Nintendo's $30 billion rally now depends on $70 cardboard pianos

Nintendo Co. got its start in 1889 as a successful manufacturer of hanafuda (playing cards made out of stiff paper). Now the game-maker is embracing the same materials for its next trick. The Kyoto-based company on Friday started selling an unusual collection of attachments for its hybrid Switch tablet-console: cardboard add-ons called Nintendo Labo. Priced at $70 and $80, the build-it-yourself cardboard kits, with accompanying software, will let users transform the Switch into a miniature piano, motorcycle handlebars, robot exoskeleton and other objects. The goal is broadening the Switch's appeal beyond the core gamers who fueled its estimated 17 million in first-year unit sales.