Hiroshi Yamauchi Dies: Nintendo Video Game Innovator Mourned
Hiroshi Yamauchi has passed away at age 85. Yamauchi was the former president of video game company Nintendo. He died after battling pneumonia, the company announced Thursday. Yamauchi lead the Japanese company for over half a decade. He can be credited for transforming Nintendo into a legendary video game and console producer.
Yamauchi became the third generation in his family to head Nintendo when he became president in 1949. According to NBC News, Nintendo was founded by his family in 1889 in Kyoto, the ancient Japanese capital. They weren’t making video games yet though. Instead, Nintendo was a modest company that produced playing cards for the better part of a century.
This changed in 1963. Yamauchi’s business sense called on him to shorten the company name to just “Nintendo” and expand the company’s interests beyond playing cards. This included creating a TV network, a chain of hotels, and even a taxi company. Finally, in 1966, the company started creating toys.
As reported on The Verge, the Japanese company’s first toy, named the Ultra Hand, was created by Gunpei Yokoi. The Ultra Hand was a simple toy: an extended grabber-arm. Yokoi later went on to design Nintendo’s Game & Watch handheld games as well as the original Game Boy console.
Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi saw the potential behind Yokoi’s design ability, encouraging him to create innovative, unique products. Yamauchi’s push into electronic gaming was a highly risky move for Nintendo, at the time.
Yamauchi pushed for the Famicom’s development, Nintendo’s first home console. North Americans may know the system better as the Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES, as it is known for its worldwide release. This would be Yamauchi’s biggest gamble yet, and it paid off. Between the NES and the Game Boy, Nintendo is often credited for breathing new life into video games.
Yamauchi purchased the Seattle Mariners major league baseball team in 1992. Today, Nintendo of America controls the team.
Though Hiroshi Yamauchi retired as Nintendo’s president in 2002, he stayed on as an executive adviser and one of the company’s largest share holders until he passed.
[Image via Sportspressnw]
