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| '''Hiroshi Yamauchi (山内溥 ?, Yamauchi Hiroshi)''' born November 7, 1927 in Kyoto, Japan is a Japanese businessman. He was the third president of [[Nintendo]], beginning in 1949 until stepping down on May 31, 2002. Yamauchi is credited with transforming Nintendo from a small hanafuda card-making company in Japan to a multi-billion dollar video game company, as it currently is. Yamauchi was succeeded at Nintendo by Satoru Iwata. He also became the majority owner of the Seattle Mariners baseball team in 1992, which is now managed by former Nintendo of America chairman Howard Lincoln. | | [[File:Hiroshi Yamauchi.png|right|thumb|250px|Hiroshi Yamauchi]] |
| | {{bulbanews|Former Nintendo President passes away}} |
| | '''Hiroshi Yamauchi''' (Japanese: '''山内溥''' ''Yamauchi Hiroshi'', November 7, 1927 - September 19, 2013) was the third president of [[Nintendo]], from 1949 until stepping down on May 31, 2002, and was thus the head of the company during the first 8 years of the [[Pokémon|Pokémon franchise]]. Yamauchi is credited with transforming Nintendo from a small hanafuda card-making company to the multi-billion dollar video game company it is today. Yamauchi was succeeded at Nintendo by [[Satoru Iwata]]. |
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| As of 2008, Yamauchi is the richest person in Japan and 149th richest person in the world, having a net worth of approximately $7.8 billion.
| | In 2008, Yamauchi was the richest person in Japan and 149th richest person in the world, having a net worth of approximately $7.8 billion. |
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| ==Early Years== | | ==Career in Nintendo== |
| | Yamauchi, who was born in {{wp|Kyoto}}, {{wp|Japan}}, became the president of [[Nintendo]] after his grandfather, Sekiryo Yamauchi, had a stroke in 1949. At Sekiryo's request, Hiroshi left {{wp|Waseda University}} to assume his new position, but with one condition: that he would be the only family member working at Nintendo. Hiroshi's grandfather reluctantly agreed, and died shortly after. Under these terms, Hiroshi's older cousin had to be fired. Hiroshi's young age and lack of management experience caused problems for him at first, as most employees did not take him seriously, and even started a strike. He dealt with the strike by firing many long-time employees who questioned his authority. He had the company name changed to Nintendo Karuta and established its new headquarters in Kyoto. He was the sole judge of potential new products, and only a product that appealed to him went on the market. |
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| Hiroshi was sent to a preparatory school in Kyoto at age twelve and had planned to study law or engineering but World War II disrupted his studies. Since he was too young to fight he was put to work in a military factory. Once the war ended in 1945 Hiroshi went to Waseda University to study law. He married Michiko Inaba. With the absence of Yamauchi’s father, his grandparents met to arrange the marriage.
| | Yamauchi was the first person to introduce the Western plastic playing card into the Japanese market. His first major success came when he made a licensing agreement with {{wp|Walt Disney}} in 1959 for his plastic playing cards. Nintendo's Disney playing card was also accompanied by a small, thin booklet with many tutorials for different card games. The strategy succeeded and the product sold 600,000 units in one year, soon gracing Nintendo with the domination of Japanese playing card market. Hiroshi once again changed the company name to Nintendo Company Limited and took the company public (listed on stock market). |
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| ==Start of his Career with Nintendo==
| | One day, Yamauchi spotted a factory engineer named Gunpei Yokoi playing with a simple extendable claw, something Yokoi made to amuse himself during his break. Yamauchi ordered Yokoi to develop the extendable claw into a proper product. The product was named Urutora Hando (Ultra Hand) and was an instant hit. It was then that Hiroshi decided to move Nintendo’s focus into toy making. With an already established distribution system into department stores for its playing cards, the transition was a natural one for Nintendo. Hiroshi created a new department called ''Games and Setup'', manned initially by only Yokoi and another employee who looked after the finances, and was situated in a warehouse in Kyoto for the purpose of research and development. |
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| Yamauchi led Nintendo in a "notoriously imperialistic style". His grandfather had a stroke in 1949. Since he was the president of Nintendo and had no other immediate successor, he asked Hiroshi to immediately come to Nintendo to assume the position of president. He had to leave Waseda University to do so. Hiroshi would only accept the position if he were the only family member working at Nintendo. Reluctantly, Hiroshi's grandfather agreed, and died shortly after. Under the agreed upon terms, his older cousin had to be fired. Due to his young age and total lack of any management experience, most employees did not take Hiroshi seriously and many resented him. Soon after taking over, he had to deal with a strike by factory employees who expected him to cave in easily. Instead, he asserted his authority by firing many long-time employees who questioned his authority. He had the company name changed to Nintendo Karuta and established its new headquarters in Kyoto. He was the sole judge of potential new products, and only a product that appealed to him and his usually extremely accurate instincts went on the market.
