based takedown to shut down these projects. "Full Screen Mario", a web browser-based version of "Super Mario Bros.", was shut down in 2013 after Nintendo issued a ceased and desist letter. Over five hundred fangames hosted at Game Jolt, including "AM2R", a remake of "", were shut down by Nintendo in 2016. Other notable fan projects that have been taken down include "Pokémon Uranium", a fangame based on the "Pokémon" series in 2016. "Super Mario 64 Online", an online multiplayer version of "Super Mario 64" in 2017, and "Metroid Prime 2D", a demake of "Metroid Prime", in 2021. Nintendo has defended these actions as necessary to protect its intellectual property, stating "just as Nintendo respects the intellectual property rights of others, we must also protect our own characters, trademarks and other content." In some cases, the developers of these fangames have repurposed their work into new projects. In the case of "No Mario's Sky", a mashup of "Super Mario Bros." and "No Man's Sky", after Nintendo sought to terminate the project, the Mario content was stripped and the game renamed as "DMCA's Sky".


title: Nintendo

text: In recent years, Nintendo has taken legal action against sites that knowingly distribute ROM images of its games. On 19 July 2018, Nintendo sued Jacob Mathias, the owner of distribution websites LoveROMs and LoveRetro, for "brazen and mass-scale infringement of Nintendo's intellectual property rights". Nintendo settled with Mathias in November 2018 for more than along with relinquishing all ROM images in their ownership. While Nintendo is likely to have agreed to a smaller fine in private, the large amount was seen as a deterrent to prevent similar sites from sharing ROM images. Nintendo won a separate suit against RomUniverse in May 2021, which also offered infringing copies of Nintendo DS and Switch games in addition to ROM images. The site owner was required to pay Nintendo in damages, and later given a permanent injunction preventing the site from operating in the future and requiring the owner to destroy all ROM copies. Nintendo successfully won a suit in the United Kingdom in September 2019 to force the major Internet service providers in the country to block access to sites that offered copyright-infringing copies of Switch software or hacks for the Nintendo Switch to run unauthorized software.


title: Nintendo

text: Nintendo sought enforcement action against a hacker that for several years had infiltrated Nintendo's internal database by various means including phishing to obtain plans for games and hardware for upcoming shows like E3. This was leaked to the Internet, impacting how Nintendo's own announcements were received. Though the person was a minor when Nintendo brought the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to investigate, and had been warned by the FBI to desist, the person continued over 2018 and 2019 as an adult, posting taunts on social media. The perpetrator was arrested in July 2019, and the FBI found documents confirming the hacks, many unauthorized game files, and child pornography, leading to the perpetrator's admission of guilt for all crimes in January 2020 and was sentenced to three years in prison. Similarly, Nintendo alongside The Pokémon Company spent significant time to identify who had leaked information about "Pokémon Sword" and "Shield" several weeks before its planned Nintendo Directs, ultimately tracing the leaks back to a Portugal game journalist who leaked the information from official review copies of the game and subsequently severed ties with the publication.


title: Nintendo

text: In May 2020, a major leak of documents occurred, including source code, designs, hardware drawings, documentation, and other internal information primarily related to the Nintendo 64, GameCube, and Wii. The leak may have been related to BroadOn, a company that Nintendo had contracted to help with the Wii's design, or to Zammis Clark, a Malwarebytes employee and hacker who pleaded guilty to infiltrating Microsoft's and Nintendo's servers between March and May 2018.


title: Nintendo

text: A second and larger leak occurred in July 2020, which has been called the "Gigaleak" as it contains gigabytes of data, and is believed related to the May 2020 leak. The leak includes the source code and prototypes for several early 1990s Super NES games including "Super Mario Kart", "Yoshi's Island", "Star Fox", and "Star Fox 2", and it includes internal development tools and system software components. The veracity of the material was confirmed by Dylan Cuthbert, a programmer for Nintendo during that period. The leak has the source code to several Nintendo 64 games including "Super Mario 64" and "", and the console's operating system. The leak contains personal files from Nintendo employees.


title: Nintendo

text: The gold sunburst seal was first used by Nintendo of America, and later Nintendo of Europe. It is displayed on any game, system, or accessory licensed for use on one of its video game consoles, denoting the game has been properly approved by Nintendo. The seal is also displayed on any Nintendo-licensed merchandise, such as trading cards, game guides, or apparel, albeit with the words "Official Nintendo Licensed Product."


title: Nintendo

text: In 2008, game designer Sid Meier cited the Seal of Quality as one of the three most important innovations in video game history, as it helped set a standard for game quality that protected consumers from shovelware.


title: Nintendo

text: In NTSC regions, this seal is an elliptical starburst named the "Official Nintendo Seal". Originally, for NTSC countries, the seal was a large, black and gold circular starburst. The seal read as follows: "This seal is your assurance that NINTENDO has approved and guaranteed the quality of this product." This seal was later altered in 1988: "approved and guaranteed" was changed to "evaluated and approved". In 1989, the seal became gold and white, as it currently appears, with a shortened phrase, "Official Nintendo Seal of Quality". It was changed in 2003 to read "Official Nintendo Seal".


