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SARAtonin
Violent Dreams


Registered: 09/28/11
Posts: 15,949
Loc: Deutschland
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Sad news everyone! Hiroshi Yamauchi is dead! (Nintendo President)
#18863496 - 09/19/13 03:24 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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Hiroshi Yamauchi president of Nintendo from years 1949-2002 (aka The Good Years) has died today at the age of 85. Yamauchi was the visionary president responsible for Nintendo being the company we all know and love today. Today is a truly sad day...
Quote:
TOKYO — Hiroshi Yamauchi, who transformed his great-grandfather’s playing-card company, Nintendo, into a global video game powerhouse, died on Thursday in Kyoto, Japan. He was 85.
Mr. Yamauchi, who led Nintendo from 1949 to 2002, was Japan’s most unlikely high-tech success story. Named president of the family business at 22, he steered Nintendo into board games, light-emitting toy guns and baseball pitching machines — fruitless forays that he later attributed to a “lack of imagination” — before the company arrived at arcade games.
Its Donkey Kong and the original Mario Bros. became hits and gave rise to Nintendo’s wildly successful home video game business.
The Nintendo Entertainment System, a console first released in Japan in 1983 as “Famicom,” unseated early leaders in the video game industry, selling more than 60 million units thanks to shrewd marketing, close attention to product quality and a crop of games based on unlikely yet endearing characters that soon became household names.
In 1988, The New York Times wrote: “Many Nintendo best sellers, like Super Mario Bros. 2, are based on wildly preposterous premises, this particular one being two mustachioed Italian janitors who endure various trials, such as dodging hammer-swinging turtles and lava balls and man-eating plants, in order to save a Mushroom Princess. No matter. Kids can’t get enough of the games.”
Under Mr. Yamauchi, who professed not to understand video games, Nintendo went on to dominate the business. When a successor machine was released in 1990, fans camped outside electronics stores for days in anticipation; it sold almost 50 million units. Next came the Nintendo 64 and Nintendo Game Cube home consoles, as well as Game Boy hand-held machines. Nintendo dominates the list of all-time top-selling games.
In the early 1990s, Mr. Yamauchi found himself in the middle of an international dispute when he offered to buy a majority stake in the Seattle Mariners. The team, established in 1977, had been threatening to leave Seattle if it could not find a new owner willing to keep it there. Nintendo had its United States headquarters in Seattle.
The team’s owners approved the deal but the commissioner of Major League Baseball, Fay Vincent, and a four-man M.L.B. owners’ committee initially opposed it. They relented and approved the sale in 1992 after Mariners fans and the Seattle news media rallied in favor of it. In 2001, the Mariners signed the star Japanese outfielder Ichiro Suzuki, now with the Yankees, helping to open the door for many more Japanese players to join major league teams in the United States.
In a show of his characteristic detachment, however, Mr. Yamauchi confessed at the time that he was not much interested in baseball, either. He said he had never gone to a baseball game and is thought to have never gone since. One of his few hobbies was the Japanese board game Go, which he played at the master’s level.
Hiroshi Yamauchi was born in Kyoto on Nov. 7, 1927. He was raised by his grandparents after his father, Shikanojo Yamauchi, deserted the family.
The Yamauchis had been makers of karuta cards, a Japanese playing-card game based on flowers, since 1889. Once favored by the elite, it became popular as a gambling game, often played by Japanese gangsters.
Mr. Yamauchi joined the family business in 1949 after his grandfather had a stroke. He moved quickly to take control at the company, forcing out a cousin and later purging officers appointed by his grandfather.
But the playing-card business was in terminal decline, and Mr. Yamauchi shifted the company’s focus to one toy after another until he found success with video games in the 1980s. He was helped by the renowned video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, who joined the company in 1977 and created Mario, Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, Wii and other game franchises.
Mr. Yamauchi developed a strategy that set him apart from other consumer electronics manufacturers in Japan. From early on, he farmed out the production of Nintendo’s video game machines to smaller suppliers, allowing the company to maintain a relatively small staff and low overhead costs. Nintendo approved only a handful of games each year, whether designed internally or by outside companies, ensuring that prices and profit margins remained high.
There were some misfires under Mr. Yamauchi’s watch. The company’s cumbersome, headache-inducing Virtual Boy portable console — a red box on legs with rubber visors that players peered into to play games in 3-D — was a flop. And beginning in the late 1990s, first Sony, then Microsoft steamrolled into the gaming market with new consoles — the PlayStation and Xbox, respectively — challenging Nintendo’s dominance.
Mr. Yamauchi stepped down in 2002 — “I have no energy left,” he told reporters — and is credited with going outside the family to appoint a successor to steer Nintendo through rocky times. Under Satoru Iwata, the current Nintendo president, the company roared back with its Nintendo DS hand-held machine and the Wii home game console, though Mr. Iwata, too, has stumbled with the most recent hardware releases and is increasingly under siege by smartphone games.
Mr. Yamauchi’s survivors include a son, Katsuhito.
In one of his last interviews, with the magazine Nikkei Business in 2003, Mr. Yamauchi offered a longer view of the gaming market. At the time, Nintendo was being pummeled by Sony’s immensely popular PlayStation 2 console. But he scoffed at suggestions that the battle for supremacy in gaming was over.
“That’s absolutely wrong; the gaming wars, they will never end,” he said, adding: “That’s just not how this business works. Nobody knows what tomorrow will bring.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/20/business/global/hiroshi-yamauchi-who-helped-drive-nintendo-into-dominance-dies-at-85.html
-------------------- God kills indiscriminately and so shall we. For no creatures under God are as we are none so like him as ourselves. Want to join a cult? Click for details…
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VivaLaMushie
RIP LS :(


