Nintendo Leader Hiroshi Yamauchi Died Of Pneumonia at Age 85

Hiroshi Yamauchi, the Japanese businessman who is well known for transforming Nintendo into a world-leading video games company, has died of pneumonia on Thursday at a age of 85. The funeral is said to take place this Sunday. The man who turned Nintendo Co. from a small maker of playing cards into a global videogame giant, ran the firm for 53 years, and was the company's second-largest shareholder at the time of his death. Reportedly, a spokesman said the firm was in mourning over the "loss of the former Nintendo president Mr Hiroshi Yamauchi, who sadly passed away this morning."

During his tenure as president from 1949 to 2002, more than half a century, Hiroshi Yamauchi, transformed the Kyoto, Japan, company into one of the world's most popular videogame giants.

Mr. Yamauchi can be addressed as the father to Nintendo in videogames because, under his leadership in 1980 with the Game and Watch, a portable game player came into existence. However, 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 which officially made Nintendo one of the leading gaming platform with the Game Boy and Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

Mr. Yamauchi passed the baton to Mr. Iwata later but even after stepping down, he continued to influence Nintendo. The idea to use two screens on the Nintendo DS, for example, also came from him.

Talking about the current gaming environment, gaming platforms have been changed drastically and since smartphones have the facility to download free games in it, it has affected the consoles in an adverse manner. However, under Mr Yamauchi's guidance, game titles such as Super Mario, Legend of Zelda and Starfox became popular and almost every one knows Super Mario.

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