Hiroshi Yamauchi Dies; Nintendo President For Five Decades, 85-Year-Old Billionaire Leaves Longing Legacy Behind
Hiroshi Yamauchi dies: Nintendo pioneer for over 50 years died Wednesday at 85-years-old.
Once the richest man in Japan, Hiroshi Yamauchi, was the second-largest majority owner of Nintendo with 10% of the stock of the video-gaming company, dies with no cause yet given.
It was the Kyoto-based Nintendo company that revealed that the death of Hiroshi Yamauchi. He was the great-grandson of Nintendo's founder. From 1949-2002, Yamauchi led the company.
"The entire Nintendo group will carry on the spirit of Mr. Yamauchi by honoring, in our approach to entertainment, the sense of value he has taught us - that there is merit in doing what is different - and at the same time, by changing Nintendo in accordance with changing times," Nintendo President Satoru Iwata said in a written statement.
Yamauchi is credited with transforming Nintendo from a small hanafuda card-making company in Japan to a multi-billion dollar video game company. He was in charge when Nintendo (NES) released and such popular games like Super Mario Bros. or Donkey Kong came out and to this day, are household names. Yamauchi was on the forefront of Gameboy, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, and even Wii and other systems. Each gaming system took the next step with better graphics and more realistic controls of characters.
Besides Nintendo, he also became the majority owner of the Seattle Mariners baseball team in 1992; the current CEO of the Mariners is former Nintendo of America chairman Howard Lincoln.
As of April 2013, Forbes estimated Yamauchi's net worth at $2.1 billion; he was #13 on this year's Japan rich list and 491st richest in the world, having a net worth of approximately $2.5 billion.
"Mr. Yamauchi has taught us that there is value in being different," Iwata said in the statement. "We will continue to flexibly change the shape of Nintendo from one era to another, as Mr. Yamauchi has done, and Nintendo, as a whole company, will keep his soul alive."