Hiroshi Yamachi, the man who can be best credited with building the Nintendo empire has passed away this morning. Yamauchi became the present of Nintendo in 1949 and started the transformation of the company from a playing card’s to the Nintendo that we’ve come to know now. From the handheld gaming devices, Game & Watch the super successful Gameboy, the Ultra Hand, Famicon, Gameboy, Super Nintendo and N64, Nintendo was able to prospure. Thanks to this man, the world came to know and love a video game icon, Mario from the countless Super Mario games
Sadly Yamachi stepped down as president in 2002 with the release of the Gamecube which was seen as Nintendo’s first major failure in the gaming industry, surpassing that of the Virtual Boy and was succeeded by the current Nintendo president, Satoru Iwata. Hiroshi Yamachi died due pneumonia at a hospital in Central Japan and per sources a funeral is planned to take place on Sunday, 9/22/2013.