The 9 best books about Nintendo

Author Keza MacDonald is one of the UK’s leading authorities on all things Nintendo, working as The Guardian newspaper’s gaming editor, and having had stints at top gaming publications including IGN and Kotaku. Keza’s also one of the few people to have interviewed pretty much everyone of note at Nintendo — a notoriously secretive company — and so there is no-one better placed to put together this definitive guide to the company. Super Nintendo: How One Japanese Company Helped the World Have Fun guides the reader through Nintendo history not through a historical chronology, but via the key game series that have made the company what it is today. Peppered with excellent interviews and personal insight from the infectiously enthusiastic MacDonald, if there’s only one book on this list you pick up, it should be this one.

Bitmap Books make some of the most beautifully designed gaming tomes in the world. Curated by experts and packed full of facts, insights and incredible artwork, their whole library is worth a browse. But for the avid Nintendo fan, start with the NES / Famicom: A Visual Compendium. Spread over 512 pages and featuring more than 170 games, it’s a Bible-like guide to Nintendo’s first home consoles. It's a hefty book (unsurprising given the NES stuck around for 20 years), with some great interview access among it's pixel-perfect layouts. It’s a wonderful package overall too, with a wonderful slipcase cover featuring a nifty, animated lenticular effect.

Though Nintendo likes to keep its inner workings tightly guarded, legendary CEO Satoru Iwata broke the mould. Coming from a development background rather than a business one (he worked on everything from EarthBound to Super Smash Bros.) Iwata remained curious as to how Nintendo’s development teams worked, their inspirations and their challenges. From that was born the ‘Iwata Asks’ series, where the CEO would sit down with notable Nintendo figures and publicly mine them for info on the development of top titles. This book partially explores those sessions, but focuses on the motivational findings that Iwata drew from those chats, bringing together a series of inspirational passages and musings from one of Nintendo's most significant figures.

Other than Mario maker Shigeru Miyamoto himself, there have been few figures from Nintendo more recognisable to the gaming public than Reggie Fils-Aimé. Son of Haitian immigrants living in the Bronx, he rose through the marketing ranks to become President and Chief Operating Office of Nintendo of America, presiding over the launches of the Wii, Nintendo Switch, and everything in between. As well as insight into the culture of Nintendo and his personal story, Disrupting the Game: From the Bronx to the Top of Nintendo also offers leadership advice from Fils-Aimé, through the prism of his experience working at the company.

Another beautiful hardback book from Bitmap Books, perfect for a geeky coffee table or gaming den. The SNES Pixel Book is packed with gorgeous artwork and commentary on the Super Nintendo era, the 1990’s 16-bit beloved console that went head-to-head with SEGA's Mega Drive. Super Mario World, A Link to the Past, Chrono Trigger — all-timer legendary titles go under the microscope here, in the most visually splendid book on this list. Bitmap Books also make an equally-exceptional Pixel Book focussed on the Game Boy Advance, with some exquisite pixel art throughout. A real treasure.

Want the blow-by-blow, year-by-year record of Nintendo’s rise to the top of the gaming mountain? David Sheff’s book Game Over: How Nintendo Conquered The World is an authoritative document of Ninty’s success. It leans more heavily on the business side of things than other books on this list, and its 1999 publication date means that the modern history of Nintendo is absent. But this is a deep dive into a gaming golden age, with Nintendo’s story at its core. Do note that this one’s currently out of print and its price can vary wildly — though it’s easy enough to track down on the second hand market.

Nintendo may these days be caught in a battle for console dominance against Sony’s PlayStation and Microsoft’s Xbox, but the 1990s saw a very different fight taking place, with SEGA the then-mighty competitor. With Sonic and Mario going head-to-head, today’s outcome (Nintendo remains a hardware force, with SEGA relegated to just development and publishing) was not a foregone conclusion, as this riveting book explores. Haven’t got time for the book? An excellent 2020 documentary of the same name translates the narrative to film, giving you the nuggets in just 93 minutes. It’s currently streaming on Paramount+.

Nintendo’s first foray into 3D gaming came with the Nintendo 64, AKA the N64 — and it proved to be among gaming’s most influential machines. With its analogue stick controllers and built-in support for up to 4 players, it became the generation’s go-to multiplayer machine, and games like Super Mario 64, GoldenEye 007 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, are still cited as inspiration by today’s game developers. Here, author Chris Scullion takes on the mammoth task of documenting every single N64 title ever released, including those that never made it outside of Nintendo’s native Japan. Scullion’s also written an equally-excellent run down of every Game Boy game ever made — an even more ridiculous feat given there were more than 1000 games released for that console, as well as complete guides to the SNES and NES, too.

Long before Mario was even a twinkle in Shigeru Miyamoto’s eye, Nintendo was already making games of a different nature — Nintendo started life as a manufacturer of Hanafuda playing cards before expanding to toys and eventually video games. That prehistory is expertly documented in Erik Voskuil’s dual-language Before Mario book, showing the wacky creations Nintendo came up with before its video gaming dominance. The only problem? The ten year old book is totally sold out, with no current plans from publisher Omaké Books for a fresh printing run. You’ll have to hunt this one down on the second hand market but, if you can’t find it, much of the author’s work was already documented on his excellent Before Mario blog, letting you get a taste of what the book has on offer.