Hiroshi Yamauchi, the man credited with turning electronics company Nintendo from a playing card company into a multi-billion dollar video game enterprise, died from pneumonia at a hospital in Kyoto City, Japan this morning at the age of 85, PC Magazine reports.
Nintendo confirmed Yamauchi's death in an email statement, a spokesperson announcing that the firm is currently in mourning over the "loss of the former Nintendo president Mr. Hiroshi Yamauchi, who sadly passed away this morning."
Yamauchi ran the firm for 53 years, and up until his death, was the company's second largest shareholder. He took over the family business in 1949, not stepping down from his role as company president until 2002, during which he handed over his role to current Nintendo president, Satoru Iwata.
"Mr. Yamauchi has taught us that there is value in being different," Iwata said in a statement released today. "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."
Under his leadership, Nintendo released the "Nintendo Entertainment System, Super NES, Game Boy, Nintendo 64, and Nintendo GameCube," according to PC Magazine. He led the first breakthrough in the world of video games in 1980 with the portable game player, Game & Watch, though according to the Wall Street Journal, it wasn't until 1983-5 when he released the Nintendo Entertainment System that the company's name became globally synonymous with video games.
Yamauchi also hand-selected the man who would go on to create Super Mario, Donkey Kong and The Legend of Zelda, legendary game creator Shigeru Miyamoto. He hired Miyamoto "straight out of college" in 1977, and later went on to make him the company's main game developer.
Yamauchi also made history in 1992, when he became the first Japanese owner of a Major League Baseball team, the Seattle Mariners, which later became a household name in Japan.
As of April 2013, Forbes estimated that Yamauchi had a net worth of $2.1 billion, making him the 491st richest person in the world and No. 13 on Japan's rich list.