| | Years later, in 1995, the {{wp|Virtual Boy}} was released, but did not sell well. Despite the bust, Hiroshi said at a press conference that he still had faith in it and that the company would continue developing games for it. Primary developer Gunpei Yokoi was heavily criticized for the failure leading to his eventual resignation from Nintendo after 30 years of service. |
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| He was the first to introduce the plastic Western playing card into the Japanese market. Western playing cards were still a novelty in Japan and the public associated them with Western-styled gambling games such as poker and bridge. Most gambling activities were technically illegal by default with only a few legally sanctioned exceptions (horse racing, pachinko and lottery). Therefore, the market for anything which was associated with gambling, including Hanafuda, was limited. Yamauchi's first "hit" came when he made a licensing agreement with Walt Disney in 1959 for his plastic playing cards. Nintendo targeted its playing cards as a tool for party games that the whole family could enjoy, a foreshadowing of the company's approach going into the 21st Century. Disney's tie-in was made towards that end. Nintendo's Disney playing card was also accompanied by a small, thin booklet with many tutorials for different card games. The strategy succeeded and the product sold 600,000 units in one year, soon gracing Nintendo with the domination of Japanese playing card market. With this success, Hiroshi once again changed the company name to Nintendo Company Limited and took the company public (listed on stock market) and became the chairman He then decided to travel to the U.S. to visit the United States Playing Card Company, the world's biggest manufacturer of playing cards. Upon arriving in Cincinnati, Yamauchi was disappointed to see a small-scale office and factory. This led to the realization that card manufacturing was an extremely limited venture.
| | The following year, Nintendo released its new, fully 3D console, the [[Nintendo 64]]. Simultaneously, Super Mario 64 was launched as the first fully 3D platform game. In 1999, Yamauchi and Nintendo announced their intentions to work on a new system, the [[Nintendo GameCube]], with IBM Gekko processor and Matsushita DVD technology Dolphin. Yamauchi touted the Nintendo GameCube as a machine designed exclusively to be a video game console - an approach which he considered different from Microsoft's and Sony's for their respective Xbox and PlayStation 2 consoles. |
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| Upon his return to Japan, Hiroshi Yamauchi decided to diversify the company. Some of the new areas he ventured into included a taxi company called Daiya, a love hotel with rooms rented by the hour, and individually portioned instant rice. All of these ventures eventually failed and brought the company into the brink of bankruptcy. However, one day, Yamauchi spotted a factory engineer named Gunpei Yokoi playing with a simple extendable claw, something Yokoi made to amuse himself during his break. Yamauchi ordered Yokoi to develop the extendable claw into a proper product. The product was named Urutora Hando (Ultra Hand) and was an instant hit. It was then that Hiroshi decided to move Nintendo’s focus into toy making. With an already established distribution system into department stores for its playing cards, the transition was a natural one for Nintendo. Hiroshi created a new department called Games and Setup, manned initially by only Yokoi and another employee who looked after the finances, and was situated in a warehouse in Kyoto for the purpose of research and development. Gunpei Yokoi was solely assigned to develop new products. Yokoi utilised his degree in engineering by developing what is now known as electric toys such as the Love Tester, and a light gun using solar cells for targets. These electric toys were quite a novelty in the 60s when most other toys were simple in origin, such as toy blocks or dolls. Eventually Nintendo succeeded in establishing itself as a major player in the toy market.
