What Is the Nintendo Logo?
The Nintendo logo is the name Nintendo set inside a rounded oval frame known as the racetrack, shown in white on a red background since 2016. It belongs to Nintendo Co., Ltd., the Kyoto company that Fusajiro Yamauchi founded in 1889 to make hanafuda playing cards, and that launched its first home video game machines, TV Game 15 and TV Game 6, in 1977.
Nintendo's consoles carry marks of their own, from the Family Computer of 1983 to the Wii and the Switch. The racetrack logo is available as the Nintendo logo SVG.
Nintendo Logo Facts
| Introduced | Lettering 1967; racetrack frame first seen in 1972, in regular use from 1982 |
| Symbol | An oval racetrack frame around the name |
| Logo type | Wordmark: the name Nintendo in a frame |
| Earlier mark | The company name written in kanji |
| Owner | Nintendo Co., Ltd. |
What the Nintendo Logo Means
The logo carries no picture, so the meaning sits in the name. Nintendo is often said to mean "leave luck to heaven", but that reading lacks historical proof. It has also been suggested to mean "the temple of free hanafuda", and even Yamauchi's descendants do not know what he intended.
The colour has carried its own message. When Nintendo brought back red in 2016, replacing the grey of the Wii and DS years, it was moving the emphasis away from individual consoles and towards the Nintendo brand as a whole.
Nintendo Logo History
For roughly its first 75 years after 1889, Nintendo's logo was simply its name in kanji. The first version in Latin letters, from the early 1960s, used a handwritten cursive style. Around 1965 a steadier format followed, with an NG circle and the name in pinkish red sans-serif letters. The company took the name Nintendo Co., Ltd. in 1963 and began making games as well as playing cards.
The Ultra Machine of 1967 was the first product to carry the Nintendo name in the lettering style the company has kept ever since. The racetrack frame appeared for the first time in 1972, on the Ele-conga and Autoplayer, but stayed a one-off for ten years. From around 1973 Nintendo used a katakana version of its name for a couple of years before going back to kanji.
In 1982 the racetrack logo returned on Donkey Kong, and a year later it appeared on the silver box of the Family Computer. In Western markets the red wordmark on white was the standard version until 2006, when the Wii arrived with a grey version of the logo. In 2016 Nintendo went back to red, this time as a white racetrack and name on a solid red background, which has been fully in use since the Switch launched in 2017.
For more brands like Nintendo, browse our gaming logos.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does the name Nintendo mean?
It is often translated as "leave luck to heaven", but that meaning is not historically confirmed, and even Fusajiro Yamauchi's descendants do not know his intention.
Why is the Nintendo logo called the racetrack?
Because the rounded oval frame around the name looks like the outline of a racetrack. It first appeared in 1972 and became the regular logo in 1982.
Why was the Nintendo logo grey?
Nintendo used a grey version of the logo from the Wii's launch in 2006 until it returned to red in 2016.
What did Nintendo make before video games?
Hanafuda playing cards, which Fusajiro Yamauchi began making in Kyoto in 1889. Nintendo launched its first home video game machines in 1977.