Hiroshi Yamauchi; The Death of a Legend

By Matthew Battles

It’s with deep regret that I’m With Geek reflects on the death of Hiroshi Yamauchi. Mr Yamauchi, who died last Thursday from pneumonia, was one of the men responsible for the revolution of the gaming industry.

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When the genius joined Nintendo in 1945, the company was a simple manufacturer of playing cards (the now iconic mushrooms, stars, flowers and leaves acting as the suits). However, under his leadership, Nintendo gradually ventured into
computerized gaming, becoming the world-famous corporation they are today; a world which they dominated. Nintendo transformed the industry from text-based games and two-color adventures into rich, multi-colored side-scrollers and
beyond. Today, they are one of the “Big Three”, alongside giants Sony and Microsoft.

Rob Crossley, associate editor of Computer and Video Games magazine, told the BBC: 'This man was the president of Nintendo during the NES, the SNES, the N64 and the Gamecube - the first two were transformative pieces of electronic entertainment.'

As well as creating several well-known franchises (The Legend of Zelda and Donky Kong among them, as well as the much-loved Super Mario Brothers), Yamauchi is also credited with making Nintendo the winner of the ‘first console war’, seeing off rival gaming company Sega.

Fans of handheld games also have Yamauchi to thank; the world’s first handheld
console, the Nintendo GameBoy, was developed and released during Yamauchi’s
presidency.

Hiroshi left the company in 2002, but reportedly refused to accept his retirement pension – allegedly worth between $9 to $14 million dollars – claiming Nintendo could put it to better use.

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With an estimated net worth of around $2.1 billion, Hiroshi was ranked the 13th richest man in Japan at the time of his death.

I think it’s time to brush the dust of my old SNES (I’m kidding - that thing’s never been dusty!) and fire up Super Mario in honor of a Geek icon!