title: Nintendo

text: In PAL regions, the seal is a circular starburst named the "Original Nintendo Seal of Quality." Text near the seal in the Australian Wii manual states:


title: Nintendo

text: In 1992, Nintendo teamed with the Starlight Children's Foundation to build Starlight Fun Center mobile entertainment units and install them in hospitals. 1,000 Starlight Nintendo Fun Center units were installed by the end of 1995. These units combine several forms of multimedia entertainment, including gaming, and serve as a distraction to brighten moods and boost kids' morale during hospital stays.


title: Nintendo

text: Nintendo has consistently been ranked last in Greenpeace's "Guide to Greener Electronics" due to Nintendo's failure to publish information. Similarly, they are ranked last in the Enough Project's "Conflict Minerals Company Rankings" due to Nintendo's refusal to respond to multiple requests for information.


title: Nintendo

text: Like many other electronics companies, Nintendo offers a recycling program for customers to mail in unused products. Nintendo of America claimed 548 tons of returned products in 2011, 98% of which became reused or recycled.


title: Middle East

text: The Middle East (, ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (European part of Turkey), Egypt, Iran, the Levant (including Ash-Shām and Cyprus), Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq), and the Socotra Archipelago (a part of Yemen). The term came into widespread usage as a replacement of the term Near East (as opposed to the Far East) beginning in the early 20th century. The term "Middle East" has led to some confusion over its changing definitions, and has been viewed by some to be discriminatory or too Eurocentric. The region includes the vast majority of the territories included in the closely associated definition of Western Asia (including Iran), but without the South Caucasus, and additionally includes all of Egypt (not just the Sinai Region) and all of Turkey (not just the part barring East Thrace).


title: Middle East

text: Most Middle Eastern countries (13 out of 18) are part of the Arab world. The most populous countries in the region are Egypt, Turkey, and Iran, while Saudi Arabia is the largest Middle Eastern country by area. The history of the Middle East dates back to ancient times, with the geopolitical importance of the region being recognized for millennia. Several major religions have their origins in the Middle East, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Arabs constitute the main socioethnic grouping in the region, followed by Turks, Persians, Kurds, Azeris, Copts, Jews, Assyrians, Iraqi Turkmen, Yazidis, and Greek Cypriots.


title: Middle East

text: The Middle East generally has a hot, arid climate, especially in the Arabian and Egyptian regions. Several major rivers provide irrigation to support agriculture in limited areas here, such as the Nile Delta in Egypt, the Tigris and Euphrates watersheds of Mesopotamia, and the basin of the Jordan River that spans most of the Levant. These regions are collectively known as the Fertile Crescent, and comprise the core of what historians had long referred to as the cradle of civilization (a label now applied to multiple regions of the world). Conversely, the Levantine coast and most of Turkey have relatively temperate climates typical of the Mediterranean, with dry summers and cool, wet winters. Most of the countries that border the Persian Gulf have vast reserves of petroleum, with monarchs of the Arabian Peninsula in particular benefiting economically from petroleum exports. Because of the arid climate and heavy reliance on the fossil fuel industry, the Middle East is both a heavy contributor to climate change and a region expected to be severely negatively impacted by it.


title: Middle East

text: Other concepts of the region exist including the broader the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), which includes states of the Maghreb and the Sudan, or the "Greater Middle East" which additionally also includes parts of East Africa, Mauritania, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and sometimes Central Asia and the South Caucasus.


title: Middle East

text: The term "Middle East" may have originated in the 1850s in the British India Office. However, it became more widely known when American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan used the term in 1902 to "designate the area between Arabia and India". During this time the British and Russian Empires were vying for influence in Central Asia, a rivalry which would become known as the Great Game. Mahan realized not only the strategic importance of the region, but also of its center, the Persian Gulf. He labeled the area surrounding the Persian Gulf as the Middle East, and said that after Egypt's Suez Canal, it was the most important passage for Britain to control in order to keep the Russians from advancing towards British India. Mahan first used the term in his article "The Persian Gulf and International Relations", published in September 1902 in the "National Review", a British journal.


title: Middle East

text: Mahan's article was reprinted in "The Times" and followed in October by a 20-article series entitled "The Middle Eastern Question," written by Sir Ignatius Valentine Chirol. During this series, Sir Ignatius expanded the definition of "Middle East" to include "those regions of Asia which extend to the borders of India or command the approaches to India." After the series ended in 1903, "The Times" removed quotation marks from subsequent uses of the term.