| | On May 31, 2002, Yamauchi stepped down as president of Nintendo and was succeeded by the head of Nintendo's Corporate Planning Division, [[Satoru Iwata]]. Hiroshi Yamauchi subsequently became the chairman of Nintendo's board of directors. He finally left the board in June 29, 2005, due to his age, and because he felt that he was leaving the company in good hands. Yamauchi also refused to accept his retirement pension, which was reported to be around $9 million to $14 million, feeling that Nintendo could put it to better use. He still retains a 10% share in Nintendo as of 2008. |
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| ==Beginning of the Electronics Era==
| | Yamauchi died on September 19, 2013 at age 85, due to complications from pneumonia. |
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| Hiroshi Yamauchi realized that technological breakthroughs in the electronic industry meant that electronics could be incorporated into entertainment products since the prices were decreasing. Atari and Magnavox were already selling gaming devices for use with television sets. Hiroshi negotiated a license with Magnavox to sell its game console, the Magnavox Odyssey. After hiring several Sharp Electronics employees, Nintendo launched the Color TV Game 6 in Japan, which was followed by several revisions and updates of this series.
| | [[Category:People|Yamauchi, Hiroshi]] |
| Hiroshi decided to expand Nintendo into the United States in order to cash in on the growing American arcade market. He hired his son-in-law Minoru Arakawa to head the new American operation. When Japanese hits such as Radar Scope, Space Fever and Sheriff did not achieve the same success in the United States, Yamauchi turned to designer Shigeru Miyamoto's pet project, Donkey Kong, which became a smash hit.
| | [[Category:Nintendo|Yamauchi, Hiroshi]] |
| Yokoi, who Hiroshi had set in charge of the games department, created the first portable LCD video game featuring a microprocessor called the Game & Watch. Although the Game & Watch was successful, Hiroshi wanted something that was cheap enough that most could buy it and yet something unique enough so that they dominated the market for as long as possible.
| | [[Category:Game cast and crew|Yamauchi, Hiroshi]] |
| | [[Category:Deceased staff members|Yamauchi, Hiroshi]] |
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| ==Nintendo Entertainment System==
| | [[it:Hiroshi Yamauchi]] |
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| The Famicom was created and Hiroshi was so confident with this device that he promised some electronics company million unit orders within two years. The Famicom easily reached that goal, and, after selling several million units, sold for US$100 each. Sales were still strong. Hiroshi realized the importance of the software that ran on the game systems and made sure the system was easy to program. Hiroshi believed that technicians did not create excellent games but artists did. The Famicom was released in the United States as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Hiroshi with no engineering or video game background was the only one deciding which games were to be released. His remarkable intuition for what people would want in the future was one of the main reasons for Nintendo's success. To help spring creativity, he created three research and development groups and allowed them to compete against each other. This caused the designers to work harder to try to get their games approved.
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| ==Super Nintendo Entertainment System==
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| In 1990, the Super Famicom was released in Japan. It was subsequently released a year later in North America, as the "Super Nintendo Entertainment System" (SNES) and in 1992 in Europe. The Super Famicom had been sold out within three days in Japan and had gamers camping for days outside shops in hope of getting the next shipment. The SNES was redesigned for its release and was more box like as compared to its counterpart in Japan. At the same time, Game Boy was released in the US, and Nintendo spent millions in advertising for both consoles, which resulted in a big pay off as they beat other similar consoles in the figures war. Yamauchi had displayed from the beginning a knack at identifying good games even though he had never played them, and he continued to do so alone at least till 1993. One of the major reasons for the success of SNES was the abundance of good games developed for it.
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| In 1993, the Super FX Chip was launched that would make the SNES display 3D graphics. Around the same time, Nintendo increased its research facilities. Nintendo showed major expansion during this period with new plants, R&D facilities and partnership with Rare. Later, Donkey Kong Country was released—the first game to use 3D CGI model to produce realistic sprites with 3D appearance. In 1995, the Virtual Boy was released, but did not sell well. Despite the bust, Hiroshi said at a press conference that he still had faith in it and that the company would continue developing games for it. Primary developer Gunpei Yokoi was heavily criticized for the failure leading to his eventual resignation from Nintendo after 30 years of service. Yokoi went on to make Wonderswan, which failed due to lack of games licensed for it. This highlighted the brilliance of Yamauchi, who always placed games above the console.
