Nintendo Pioneer Hiroshi Yamauchi Dead at 85

To anyone outside the gaming circle this may not mean a thing to you but to us gamers especially the 80s and 90s babies who grew up playing super Mario Bros. and the Legend of Zelda, it hits a little closer to home. Ex Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi died this morning of Pneumonia at a hospital in Japan.

Yamauchi was at Nintendo's helm when they single handedly resurrected what was a dead video games industry after the video game crash of 1977. In fact, If it wasn't for him the Nintendo we know and love today probably would not exist! He took over the then 60 year old playing card company (yes, Nintendo is old………real old) from his grandfather in the late 1940s and set out on his mission to modernize and diversify the company. This led to many different ventures, a Taxi company, a food company (selling instant rice) , a TV network and; get this, a “love hotel” yea you read that right! Eventually all these ventures failed and in 1966 Yamauchi moved Nintendo into the toy industry launching a number of successful products designed by Gupei Yokoi who would go on to invent the Game Boy.

The stage was now set as Yamauchi led Nintendo into the arcade industry releasing a number of light gun shooter games. This eventually led to Nintendo securing the rights to distribute the Magnavox Odyssey video game console in japan. Nintendo would eventually manufacture their own hardware, known as simply the Colour TV Game. All this led to the NES/Famicom and the rest is history! The Nintendo we all know and love was born.

Yamauchi left Nintendo in 2002 and reportedly did not accept his retirement pension worth something in the area of $14 million, stating that Nintendo could put the money to better use. Yamauchi’s net worth is estimated at around $2.1 billion and was ranked the 13^th richest man in japan.

Yamauchi is survived by his wife and 3 kids.

Now if you will excuse me, I shall go forth and stomp as many Koopa Troopas in his honor!