title: Middle East

text: Until World War II, it was customary to refer to areas centered around Turkey and the eastern shore of the Mediterranean as the "Near East", while the "Far East" centered on China, and the Middle East then meant the area from Mesopotamia to Burma, namely the area between the Near East and the Far East. In the late 1930s, the British established the Middle East Command, which was based in Cairo, for its military forces in the region. After that time, the term "Middle East" gained broader usage in Europe and the United States, with the Middle East Institute founded in Washington, D.C. in 1946, among other usage.


title: Middle East

text: While non-Eurocentric terms such "Southwest Asia" or "Swasia" has been sparsedly used, the inclusion of an African country, Egypt, in the definition questions the usefulness of using such terms.


title: Middle East

text: The description "Middle" has also led to some confusion over changing definitions. Before the First World War, "Near East" was used in English to refer to the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire, while "Middle East" referred to the Caucasus, Persia, and Arabian lands, and sometimes Afghanistan, India and others. In contrast, "Far East" referred to the countries of East Asia (e.g. China, Japan and Korea).


title: Middle East

text: With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, "Near East" largely fell out of common use in English, while "Middle East" came to be applied to the re-emerging countries of the Islamic world. However, the usage "Near East" was retained by a variety of academic disciplines, including archaeology and ancient history, where it describes an area identical to the term "Middle East", which is not used by these disciplines (see Ancient Near East).


title: Middle East

text: The first official use of the term "Middle East" by the United States government was in the 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine, which pertained to the Suez Crisis. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles defined the Middle East as "the area lying between and including Libya on the west and Pakistan on the east, Syria and Iraq on the North and the Arabian peninsula to the south, plus the Sudan and Ethiopia." In 1958, the State Department explained that the terms "Near East" and "Middle East" were interchangeable, and defined the region as including only Egypt, Syria, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar.


title: Middle East

text: The term "Middle East" has also been criticised by journalist Louay Khraish and historian Hassan Hanafi for being a Eurocentric and colonialist term.


title: Middle East

text: The Associated Press Stylebook says that Near East formerly referred to the farther west countries while Middle East referred to the eastern ones, but that now they are synonymous. It instructs:


title: Middle East

text: Use "Middle East" unless "Near East" is used by a source in a story. "Mideast" is also acceptable, but "Middle East" is preferred.


title: Middle East

text: There are terms similar to "Near East" and "Middle East" in other European languages, but since it is a relative description, the meanings depend on the country and are different from the English terms generally. In German the term "" (Near East) is still in common use (nowadays the term "Mittlerer Osten" is more and more common in press texts translated from English sources, albeit having a distinct meaning) and in Russian or "Blizhniy Vostok", Bulgarian , Polish "" or Croatian "" (meaning "Near East" in all the four Slavic languages) remains as the only appropriate term for the region. However, some languages do have "Middle East" equivalents, such as the French , Swedish , Spanish , and the Italian .


title: Middle East

text: Perhaps because of the influence of the Western press, the Arabic equivalent of "Middle East" (Arabic: الشرق الأوسط "ash-Sharq al-Awsaṭ") has become standard usage in the mainstream Arabic press, comprising the same meaning as the term "Middle East" in North American and Western European usage. The designation, "Mashriq", also from the Arabic root for "East", also denotes a variously defined region around the Levant, the eastern part of the Arabic-speaking world (as opposed to the "Maghreb", the western part). Even though the term originated in the West, apart from Arabic, other languages of countries of the Middle East also use a translation of it. The Persian equivalent for Middle East is خاورمیانه ("Khāvar-e miyāneh"), the Hebrew is המזרח התיכון ("hamizrach hatikhon"), the Turkish is Orta Doğu and the Greek is Μέση Ανατολή ("Mesi Anatoli").


title: Middle East

text: Traditionally included within the Middle East are Arabia, Asia Minor, East Thrace, Egypt, Iran, the Levant, Mesopotamia, and the Socotra Archipelago. The region includes 17 UN-recognized countries and one British Overseas Territory.


title: Middle East

text: Various concepts are often being paralleled to the Middle East, most notably the Near East, Fertile Crescent, and Levant. The Near East, Fertile Crescent, and Levant are geographical concepts, which refer to large sections of the modern-day Middle East, with the Near East being the closest to the Middle East in its geographical meaning. Due to it primarily being Arabic speaking, the Maghreb region of North Africa is sometimes included.


title: Middle East

text: The countries of the South Caucasus—Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia—are occasionally included in definitions of the Middle East.


title: Middle East

text: The Greater Middle East was a political term coined by the second Bush administration in the first decade of the 21st century, to denote various countries, pertaining to the Muslim world, specifically Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey. Various Central Asian countries are sometimes also included.


title: Middle East

text: The Middle East lies at the juncture of Africa and Eurasia and of the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. It is the birthplace and spiritual center of religions such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Manichaeism, Yezidi, Druze, Yarsan, and Mandeanism, and in Iran, Mithraism, Zoroastrianism, Manicheanism, and the Baháʼí Faith. Throughout its history the Middle East has been a major center of world affairs; a strategically, economically, politically, culturally, and religiously sensitive area. The region is one of the regions where agriculture was independently discovered, and from the Middle East it was spread, during the Neolithic, to different regions of the world such as Europe, the Indus Valley and Eastern Africa.