Registered: 07/23/12
Posts: 15,711
Loc: Switzerland
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Re: Sad news everyone! Hiroshi Yamauchi is dead! (Nintendo President) [Re: SARAtonin] 2
#18863501 - 09/19/13 03:27 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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I shall play my Nintendo in his honor tonight.
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akira_akuma
Φύσις κρύπτεσθαι ὕψιστος φιλεῖ


Registered: 08/28/09
Posts: 82,455
Loc: Onypeirophóros
Last seen: 4 years, 1 month
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Re: Sad news everyone! Hiroshi Yamauchi is dead! (Nintendo President) [Re: VivaLaMushie] 1
#18863512 - 09/19/13 03:30 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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yep, sad day. he made Nintendo what they were, along with the devs and model employees. seriously good company. still are, just going down in the dumps with poor management.
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King Klick
That Guy Everyone Knows



Registered: 11/13/11
Posts: 7,267
Last seen: 7 months, 24 days
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Re: Sad news everyone! Hiroshi Yamauchi is dead! (Nintendo President) [Re: akira_akuma]
#18863535 - 09/19/13 03:38 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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Just like his company.
-------------------- Your god is dead, and I killed him. When you’re lost, here I am. Forever with your soul
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akira_akuma
Φύσις κρύπτεσθαι ὕψιστος φιλεῖ


Registered: 08/28/09
Posts: 82,455
Loc: Onypeirophóros
Last seen: 4 years, 1 month
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Re: Sad news everyone! Hiroshi Yamauchi is dead! (Nintendo President) [Re: King Klick]
#18863547 - 09/19/13 03:41 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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ironic!1
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tarponio
Loves rain



Registered: 07/28/09
Posts: 233
Loc: Floating around
Last seen: 1 year, 5 months
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Re: Sad news everyone! Hiroshi Yamauchi is dead! (Nintendo President) [Re: akira_akuma]
#18863567 - 09/19/13 03:46 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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AWS
Working For MCA

Registered: 08/11/13
Posts: 537
Loc: Cookieverse
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Re: Sad news everyone! Hiroshi Yamauchi is dead! (Nintendo President) [Re: SARAtonin]
#18863628 - 09/19/13 04:04 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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Did he invent pong?
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Mush4Brains
LOOL HACKED!!!

