Hiroshi Yamauchi, Former Nintendo Visionary, Dies at 85
Hiroshi Yamauchi, the man who turned Nintendo 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, 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.
