Hiroshi Yamauchi, Former Nintendo Visionary, Dies at 85 - Wall Street Journal

The man who turned Nintendo Co. from a small maker of playing cards into a global videogame giant died Thursday from pneumonia. He was 85 years old. During his tenure as president from 1949 to 2002, Hiroshi Yamauchi, a scion of Nintendo's founding family, transformed the Kyoto, Japan, company into a force that shaped the world's videogame industry. His death comes as Nintendo is struggling to cope with competition from games played on smartphones. Nintendo's first breakthrough in videogames came under Mr. Yamauchi's leadership in 1980 with the Game & Watch, a portable game player. But what made Nintendo's name synonymous with videogames was the Family Computer, a home console that was released in Japan in 1983 and released globally as the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985. Building on the success of the NES, Nintendo cemented its position as the industry leader with the Game Boy and Super Nintendo Entertainment System. "Mr. Yamauchi has taught us that there is value in being different," Nintendo President Satoru Iwata in a written 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." By laying the foundation of the Japanese videogame company, Mr. Yamauchi in his half-century as president also led the evolution of the games industry more broadly. He also handpicked two of Nintendo's most important talents: game creator Shigeru Miyamoto, who gave birth to the "Super Mario" game; and Mr. Iwata. Mr. Yamauchi hired Mr. Miyamoto in 1977, fresh out of college, and later made him the company's main game developer. Mr. Miyamoto's games, such as "Super Mario," "Donkey Kong" and "The Legend of Zelda," became Nintendo's most popular franchises. Mr. Yamauchi passed the baton to Mr. Iwata, who helped usher in a new era for Nintendo with the Wii home game console and the Nintendo DS hand-held device, as the company competed against Sony Corp.'s PlayStation and Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360. Even after stepping down, Mr. Yamauchi continued to influence Nintendo. The idea to use two screens on the Nintendo DS, for example, came from Mr. Yamauchi. In recent years, Nintendo's fortunes have changed dramatically as a sea change in the industry created new challenges for traditional videogame companies. As free games on smartphones have gained popularity around the world, Nintendo's systems have struggled to gain momentum. Smartphone games, such as Rovio Entertainment Ltd.'s "Angry Birds"and GungHo Online Entertainment Inc.'s "Puzzle & Dragons," have been grabbing players' attention, hurting the sales of portable dedicated game devices. Mr. Yamauchi's death could raise questions about whether Nintendo will stick to its long-held strategy of limiting its game titles to the company's own hardware platforms. Since its entry into the videogame market in the 1980s, Nintendo has held that customers buy its consoles because they want to play Nintendo games. Mr. Iwata, so far, has insisted that consumers still are interested in buying dedicated game devices and that the company's strategy remains sound. Mr. Yamauchi also made his name as an investor. In 1992, he became majority owner of the Seattle Mariners, a Major League Baseball club in the U.S. that became a household name in Japan because of Japanese stars on its roster, such as current New York Yankee outfielder Ichiro Suzuki. Mr. Yamauchi also owned 10% of Nintendo shares. Write to Juro Osawa at juro.osawa@wsj.com via Technology - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNHFxoYE0GSjq1vZLILKL8hjTDiG2w&url=http://stream.wsj.com/story/latest-headlines/SS-2-63399/SS-2-332135/

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