title: Middle East

text: Prior to the formation of civilizations, advanced cultures formed all over the Middle East during the Stone Age. The search for agricultural lands by agriculturalists, and pastoral lands by herdsmen meant different migrations took place within the region and shaped its ethnic and demographic makeup.


title: Middle East

text: The Middle East is widely and most famously known as the cradle of civilization. The world's earliest civilizations, Mesopotamia (Sumer, Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia), ancient Egypt and Kish in the Levant, all originated in the Fertile Crescent and Nile Valley regions of the ancient Near East. These were followed by the Hittite, Greek, Hurrian and Urartian civilisations of Asia Minor; Elam, Persia and Median civilizations in Iran, as well as the civilizations of the Levant (such as Ebla, Mari, Nagar, Ugarit, Canaan, Aramea, Mitanni, Phoenicia and Israel) and the Arabian Peninsula (Magan, Sheba, Ubar). The Near East was first largely unified under the Neo Assyrian Empire, then the Achaemenid Empire followed later by the Macedonian Empire and after this to some degree by the Iranian empires (namely the Parthian and Sassanid Empires), the Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire. The region served as the intellectual and economic center of the Roman Empire and played an exceptionally important role due to its periphery on the Sassanid Empire. Thus, the Romans stationed up to five or six of their legions in the region for the sole purpose of defending it from Sassanid and Bedouin raids and invasions.


title: Middle East

text: From the 4th century CE onwards, the Middle East became the center of the two main powers at the time, the Byzantine Empire and the Sassanid Empire. However, it would be the later Islamic Caliphates of the Middle Ages, or Islamic Golden Age which began with the Islamic conquest of the region in the 7th century AD, that would first unify the entire Middle East as a distinct region and create the dominant Islamic Arab ethnic identity that largely (but not exclusively) persists today. The 4 caliphates that dominated the Middle East for more than 600 years were the Rashidun Caliphate, the Umayyad caliphate, the Abbasid caliphate and the Fatimid caliphate. Additionally, the Mongols would come to dominate the region, the Kingdom of Armenia would incorporate parts of the region to their domain, the Seljuks would rule the region and spread Turko-Persian culture, and the Franks would found the Crusader states that would stand for roughly two centuries. Josiah Russell estimates the population of what he calls "Islamic territory" as roughly 12.5 million in 1000 – Anatolia 8 million, Syria 2 million, and Egypt 1.5 million.


title: Middle East

text: From the 16th century onward, the Middle East came to be dominated, once again, by two main powers: the Ottoman Empire and the Safavid dynasty.


title: Middle East

text: The modern Middle East began after World War I, when the Ottoman Empire, which was allied with the Central Powers, was defeated by the British Empire and their allies and partitioned into a number of separate nations, initially under British and French Mandates. Other defining events in this transformation included the establishment of Israel in 1948 and the eventual departure of European powers, notably Britain and France by the end of the 1960s. They were supplanted in some part by the rising influence of the United States from the 1970s onwards.


title: Middle East

text: In the 20th century, the region's significant stocks of crude oil gave it new strategic and economic importance. Mass production of oil began around 1945, with Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates having large quantities of oil. Estimated oil reserves, especially in Saudi Arabia and Iran, are some of the highest in the world, and the international oil cartel OPEC is dominated by Middle Eastern countries.


title: Middle East

text: During the Cold War, the Middle East was a theater of ideological struggle between the two superpowers and their allies: NATO and the United States on one side, and the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact on the other, as they competed to influence regional allies. Besides the political reasons there was also the "ideological conflict" between the two systems. Moreover, as Louise Fawcett argues, among many important areas of contention, or perhaps more accurately of anxiety, were, first, the desires of the superpowers to gain strategic advantage in the region, second, the fact that the region contained some two-thirds of the world's oil reserves in a context where oil was becoming increasingly vital to the economy of the Western world [...] Within this contextual framework, the United States sought to divert the Arab world from Soviet influence. Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, the region has experienced both periods of relative peace and tolerance and periods of conflict particularly between Sunnis and Shiites.


title: Middle East

text: Arabs constitute the largest ethnic group in the Middle East, followed by various Iranian peoples and then by Turkic peoples (Turkish, Azeris, Syrian Turkmen, and Iraqi Turkmen). Native ethnic groups of the region include, in addition to Arabs, Arameans, Assyrians, Baloch, Berbers, Copts, Druze, Greek Cypriots, Jews, Kurds, Lurs, Mandaeans, Persians, Samaritans, Shabaks, Tats, and Zazas. European ethnic groups that form a diaspora in the region include Albanians, Bosniaks, Circassians (including Kabardians), Crimean Tatars, Greeks, Franco-Levantines, Italo-Levantines, and Iraqi Turkmens. Among other migrant populations are Chinese, Filipinos, Indians, Indonesians, Pakistanis, Pashtuns, Romani, and Afro-Arabs.


