Hiroshi Yamauchi | |
|---|---|
山内 溥 | |
 | |
| 3rdPresident ofNintendo | |
| In office 25 April 1949 – 24 May 2002 | |
| Preceded by | Sekiryo Kaneda |
| Succeeded by | Satoru Iwata |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1927-11-07)7 November 1927 Kyoto, Japan |
| Died | 19 September 2013(2013-09-19) (aged 85) Sakyō-ku, Kyoto, Japan |
| Spouse | [1][2] |
| Children | 3 |
| Alma mater | Waseda University (no degree) |
| Occupation | President and chairman ofNintendo (1949–2002) |
Hiroshi Yamauchi (Japanese:山内 溥; 7 November 1927 – 19 September 2013) was the third president ofNintendo, serving in the role from 25 April 1949 to 24 May 2002, and principal owner of theSeattle Mariners from 1992 until his death.[3][4][5] Before joining Nintendo, he had strong familial connections; his great-grandfather,Fusajiro Yamauchi, founded the company, and was its first president, and his grandfather,Sekiryo Kaneda, was its second president. During his tenure, Nintendo was transformed from a Japanese manufacturer ofhanafuda into a global conglomerate largely focused on manufacturingvideo game consoles andpublishing video games. On the basis of this success, and his ownership of most of Nintendo's shares,[6][7] he became considerably wealthy. In 2008, he wasJapan's wealthiest person, with an estimated net worth of $7.8 billion.[8] Even in 2013, with this figure having declined to $2.1 billion, he was the 13th richest person in Japan and the 491strichest in the world.[9]
Yamauchi was born inKyoto to Shikanojo Inaba and Kimi. When he was five, his father abandoned his family; his mother, unable to cope, gave up custody to her parents, includingSekiryo Kaneda, president of Nintendo. He was sent to a preparatory school in Kyoto at age twelve, and worked in a military factory duringWorld War II, his plans to study law or engineering disrupted. After the end of the war, he studied law atWaseda University, and married Michiko Inaba. With the absence of Yamauchi's father, his grandparents met to arrange the marriage.[10][unreliable source?][11]
In 1948, while Yamauchi was atWaseda University, Kaneda suffered a stroke. As he lacked a designated successor as president of Nintendo, Yamauchi was asked to replace him immediately.[11][12] Yamauchi agreed on the condition that he be the only family member at Nintendo; subsequently, his older cousin was fired. Due to his age and lack of management experience, Yamauchi was resented by most employees, and not taken seriously. This perception was challenged when he responded to a factory strike by firing long-time employees who questioned his authority. Yamauchi led Nintendo, which he renamed Nintendo Karuta and moved elsewhere in Kyoto, in what was called a "notoriously imperialistic style" by video game journalistSteven L. Kent.[13] He was the sole judge of potential new products, and he only approved those which appealed to him and his instincts.[10][14][15]
Yamauchi introduced Western (plastic-backed) playing cards to Japan, achieving success in 1959, with the release of a pack of officially licensed cards featuringDisney characters,[16] accompanied by a booklet explaining different card games. That their association withgambling, technically illegal in Japan,[16] had limited the popularity of Western-style cards did not stop the sale of 600,000 packs within a year, helping Nintendo to dominate the Japanese playing card market.[12]
Yamauchi took Nintendo, renamed Nintendo Company Limited,public, becoming the first chairman of the board.[14][15] Convinced by a visit to the small headquarters of theUnited States Playing Card Company, the world's biggest manufacturer of playing cards, that Nintendo would struggle to grow if it remained on this path, he took steps to diversify the company. Nintendo's ventures, including an instant rice product, and ownership of a taxi company called Daiya, failed, bringing the company to the brink of bankruptcy. Fortunes changed in 1966, with the release of theUltra Hand, a toy based on an extendable claw whichGunpei Yokoi, a factory engineer, was seen by Yamauchi to be playing with during a break. Relying on Nintendo's pre-existing distribution networks, Yamauchi decided to move into the toy industry. Yokoi was transferred to a new department called Games and Setup, and tasked with developing more toys. Among the products which established Nintendo as a toymaker were theLove Tester, an electronic toy which allegedly determined the strength of romantic relationships, and a light gun using solar cells for targets.[10][14][15]
Many of Nintendo's toys included electronic components.[10][14][15] Noticing the combination of technological developments and decreasing prices, and the rise ofarcade games andvideo game consoles like theMagnavox Odyssey, Yamauchi realized that electronics could become foundational to Nintendo's products, as opposed to a novelty. Nintendo became the Japanese distributor of the Odyssey, and establishedNintendo Research & Development Department, a unit dedicated to the development of video games. By the end of the 1970s, asecond unit had been established, with employees hired fromSharp Electronics to develop theColor TV-Game 6, Nintendo's first console. The separation, deemed unique by researcher Steven Boyer,[17] lead to competition, and, in turn, innovation.[10] Games likeRadar Scope,Space Fever, andSheriff began appearing in arcades, though they achieved little popularity inAmerica until 1981, whenDonkey Kong, a passion project ofShigeru Miyamoto, was released.
