What is the best way of tallying a company’s success? Its profits? Shareholder dividends? Market capitalisation? Perhaps. But there are other, less dry and worthy measures too which may be more important, such as influence, cultural sway and sheer rollicking fun.

On this second set of measures, the Japanese video-game factory Nintendo might well be the most successful company in the world. From its beginnings in the late 19th century as a manufacturer of playing cards, it has grown to become a shaper of childhoods and therefore of adulthoods. Millions around the world have played Mario, Zelda and Pokémon; millions more know these names. As soft power goes, it is Japan’s equivalent of Disney – a megaton strike of sights, sounds and memories.

This is the starting point of Keza MacDonald’s new history of the company, Super Nintendo. The book’s greatest achievement may well be its existence, or at least its publisher. There have been histories of Nintendo and of gaming before, but none released, as this one is, by Faber & Faber.