title: Middle East

text: "Migration has always provided an important vent for labor market pressures in the Middle East. For the period between the 1970s and 1990s, the Arab states of the Persian Gulf in particular provided a rich source of employment for workers from Egypt, Yemen and the countries of the Levant, while Europe had attracted young workers from North African countries due both to proximity and the legacy of colonial ties between France and the majority of North African states." According to the International Organization for Migration, there are 13 million first-generation migrants from Arab nations in the world, of which 5.8 reside in other Arab countries. Expatriates from Arab countries contribute to the circulation of financial and human capital in the region and thus significantly promote regional development. In 2009 Arab countries received a total of US$35.1 billion in remittance in-flows and remittances sent to Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon from other Arab countries are 40 to 190 per cent higher than trade revenues between these and other Arab countries. In Somalia, the Somali Civil War has greatly increased the size of the Somali diaspora, as many of the best educated Somalis left for Middle Eastern countries as well as Europe and North America.


title: Middle East

text: Non-Arab Middle Eastern countries such as Turkey, Israel and Iran are also subject to important migration dynamics.


title: Middle East

text: A fair proportion of those migrating from Arab nations are from ethnic and religious minorities facing racial and or religious persecution and are not necessarily ethnic Arabs, Iranians or Turks. Large numbers of Kurds, Jews, Assyrians, Greeks and Armenians as well as many Mandeans have left nations such as Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey for these reasons during the last century. In Iran, many religious minorities such as Christians, Baháʼís, Jews and Zoroastrians have left since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.


title: Middle East

text: The Middle East is very diverse when it comes to religions, many of which originated there. Islam is the largest religion in the Middle East, but other faiths that originated there, such as Judaism and Christianity, are also well represented. Christian communities have played a vital role in the Middle East, and they represent 40.5% of Lebanon, where the Lebanese president, half of the cabinet, and half of the parliament follow one of the various Lebanese Christian rites. There are also important minority religions like the Baháʼí Faith, Yarsanism, Yazidism, Zoroastrianism, Mandaeism, Druze, and Shabakism, and in ancient times the region was home to Mesopotamian religions, Canaanite religions, Manichaeism, Mithraism and various monotheist gnostic sects.


title: Middle East

text: The six top languages, in terms of numbers of speakers, are Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Kurdish, Hebrew and Greek. Arabic and Hebrew represent the Afro-Asiatic language family. Persian, Kurdish and Greek belong to the Indo-European language family. Turkish belongs to Turkic language family. About 20 minority languages are also spoken in the Middle East.


title: Middle East

text: Arabic, with all its dialects, is the most widely spoken language in the Middle East, with Literary Arabic being official in all North African and in most West Asian countries. Arabic dialects are also spoken in some adjacent areas in neighbouring Middle Eastern non-Arab countries. It is a member of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Several Modern South Arabian languages such as Mehri and Soqotri are also spoken Yemen and Oman. Another Semitic language such as Aramaic and its dialects are spoken mainly by Assyrians and Mandaeans. There is also an Oasis Berber-speaking community in Egypt where the language is also known as Siwa. It is a non-Semitic Afro-Asiatic language.


title: Middle East

text: Persian is the second most spoken language. While it is primarily spoken in Iran and some border areas in neighbouring countries, the country is one of the region's largest and most populous. It belongs to the Indo-Iranian branch of the family of Indo-European languages. Other Western Iranic languages spoken in the region include Achomi, Daylami, Kurdish dialects, Semmani, Lurish, amongst many others.


title: Middle East

text: The third-most widely spoken language, Turkish, is largely confined to Turkey, which is also one of the region's largest and most populous countries, but it is present in areas in neighboring countries. It is a member of the Turkic languages, which have their origins in East Asia. Another Turkic language, Azerbaijani, is spoken by Azerbaijanis in Iran.


title: Middle East

text: Hebrew is one of the two official languages of Israel, the other being Arabic. Hebrew is spoken and used by over 80% of Israel's population, the other 20% using Arabic.


title: Middle East

text: Greek is one of the two official languages of Cyprus, and the country's main language. Small communities of Greek speakers exist all around the Middle East; until the 20th century it was also widely spoken in Asia Minor (being the second most spoken language there, after Turkish) and Egypt. During the antiquity, Ancient Greek was the lingua franca for many areas of the western Middle East and until the Muslim expansion it was widely spoken there as well. Until the late 11th century, it was also the main spoken language in Asia Minor; after that it was gradually replaced by the Turkish language as the Anatolian Turks expanded and the local Greeks were assimilated, especially in the interior.


title: Middle East

text: English is one of the official languages of Akrotiri and Dhekelia. It is also commonly taught and used as a second language, especially among the middle and upper classes, in countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Iran, Kurdistan, Iraq, Qatar, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. It is also a main language in some Emirates of the United Arab Emirates. It is also spoken as native language by Jewish immigrants from Anglophone countries (UK, USA, Australia) in Israel and understood widely as second language there.