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| ==Nintendo 64==
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| In 1996, Nintendo released its new, fully 3D console, the Nintendo 64, and Yamauchi used it to draw attention away from Virtual Boy.Simultaneously, Super Mario 64 was launched as the first fully 3D platform game. In 1999, Yamauchi and Nintendo announced their intentions to work on a new system with IBM Gekko processor and Matsushita DVD technology Dolphin. This system was christened GameCube. Yamauchi talked at the E3 about the impact that the release of Xbox will have on the GameCube.
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| ==Nintendo GameCube==
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| Yamauchi touted the Nintendo GameCube as a machine designed exclusively to be a video game console; an approach which he considered different from Microsoft's and Sony's for their respective Xbox and PlayStation 2 consoles. He believed that the GameCube would specialize in providing the best gaming experience possible as opposed to the all-encompassing entertainment hubs being promoted in its competitor's products (both the Xbox and the PlayStation 2 have DVD and CD-ROM playback functionalities, while the Xbox also features a built-in hard drive). This bias towards "performance only" and the creation of hardware that would allow developers to "easily create games" is what Yamauchi believed would set the competitors apart from the GameCube.
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| Yamauchi also wanted the machine to be the least expensive available of its kind, in his belief that people "do not play with the game machine itself. They play with the software, and they are forced to purchase a game machine in order to use the software. Therefore the price of the machine should be as cheap as possible." Nintendo hence priced the GameCube significantly less expensive than its rivals in the market, although the console's games were priced identically to those designed for the competing systems.
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| He also sought to make sure the GameCube was a simple platform to create games for, an advantage which implied lower development costs; thus a greater number of developers would be attracted to the console, and subsequently a higher number of games would be made for it, produced and released at a faster rate.
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| ==Family==
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| In 1950, Michiko, Hiroshi's wife gave birth to their first child, a daughter named Yoko. During the next few years, Michiko had several miscarriages and was often ill. In 1957, she gave birth to another daughter, Fujiko and, shortly after, a son named Katsuhito.[18]
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| Yamauchi's father, Shikanojo, returned years later to see his son, he refused to speak to him. When Hiroshi was close to 30, he was contacted by his half sister and informed that Shikanojo had died in stroke. Hiroshi spent a day alone thinking if he should go before finally going. At the funeral he met his father's wife and their four daughters whom he never knew existed. He began feeling sorry about that he had not taken the opportunity to reconcile with his father when he was still alive. The death of his father changed Hiroshi, and he grieved for months and cried freely. From that day he has always made regular visits to his father's grave.
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| ==Baseball==
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| In the early 1990s, the Seattle Mariners were up for sale and the then owner asked Nintendo America to find a Japanese investor who would keep the club in Seattle. Hiroshi Yamauchi offered to buy it even though he had never been to a baseball game. Even though the owner accepted the offer, the baseball commissioner and ownership committee was strongly opposed to the idea of a non-North American owner and did not approve the deal. However, following the strong support and sentiments of the people of Seattle and press and having the decision be deemed as racist, the commissioner formally approved the deal, under the condition that Yamauchi had less than 50% votes. This was a major development in American baseball because this opened the gates for Japanese baseball players to American league teams, entry in which had been denied so far as the Japanese players were not deemed physically fit for the toughness of the sport in North America. In 2000, the club made its first profit of $2.6 million since its acquisition by Yamauchi.
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| ==Post-Nintendo==
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| On May 31, 2002, Yamauchi stepped down as president of Nintendo and was succeeded by the head of Nintendo's Corporate Planning Division, Satoru Iwata. Hiroshi Yamauchi subsequently became the chairman of Nintendo's board of directors. He finally left the board in June 29, 2005, due to his age, and because he felt that he was leaving the company in good hands. Yamauchi also refused to accept his retirement pension, which was reported to be around $9 million to $14 million, feeling that Nintendo could put it to better use. He is also Nintendo's larger shareholder despite stepping down. He still retains a 10% share in Nintendo as of 2008. He is currently the third richest man in Japan due to his shares in Nintendo since their success with the Wii and Nintendo DS consoles.
