Hiroshi Yamauchi - MobyGames

Hiroshi Yamauchi (山内 溥) was born on November 7, 1927 in Kyoto, Japan. He was a part of Nintendo long before video games even existed. In 1950, Yamauchi (the grandson to the establishing President of the company, Fusajiro Yamauchi) took the reigns of Yamauchi Nintendo & Co, whose main purpose at the time was the creation and distribution of playing cards throughout Japan. Years later, Yamauchi had a major hand in guiding Nintendo into the video gaming business and watched the small company go global with its Nintendo Entertainment System/Famicom. Hiroshi Yamauchi held his position at the company for 52 years, stepping down in 2002 to be replaced by the head of his Corporate Planning Division, ex-HAL programmer Satoru Iwata, and finally retired from Nintendo in 2005 as the chairman of the board of directors.

Yamauchi retained a 10% share of the company for the remainder of his life. He passed away on September 19, 2013 at the age of 85 from complications of pneumonia.

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