title: Middle East

text: French is taught and used in many government facilities and media in Lebanon, and is taught in some primary and secondary schools of Egypt and Syria. Maltese, a Semitic language mainly spoken in Europe, is also used by the Franco-Maltese diaspora in Egypt. Also, due to widespread immigration of French Jews to Israel, it is the native language of approximately 200,000 Jews of Israel.


title: Middle East

text: Russian is spoken by a large portion of the Israeli population, because of emigration in the late 1990s. Russian today is a popular unofficial language in use in Israel; news, radio and sign boards can be found in Russian around the country after Hebrew and Arabic. Circassian is also spoken by the diaspora in the region and by almost all Circassians in Israel who speak Hebrew and English as well.


title: Middle East

text: The largest Romanian-speaking community in the Middle East is found in Israel, where Romanian is spoken by 5% of the population.


title: Middle East

text: Bengali, Hindi and Urdu are widely spoken by migrant communities in many Middle Eastern countries, such as Saudi Arabia (where 20–25% of the population is South Asian), the United Arab Emirates (where 50–55% of the population is South Asian), and Qatar, which have large numbers of Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Indian immigrants.


title: Middle East

text: Middle Eastern economies range from being very poor (such as Gaza and Yemen) to extremely wealthy nations (such as Qatar and UAE). Overall, , according to the CIA World Factbook, all nations in the Middle East are maintaining a positive rate of growth.


title: Middle East

text: According to the World Bank's "World Development Indicators" database published on July 1, 2009, the three largest Middle Eastern economies in 2008 were Turkey ($794,228), Saudi Arabia ($467,601) and Iran ($385,143) in terms of Nominal GDP. Regarding nominal GDP per capita, the highest ranking countries are Qatar ($93,204), the UAE ($55,028), Kuwait ($45,920) and Cyprus ($32,745). Turkey ($1,028,897), Iran ($839,438) and Saudi Arabia ($589,531) had the largest economies in terms of GDP-PPP. When it comes to per capita (PPP)-based income, the highest-ranking countries are Qatar ($86,008), Kuwait ($39,915), the UAE ($38,894), Bahrain ($34,662) and Cyprus ($29,853). The lowest-ranking country in the Middle East, in terms of per capita income (PPP), is the autonomous Palestinian Authority of Gaza and the West Bank ($1,100).


title: Middle East

text: The economic structure of Middle Eastern nations are different in the sense that while some nations are heavily dependent on export of only oil and oil-related products (such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait), others have a highly diverse economic base (such as Cyprus, Israel, Turkey and Egypt). Industries of the Middle Eastern region include oil and oil-related products, agriculture, cotton, cattle, dairy, textiles, leather products, surgical instruments, defence equipment (guns, ammunition, tanks, submarines, fighter jets, UAVs, and missiles). Banking is also an important sector of the economies, especially in the case of UAE and Bahrain.


title: Middle East

text: With the exception of Cyprus, Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon and Israel, tourism has been a relatively undeveloped area of the economy, in part because of the socially conservative nature of the region as well as political turmoil in certain regions of the Middle East. In recent years, however, countries such as the UAE, Bahrain, and Jordan have begun attracting greater numbers of tourists because of improving tourist facilities and the relaxing of tourism-related restrictive policies.


title: Middle East

text: Unemployment is notably high in the Middle East and North Africa region, particularly among young people aged 15–29, a demographic representing 30% of the region's total population. The total regional unemployment rate in 2005, according to the International Labour Organization, was 13.2%, and among youth is as high as 25%, up to 37% in Morocco and 73% in Syria.


title: Charles Oliveira

text: Charles Oliveira da Silva (born October 17, 1989) is a Brazilian professional mixed martial artist and Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioner. He currently competes in the Lightweight division in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), where he is a former UFC Lightweight Champion. Oliveira holds multiple UFC records, notably the most submission wins in the organization's history at 16, and most finishes at 19. As of August 22, 2022, he is #1 in the UFC lightweight rankings and as of October 24, 2022, he is #7 in the UFC men's pound-for-pound rankings.


title: Charles Oliveira

text: Oliveira was born in a poor family in the favela of Vicente de Carvalho in the tourist town Guarujá, São Paulo, Brazil. Charles started playing football, dreaming in becoming a professional player, but at age 7 he started to feel ill, he had regular pains in his body and had problems in walking, and was sometimes unable to move his legs. He was diagnosed with rheumatic fever and heart murmur, which severely affected his ankle; the medic told his family that he could become paraplegic. He was frequently bedridden, but despite all the challenges and his illnesses, Oliveira's parents insisted to put him in sports programs, and after two years he started to recover. Oliveira was introduced to Brazilian jiu-jitsu by a neighbor named "Paulo" at age 12. Although his family had a very low income, the BJJ gym's coach offered classes for free as part of a social program. His family helped fund his training by selling street snacks and discarded cardboard. "Paulo", the man who introduced Charles to jiu-jitsu, later died caught in the crossfire of a shootout in Vicente de Carvalho when Charles was 14.


