Hiroshi Yamauchi is a name which should be well-known to anyone who likes video games. He is the former president of Nintendo Co., Ltd., just recently having stepped down from that position in 2002 after a reign of 53 years. He has a net worth of $7.8 billion USD as of 2008 and is both the richest person in Japan and the 149th richest person in the world.
Hiroshi Yamauchi was born November 7, 1927 in Kyoto, Japan. He attended preparatory school, but his studies were interrupted in his teen years by the outbreak of World War II. Although he was too young to enlist, he was sent to work in the factories. After the war in 1945, Hiroshi went to Waseda University to study law, but fate was not done with him yet.
Even most video game fans might be stunned to know that Nintendo is over 100 years old, and that its original product was playing cards! Nintendo was founded in 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi as a playing card company called Nintendo Koppai, which produced Hanafuda cards, which are used in many popular games the same way the Western poker deck is. The card business was actually doing alright, and it was this company of which Hiroshi's grandfather, Fusajiro Yamauchi, was president.
In 1949, when Hiroshi was just 22 years old, Fusajiro Yamauchi suffered a stroke. Since he was president of Nintendo an had no clear successor, his own son having abandoned the family, Fusajiro Yamauchi summoned Hiroshi and literally appointed him from his deathbed to be his successor.
The change of leadership did not sit well with the company's staff. Hiroshi Yamauchi had to quell a strike by the employees, and ruthlessly asserted his authority by firing anybody who didn't agree with him. After this, he changed the company's name to Nintendo Karuta, and moved it to a new headquarters building. He had an epiphany in 1956 on a visit to the United States, and saw that playing cards just weren't going to lead to a promising future. Thus, he changed the company's focus to general family games and toys. So Hiroshi basically threw out everything but the company stationary when he took over.
The most successful branch of the toy business was a mechanical arcade game to be played with a light gun, called Kousenjuu. The influence of this game can still be noticed in games such as "Duck Hunt". The toy business was doing quite well, when in 1974 Nintendo bought the rights to market the Magnavox Odyssey home video game system in Japan. Nintendo started making other electronic games in the 1970's and had some success but they were still many steps from fame. Finally, the era of quarter-operated video game arcades arrived in 1980, and Nintendo at last became a household name.
Nintendo's first claim to fame is the arcade game "Donkey Kong", released in 1981. It was the first to show what would become Nintendo's official mascot, Mario. The game's massive popularity world-wide led to sequels in the series, including Mario Brothers, Donkey Kong Jr., Super Mario Brothers, and many others. Nintendo came to rule the arcade, but their own home video game systems were doing dismal business. Then in about 1983, the great arcade game market crash happened, when consumers worldwide just got bored with the stale technology of then-existing game technology. Nintendo was ready at home for them.
Nintendo released the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985. It was revolutionary. The games were in color, they had music, they had attractive design, they were innovative, and the Nintendo system was both cheap and "plug n play". It quite literally singlehandedly saved the home video game market. Nintendo consoles have sold to a worldwide audience, always being one of the top three console systems, ever since. Nintendo also practically invented the portable hand-held game market with the GameBoy, since before that time portable games were severely limited to calculator-style technology. Nintendo has not strayed very far from the video game market ever since.
Hiroshi Yamauchi is quite the accidental hero. If you had told him, at age 22, that this drop-out law student who had to go work in a playing card factory would eventually become the king of a computer game empire, he might have quite rightly looked at you like you were crazy. Hiroshi Yamauchi has been vigilant in spotting opportunities throughout his career with the Nintendo company, and stands today as an example of a person who had greatness thrust upon them, and rose to that challenge.