For 52 years, Hiroshi Yamauchi sat in the president’s seat at Nintendo. He was there when Nintendo shed its playing cards and evolved into video games. He was there as Nintendo made history with the NES, SNES, Game Boy, N64, and more and through the birth of franchises we still know (and many that we still enjoy) today.
He dropped out of college but still went on to be one of the richest men in Japan, and definitely well-earned as his body of work shows. It was Yamauchi who was responsible for applying some of the great designers we know now to work on Nintendo projects, such as Shigeru Miyamoto, and he made a lot of very important decisions over the years that helped Nintendo keep their edge.
For that matter he seemed like a good enough guy, and with an infectious smile and a twinkle in his eyes.
It’s an unfortunate day then to wake up and find out that he has passed away at age 85 after fighting through pneumonia in a Japanese hospital. As we all know, he was succeeded at Nintendo by Satoru Iwata in 2002 though he still provided tips and pointers for a time afterwards on decisions Nintendo should make.
A funeral is scheduled on September 22nd after a wake on the 21st.
お別れ from Enemy Slime.
