Hiroshi Yamauchi, Nintendo visionary, dead at 85

Japanese businessman, Hiroshi Yamauchi, who ran Nintendo for 53 years, has passed away due to complications of pneumonia. He was 85. 

In an email, the company confirmed Yamauchi’s death, and said that the firm was in mourning.

Yamauchi took over as president of Nintendo after his grandfather suffered a stroke in 1949. He spent the next several years developing the firm’s existing trading card business before making the decision to enter the company into the emerging electronic equipment industry.

Specifically, Yamauchi wanted to break into the US arcade game market. In order to do this, he recruited Shigeru Miyamoto and tasked him with designing a video game worth introducing to this audience.

The result was Donkey Kong , one of the most successful video games of the 1980s.

Miyamoto continued to work with Yamauchi for the next several years, turning out legendary titles like Super Mario , Legend of Zelda , and Starfox .

Yamauchi was quick to build on the success of these titles, simultaneously moving the Nintendo brand into the home console market. First, the company launched the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1983. This was followed by the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (or SNES) in 1990.

At its height of popularity, Nintendo held a remarkable 90% share of the console hardware sector.

Yamauchi stayed on as president until 2002, before he resigned and took a place on the company’s board of directors.

In 2005, he left the company completely.

At the time of his passing, Yamauchi had a personal fortune of more than $2 billion. Satoru Iwata was Yamauchi’s successor in 2002, and is still president of the company.

Story via: bbc.co.uk