title: Charles Oliveira

text: Charles Oliveira began training in Brazilian jiu-jitsu under Roger Coelho at the age of 12, winning his first major title as a white belt in 2003. He was awarded his black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu under Ericson Cardoso and Jorge "Macaco" Patino in 2010.


title: Charles Oliveira

text: His nickname "do Bronx" comes from the Bronx borough of New York City, literally meaning "from the Bronx", as "Bronx" was a slang used for favelas and poor neighbourhoods. In an interview he revealed: "Bronx is because it's a favela, right? Outskirts, where I come from. "Do Bronx" practically came when I went to fight in a [amateur] tournament. [...] And they told me to get them a nickname, I was just Charles Oliveira. When we went to fight some jiu-jitsu championships, they always said 'look at the guys from the Bronx, from the favela'. So I put "do Bronx" in".


title: Charles Oliveira

text: Oliveira began his career in 2007 in his home country of Brazil, compiling a record of 12–0, with six knockouts and five submissions. On three separate occasions, Oliveira has compiled multiple wins on the same night.


title: Charles Oliveira

text: His first bout was the in the amateur MMA event "Circuito Nacional de Vale-Tudo Amador" ("National Amateur Vale-Tudo Circuit") against Rui Machado, Oliveira submitted him with an armbar 15 seconds into the first round.


title: Charles Oliveira

text: In March 2008, Oliveira made his professional debut at the Predador Fight Championship promotion, where his master Jorge Patino had previously participated at Predator FC 6. The event was the "Predator FC 9 - Welterweight Grand Prix", a one-night single-elimination tournament similar to the "Grand Prix" events held by Pride FC, where the competitors would have to fight three times in order to be crowned the champion. In the first round, Oliveira defeated Jackson Pontes via submission (rear-naked choke), which advanced him to the second stage of the tournament. Oliveira's second stage fight was against Viscardi Andrade. In the second round, Oliveira won via TKO (punches) and advanced to the final round of the tournament. Oliveira won the tournament by defeating Diego Braga via TKO (punches) in the first round of the fight.


title: Charles Oliveira

text: Oliveira debuted at lightweight by defeating future UFC fighter Mehdi Baghdad in December 2008 at the first event of promotion "Kawai Arena". After that he entered into another tournament at "Korea Fight", where he defeated Daniel Fernandes and Eliene Silva via KO and TKO, respectively.


title: Charles Oliveira

text: Oliveira submitted three opponents in a row over the next few months (including Bellator veteran Alexandre Bezerra), and won a split decision over Eduardo Pachu.


title: Charles Oliveira

text: Oliveira once again competed twice in one night, in February 2010, defeating Rosenildo Rocha via submission (rear-naked choke) in the first round and Diego Bataglia via KO (slam).


title: Charles Oliveira

text: In January 2010, Oliveira was named as the third-best Brazilian prospect to watch in 2010, according to Sherdog.


title: Charles Oliveira

text: Oliveira then signed for the UFC and made his debut against Darren Elkins. This fight was originally scheduled for , but was rescheduled for due to visa issues. Oliveira defeated Elkins via submission (armbar) after 41 seconds of the first round. Oliveira was taken down early by Elkins but quickly attempted a triangle choke, before transitioning to an armbar, forcing the tap out. The submission earned him the "Submission of the Night" award.


title: Charles Oliveira

text: Oliveira next fought against Efrain Escudero at UFC Fight Night 22 replacing an injured Matt Wiman. The bout, which served as co-main event would become a catchweight bout after Escudero weighed in at 159 lb. Oliveira went on to defeat Escudero in the third round via standing rear-naked choke. Oliveira was awarded the Submission of the Night award for his second successive UFC appearance.


title: Charles Oliveira

text: Oliveira faced Jim Miller on December 11, 2010, at UFC 124. Oliveira was quickly submitted via kneebar in the first round; this marked the first loss of his career.


title: Charles Oliveira

text: Oliveira faced Nik Lentz on June 26, 2011, at . The fight ended in the second round after Oliveira hit Lentz with an illegal knee which went unnoticed by the referee and submitted the dazed Lentz via rear-naked choke. However, after reviewing the incident, the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission overturned the result and declared it a no contest. The back and forth action earned both fighters "Fight of the Night" honors.


title: Charles Oliveira

text: Oliveira was expected to face Joe Lauzon on November 19, 2011, at UFC 138. However, Oliveira instead faced Donald Cerrone on August 14, 2011, at UFC on Versus 5, replacing an injured Paul Taylor. He lost the fight via TKO (punches) at 3:01 of the first round. His trainer stated that after going 0–2–1 NC in his last 3 fights he planned to drop down to the featherweight division.