In 1980, Nintendo introduced theGame & Watch, a series of portable video games designed by Yokoi, and featuring, newly for the time, anLCD andmicroprocessor. Though the product line was a hit, it was believed by Yamauchi that it lacked the depth to be a long-term success.[10] Efforts to develop a product which could be one led to the release in 1983 of theFamily Computer, a console commonly abbreviated as the Famicom. First-party titles were developed by Nintendo's R&D units; athird andfourth were established in 1980 and 1983, respectively. In the wake of thevideo game crash of 1983, which he believed was caused by a glut of poor-quality games, Yamauchi was not only strict about approving the release of games, but restricted third-party publishers to releasing just three titles a year. Still, games were made easy to develop, as he believed that artists, not technicians, create excellent games.[10][14][18]
Yamauchi's confidence in the Famicom paid off. He promised an electronics company that one million units would be ordered within two years, a goal easily reached.[10][14] Released outside Japan as the Nintendo Entertainment System, and redesigned to minimize its association with video games,[19] the console was an equal smash; by 1990, the majority of consoles historically sold were NESes or Famicoms.[20]
Midway through the Famicom's lifespan, with16-bit consoles becoming popular, work began on a successor, the Super Famicom. It was released in Japan in 1990; outside the country, it was renamed the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and released in North America in 1991, and Europe in 1992. Such was Nintendo's popularity, initial stocks in Japan sold out within three days, and people camped outside stores for days in the hopes of acquiring a console. Similar success was not achieved with theVirtual Boy, a 1995 attempt at avirtual reality console. At a press conference, Yamauchi stated that he still had faith in the system, and that the company would continue developing games for it.[citation needed]
As the 1990s progressed, 3D gaming became increasingly viable. Nintendo primarily capitalized on this trend with the Nintendo 64, a 64-bit console released in 1996. Though praised by critics, it struggled commercially, with consumer attention devoted to thePlayStation,Sony's first console.
For much of the 1990s, age was not an obstacle for Yamauchi. In 1995, when he was 68, he was called "the most feared and respected man in the videogame industry" byNext Generation magazine, which also noted that he "[remained] very much in charge" of Nintendo.[21] Things began to change in 1996, when he publicly mused about retiring from Nintendo, noting that he could not think of a good replacement as president.[11] In 1997, he announced that regardless of whether a suitable successor was found, he would retire by 2000, when the64DD, a disk drive for the Nintendo 64, was released.[22]
In 1999, Nintendo announced the development of the successor to the Nintendo 64, codenamed Dolphin, and released across 2001 and 2002 as the GameCube. Where aDVD player was included in thePlayStation 2, driving sales, the GameCube was exclusively designed to be a console. It was believed by Yamauchi that this focus, as well as a low price compared to its competitors, and hardware that would allow developers to "easily create games", would set it apart from its competitors.[23]
On 24 May 2002, Yamauchi resigned as president of Nintendo, once again becoming chairman of the board of directors. He was succeeded bySatoru Iwata, leader of Nintendo's Corporate Planning Division.[24][25] On 29 June 2005, citing his age and confidence in the company, he resigned from the board. Though he refused his retirement pension, reportedly around $9 to $14 million, he remained Nintendo's largest shareholder; as of 2008, he owned 10% of the company.[26]
In his retirement, Yamauchi donated money to build a cancer treatment center in Kyoto,[27] and foundedShigureden, a museum of poetry (Ogura Hyakunin Isshu) in Kyoto.[28]
In 1950, Inaba gave birth to a daughter named Yōko, who would marryMinoru Arakawa, selected by Yamauchi to lead Nintendo'sAmerican subsidiary. Inaba had several miscarriages and was often ill. In 1957, she gave birth to another daughter, Fujiko and, shortly after, a son named Katsuhito.[10] She died on 29 July 2012, aged 82.[29][30]
Years after abandoning the family, Yamauchi's father returned to see him; Yamauchi refused to speak to him. When Yamauchi was close to 30, his father died of a stroke. At the funeral, Yamauchi met his father's wife and their four daughters, whom he had never known about. He grieved for months, regretting that he had ignored his father, and began making visits to his father's grave.[31]
Yamauchi has been described as a stern man with a single-minded focus on business.[11] His children disliked that he spent more time on Nintendo than them.[10] Because of his tendency to fire employees who disagreed with him, he was characterized as an autocratic leader byHenk Rogers, pivotal to the success of theGame Boy through the release of anaccompanying version ofTetris.[32] Notably for the head of a company dedicated to them, he rarely played video games; among the exceptions isIgo: Kyuu Roban Taikyoku, developed by Rogers, and based on the board gameGo.[19] More so, he was interested in Go,[11] achieving a high rank,[16][33] and games which usedhanafuda.[34]
In 1991, theSeattle Mariners were put up for sale; if a local owner could not be found, the team would be moved toFlorida. Seeking to prevent this, a consortium of Seattle-area business owners formed The Baseball Club of Seattle, and searched for someone who could contribute a substantial amount of capital. WhenMicrosoft ownerBill Gates declined to help,Slade Gorton, aSenator from Washington who had interacted with Nintendo during the Senate's hearings on IP theft, contacted Yamauchi throughHoward Lincoln, CEO of Nintendo of America. Thankful toSeattle, where NoA is located, for their support of the company, Yamauchi agreed to the proposal, offering to contribute $75 million out of a bid of $125 million. The Mariners were interested, butMajor League Baseball was not, objecting to the control of 60% of the team by someone from Japan. Only after facing sustained pressure, including fromTexas Rangers ownerGeorge W. Bush, did they relent, and even then, Yamauchi was forbidden from owning more than 50% of the voting interest.[3]
As an owner, Yamauchi was rather hands-off, assigning his rights to the Mariners to Nintendo of America, and never attending a game.[10][35] The one game he did plan to attend, to be held in Kyoto in2003, was moved to the U.S. due to the impendingIraq War.[36]
On 19 September 2013, aged 85, Yamauchi died of complications ofpneumonia.[37] Nintendo released a statement stating that its staff members were mourning the loss of their former president.[6]
Yamauchi was listed by Forbes magazine as Japan's richest man just five years ago, when Nintendo was flying high with the launch of the Wii with its motion-sensing controller, although the company's fortunes have since faded as smartphones displace consoles among gamers. His net worth at that time was estimated at $7.8 billion.
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