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| [[Category:Wikipedia-based articles]]
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| [[Category:People]]
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Bulbanews has an article related to this subject:
Hiroshi Yamauchi (Japanese: 山内溥 Yamauchi Hiroshi, November 7, 1927 - September 19, 2013) was the third president of Nintendo, from 1949 until stepping down on May 31, 2002, and was thus the head of the company during the first 8 years of the Pokémon franchise. Yamauchi is credited with transforming Nintendo from a small hanafuda card-making company to the multi-billion dollar video game company it is today. Yamauchi was succeeded at Nintendo by Satoru Iwata.
In 2008, Yamauchi was the richest person in Japan and 149th richest person in the world, having a net worth of approximately $7.8 billion.
Career in Nintendo
Yamauchi, who was born in Kyoto, Japan, became the president of Nintendo after his grandfather, Sekiryo Yamauchi, had a stroke in 1949. At Sekiryo's request, Hiroshi left Waseda University to assume his new position, but with one condition: that he would be the only family member working at Nintendo. Hiroshi's grandfather reluctantly agreed, and died shortly after. Under these terms, Hiroshi's older cousin had to be fired. Hiroshi's young age and lack of management experience caused problems for him at first, as most employees did not take him seriously, and even started a strike. He dealt with the strike by firing many long-time employees who questioned his authority. He had the company name changed to Nintendo Karuta and established its new headquarters in Kyoto. He was the sole judge of potential new products, and only a product that appealed to him went on the market.
Yamauchi was the first person to introduce the Western plastic playing card into the Japanese market. His first major success came when he made a licensing agreement with Walt Disney in 1959 for his plastic playing cards. Nintendo's Disney playing card was also accompanied by a small, thin booklet with many tutorials for different card games. The strategy succeeded and the product sold 600,000 units in one year, soon gracing Nintendo with the domination of Japanese playing card market. Hiroshi once again changed the company name to Nintendo Company Limited and took the company public (listed on stock market).
One day, Yamauchi spotted a factory engineer named Gunpei Yokoi playing with a simple extendable claw, something Yokoi made to amuse himself during his break. Yamauchi ordered Yokoi to develop the extendable claw into a proper product. The product was named Urutora Hando (Ultra Hand) and was an instant hit. It was then that Hiroshi decided to move Nintendo’s focus into toy making. With an already established distribution system into department stores for its playing cards, the transition was a natural one for Nintendo. Hiroshi created a new department called Games and Setup, manned initially by only Yokoi and another employee who looked after the finances, and was situated in a warehouse in Kyoto for the purpose of research and development.
Years later, in 1995, the Virtual Boy was released, but did not sell well. Despite the bust, Hiroshi said at a press conference that he still had faith in it and that the company would continue developing games for it. Primary developer Gunpei Yokoi was heavily criticized for the failure leading to his eventual resignation from Nintendo after 30 years of service.
The following year, Nintendo released its new, fully 3D console, the Nintendo 64. Simultaneously, Super Mario 64 was launched as the first fully 3D platform game. In 1999, Yamauchi and Nintendo announced their intentions to work on a new system, the Nintendo GameCube, with IBM Gekko processor and Matsushita DVD technology Dolphin. Yamauchi touted the Nintendo GameCube as a machine designed exclusively to be a video game console - an approach which he considered different from Microsoft's and Sony's for their respective Xbox and PlayStation 2 consoles.
On May 31, 2002, Yamauchi stepped down as president of Nintendo and was succeeded by the head of Nintendo's Corporate Planning Division, Satoru Iwata. Hiroshi Yamauchi subsequently became the chairman of Nintendo's board of directors. He finally left the board in June 29, 2005, due to his age, and because he felt that he was leaving the company in good hands. Yamauchi also refused to accept his retirement pension, which was reported to be around $9 million to $14 million, feeling that Nintendo could put it to better use. He still retains a 10% share in Nintendo as of 2008.
Yamauchi died on September 19, 2013 at age 85, due to complications from pneumonia.