title: Charles Oliveira

text: Oliveira was briefly linked to a bout with Robert Peralta on January 20, 2012, at , but instead faced promotional newcomer Eric Wisely in a featherweight fight on January 28, 2012, at . Oliveira won the fight via reverse calf slicer submission in the first round, marking the first time the technique had been used to finish an opponent in UFC history. Oliveira faced Jonathan Brookins on June 1, 2012, at . Oliveira used his speed to outstrike Brookins and won the fight via second round anaconda choke.


title: Charles Oliveira

text: Oliveira faced Cub Swanson on September 22, 2012, at UFC 152. Early in the first round, Swanson hit Oliveira with body shots, which visibly appeared to hurt Oliveira. Swanson followed it up with an overhand right, sending Oliveira to the canvas and resulting in a KO.


title: Charles Oliveira

text: Oliveira faced Frankie Edgar on July 6, 2013, at UFC 162, he lost via unanimous decision. Both fighters earned "Fight of the Night" honors for their performance.


title: Charles Oliveira

text: Oliveira was expected to face Estevan Payan on October 19, 2013, at UFC 166. However, Payan was forced out of the bout citing a broken foot and was replaced by Jeremy Larsen. Subsequently, on October 5, Oliveira pulled out of the Larsen bout citing a strained thigh muscle.


title: Charles Oliveira

text: Oliveira faced Andy Ogle on February 15, 2014, at UFC Fight Night 36. He won the fight via triangle choke submission in the third round. The win also earned him one of the first UFC "Performance of the Night" bonus awards.


title: Charles Oliveira

text: Oliveira faced Hatsu Hioki on June 28, 2014, at UFC Fight Night 43. He won the fight via submission and became the first man to finish Hioki.


title: Charles Oliveira

text: Oliveira was expected to face Nik Lentz in a rematch on September 5, 2014, at UFC Fight Night 50. At the event weigh-in, Oliveira came in over the 146 pound featherweight limit at 150 pounds. Subsequently, he was initially forced to surrender 20 percent of his purse to his opponent Nik Lentz and the bout was changed to a catchweight affair. In turn, Oliveira was pulled from the event entirely on the day of the event after he fell ill from the effects of the weight cutting process.


title: Charles Oliveira

text: Oliveira finally faced Nik Lentz in a rematch on May 30, 2015, at UFC Fight Night 67. Following a back and forth first two rounds, Oliveria won the fight via guillotine choke submission in the third round. The win earned Oliveria his third "Performance of the Night" bonus and his third "Fight of the Night" bonus.


title: Charles Oliveira

text: Oliveira faced Max Holloway on August 23, 2015, at UFC Fight Night 74. He lost the fight via TKO in the first round, after suffering an apparent neck/shoulder injury while attempting a takedown, and was rendered unable to continue. The injury was later described as a micro-tear in his esophagus, although Oliveira was released from a Saskatoon hospital the next day, and tested negative for major chest, neck and/or throat injuries. He later confirmed that he suffered a minor neck injury, related to a previous injury from his training camp. He did not require surgery.


title: Charles Oliveira

text: Oliveira faced Myles Jury on December 19, 2015, at UFC on Fox 17. In the lead up to the fight Oliveira missed weight - his third time in his UFC career - for the bout and it was subsequently contested at a catchweight. Oliveira won the fight via submission in the first round.


title: Charles Oliveira

text: Oliveira next faced Anthony Pettis on August 27, 2016, at UFC on Fox 21. After a grueling back-and-forth battle, Pettis submitted Oliveira in the third round via guillotine choke.


title: Charles Oliveira

text: Oliveira faced Ricardo Lamas on November 5, 2016, at . The bout was contested at a catchweight of 155 lbs, as Oliveira missed weight by nearly 10 lbs. Lamas won the fight via submission in the second round.


title: Charles Oliveira

text: Oliveira faced Will Brooks in a lightweight bout on April 8, 2017, at UFC 210. He won the fight by rear-naked choke submission in the first round. He was awarded a "Performance of the Night" bonus.


title: Charles Oliveira

text: Oliveira faced Paul Felder on December 2, 2017, at UFC 218. He lost the fight via TKO in the second round after Felder landed multiple elbows while in Oliveira's guard.


title: Charles Oliveira

text: In 2018 joined Chute Boxe Diego Lima in São Paulo, According to him, his former gym Macaco Gold Team (headed by Jorge "Macaco" Patino) was mostly focused BJJ with complementary striking, while he was confident with his groundfighting skills, he felt he needed to improve his striking game. Patino is still his BJJ coach but now he is complemented with Chute Boxe's trademark aggressive Muay Thai style.


title: Charles Oliveira

text: Oliveira faced Clay Guida at UFC 225, replacing an injured Bobby Green. He won the fight via guillotine choke submission in the first round. The win earned him his fifth "Performance of the Night" bonus.