History of Nintendo card business reached its saturation point. Japanese households stopped buying playing cards, and the price of Nintendo stock fell from 900 yen to 60 yen. In 1965, Nintendo hired Gunpei Yokoi as a maintenance engineer for the assembly line. However, Yokoi soon became famous for much more than his ability to repair conveyor belts. Nintendo struggled to survive in the Japanese toy industry; it was still small at this point, and dominated by already well-established companies such as Bandai and Tomy. Because of the generally short product life cycle of toys, the company always had to come up with new
Product line extension Product line extensions are a process where companies with an established brand alter the factors of a product or products to satisfy a refined segment in the market. There are two types of product line extensions, horizontal and vertical. Horizontal extensions consist of keeping the price and quality consistent, but changing factors like flavour or colour to differentiate the products. Vertical extensions consist of increasing and decreasing the quality and price to create inferior and luxury goods. These product line extensions are often closely related to existing products in a brands portfolio, but targets specific brand consumers through this approach.