Well, Nintendo started as a playing card company, and managed to overcome the technical debt and architectural issues of becoming a globally successful video game company. And I kind of like how "Mt Gox" is alliterative with "Fort Knox". That all said, I wouldn't dream of using them.
It's just amusing that two companies that we're all aware of had (attempted to) take a big pivot into high-tech from the playing/trading card industry, of all places. No doubt you're correct, and the extent to which Mt Gox having figured that "hey, we're kind of running an exchange already" actually helped them is about the same as for Nintendo thinking 40 years ago "hey, we already know about the game market".
Come to think of it Nintendo probably did gain a lot by having a card gaming background.
Odd as it might sound it was probably harder for a traditional software company to make the jump because bug free != fun. The idea of coming up with fun and balanced rule systems has a lot to do with play testing which is not part of the traditional software dev process. Blizzard is probably the best example where fun was required before they where willing to ship something sadly that seems to have disappeared after the merger.
> The idea of coming up with fun and balanced rule systems has a lot to do with play testing which is not part of the traditional software dev process.
AFAIK, Nintendo's card-gaming business was only the production of Hanafuda and French-style decks. It didn't design any new games itself.
