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My name is Halle Swisher and I’ve been an Ohioan my entire life. Ever since I was born, I’ve lived here, in Columbus, Ohio. I grew up within your typical suburban neighborhood and spent most of my time making mud pies and playing “army” with my older brothers.
The Men Who Laid the Foundation
company. Originally, he planned to study law and engineering until Nintendo, an everhis grandfather, the growing Japanese multinational consumer incumbent president of Nintendo, passed away in electronics company, 1947. It was then decided is the world’s largest that Yamauchi would video game company take over the business by revenue. From the and be the president time the company until he steps down in was created, to what 2002. Upon retiring, it is now, two major he refused his pension men influenced its of $9 to $14 million, development. Hiroshi insisting that Nintendo Yamauchi and Satoru Iwata were the men who could put it to better use. He eventually died on laid down the major September 19, 2013 due to foundation for the pneumonia. company’s growth.
About Hiroshi Yamauchi Hiroshi Yamauchi, a Japanese businessman and the third president of Nintendo, was born on November 7, 1927 and passed away on September 19, 2013. Yamauchi was credited for transforming the business from a small hanafuda playing card company to a multibillion video game
Hiroshi’s Contributions Yamauchi was the first person to introduce plastic playing cards to the Japanese market. He also experimented with creating taxi and love hotel businesses, but those ultimately failed and put the company on the brink of bankruptcy. It was when Yamauchi saw Gunpei Yokoi’s simple electronic claw that the company started taking off. Later known as the “Ultra Hand,” Nintendo started to develop and sell toys, which became instant hits. With the growing development of technology, Yamauchi started to change the company’s focus from
toys to video games. Under Yamauchi’s influence, Nintendo launched a series of games and softwares including the Color TV Game 6, Japanese hits: Radar Scope, Space Fever and Sheriff and United State’s hits: Donkey Kong. In 1990, the Super Famicom was released to Japan and sold out within three days. A year later, it was released to the U.S. and was known as the Super Nintendo Electronic System (SNES). Yamauchi also aided in the development of several other popular systems such as the Virtual Boy (1995), the Nintendo 64 (1996) and the Nintendo GameCube.
About Satoru Iwata
Satoru Iwata was the forth president and CEO of Nintendo. He was a major contributor in widening the appeal of video games to a diverse audience and focused on creating novel and entertaining games. Iwata majored in computer science at the Tokyo Institute of Technology and joined the game developer HAL Laboratory in 1980. In 2000, Iwata joined Nintendo and became the president in 2002. Beginning around 2014, Iwata started having health issues. He developed tumors in the bile duct, which was considered a cancer incurable and lethal if not completely extracted. After a successful surgery, Iwata fell ill again and died due to tumor complications on July 11, 2015.
Satoru Iwata’s Contributions During his time at the HAL Laboratory, he was a programmer and collaborated with Nintendo on the EarthBound and Kirby series. Iwata also assisted in the development of the Pokemon and Super Smash Bros series. In 2000, Iwata joined Nintendo as the head of company’s planning division. Under his influence, Nintendo created the Nintendo DS/DSi, Wii, 3DS and Wii U. He worked on a number of series including the Animal Crossing, Mario, Metroid Prime and Legend of Zelda series. Until his death, he partook in the development of the augmented reality mobile game, Pokemon GO.
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