Who here remembers the board game “Life” in the pre-1990s era? By that I mean do you remember playing “Life” without having to deal with what sort of house you owned; when your major concern was whether or not your Uncle was leaving you a skunk farm or if your brand new yacht was striking an iceberg? If you’re old enough to remember the game that way, you surely remember the phrase “If you own stock.” In the game, there were numerous wonderful things which could happen to you — mostly variants on earning tons of money — if you had chosen to purchase stock in earlier game action.

Well, my friends, “Life” imitates life, and today’s board game square reads something like “Collect a bundle of money … if you own Nintendo stock.” Japan’s friendly neighborhood video game company has joined the ranks of the elite as Nintendo stock prices continue to soar on the popularity of the Wii and DS game systems. In fact, Nintendo is now Japan’s third most valuable company, falling in behind only Toyota and Mitsubishi Financial Group. Nintendo Co. has essentially tripled its value since launching the Wii, landing them in the neighborhood of 85 billion dollars. Now let’s just hope Nintendo can continue to ride this wave of success — nobody wants to see another N64 debacle.