Hiroshi Yamauchi, the man who took over Nintendo in 1949 and almost single handedly transformed it from a playing cards company to the video games behemoth that it is today, died in Japan yesterday. He was 85 years old.
Yamauchi’s contributions to the gaming medium were immense, and can never be overstated- he single handedly revitalized the console gaming market after the market crash of 1983, created modern home consoles as they exist today with a licensing model for third party games, and led Nintendo all the way through to 1999. Under him, Nintendo put out the NES, the SNES, and the Nintendo 64- arguably their greatest consoles, and among the greatest consoles ever released- and the GameBoy. He was also responsible for cultivating talent such as Yokoi and Miyamoto, and oversaw the development of franchises like Mario, Donkey Kong, Metroid, and The Legend of Zelda.
No matter what your thoughts are, or were, on Nintendo, and no matter what side of the fence you fall on today, this man is basically the father of a huge portion of modern gaming as we know it. Players who prefer PlayStation and Xbox owe as much to him as Nintendo fans do. A true legend of gaming has passed away. May he rest in peace.