Registered: 07/31/13
Posts: 4,419
Last seen: 9 years, 3 months
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Re: Sad news everyone! Hiroshi Yamauchi is dead! (Nintendo President) [Re: AWS]
#18863788 - 09/19/13 04:41 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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Does this mean we can get 1080p Nintendo now?
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imachavel
I loved and lost but I loved-ftw



Registered: 06/06/07
Posts: 31,408
Loc: You get banned for saying that
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Re: Sad news everyone! Hiroshi Yamauchi is dead! (Nintendo President) [Re: VivaLaMushie]
#18863810 - 09/19/13 04:45 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
VivaLaMushie said: I shall play my Nintendo in his honor tonight.
which one? A classic 16 bit system that you SOMEHOW kept intact all these years? Or the rip off piece of shit Wii?
Is anybody going to oh captain my captain over this shit like they did Steve Jobs? "oh man, the first Nintendo I ever played was in my garage"
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I did not say to edit my signature soulidarity! Now forever I will never remember what I said about understanding the secrets of the universe by paying attention to subtleties!
I'm never giving you the password again. Jerk
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Cosmic_Flame
THE BREAKFAST EMPRESS



Registered: 11/16/12
Posts: 4,184
Loc: Under The Sea
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Re: Sad news everyone! Hiroshi Yamauchi is dead! (Nintendo President) [Re: imachavel]
#18863830 - 09/19/13 04:47 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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Oh Nintendo I love you so!
The gaming industry was saved by Nintendo in the mid 80s.
R.I.P Mr. Yamauchi
-------------------- Pull the blinds and change their minds....
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akira_akuma
Φύσις κρύπτεσθαι ὕψιστος φιλεῖ


Registered: 08/28/09
Posts: 82,455
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Last seen: 4 years, 1 month
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Re: Sad news everyone! Hiroshi Yamauchi is dead! (Nintendo President) [Re: imachavel] 1
#18863841 - 09/19/13 04:49 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
imachavel said:
Is anybody going to oh captain my captain over this shit like they did Steve Jobs? "oh man, the first Nintendo I ever played was in my garage" 
no, he's not a retarded pop icon, like Steve Jobs. for wahtever reason...
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Bodhi of Ankou
*alternate opinion blocks path*


Registered: 06/02/09
Posts: 24,778
Loc: Soviet Canukistan
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Re: Sad news everyone! Hiroshi Yamauchi is dead! (Nintendo President) [Re: akira_akuma]
#18863852 - 09/19/13 04:50 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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omg someone died?! I thought evryone lived 4ever.
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akira_akuma
Φύσις κρύπτεσθαι ὕψιστος φιλεῖ


Registered: 08/28/09
Posts: 82,455
Loc: Onypeirophóros
Last seen: 4 years, 1 month
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Re: Sad news everyone! Hiroshi Yamauchi is dead! (Nintendo President) [Re: Bodhi of Ankou]
#18863856 - 09/19/13 04:51 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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go back to posting about jacking off on celebrity corpses. that's clearly your forte.
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Bodhi of Ankou
*alternate opinion blocks path*


Registered: 06/02/09
Posts: 24,778
Loc: Soviet Canukistan
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Re: Sad news everyone! Hiroshi Yamauchi is dead! (Nintendo President) [Re: akira_akuma]
#18863865 - 09/19/13 04:52 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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My record was 49 in a single day.
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akira_akuma
Φύσις κρύπτεσθαι ὕψιστος φιλεῖ


Registered: 08/28/09
Posts: 82,455
Loc: Onypeirophóros
Last seen: 4 years, 1 month
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Re: Sad news everyone! Hiroshi Yamauchi is dead! (Nintendo President) [Re: Bodhi of Ankou] 1
#18863871 - 09/19/13 04:53 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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memes
Blessed



Registered: 01/11/05
Posts: 27,785
Loc: In a Tree
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Re: Sad news everyone! Hiroshi Yamauchi is dead! (Nintendo President) [Re: Bodhi of Ankou]
#18864063 - 09/19/13 05:34 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Bodhi of Ankou said: omg someone died?! I thought evryone lived on 4chan.
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ganjfather
uncle randy



Registered: 08/06/09
Posts: 6,342
Loc:
Last seen: 3 years, 7 months
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Re: Sad news everyone! Hiroshi Yamauchi is dead! (Nintendo President) [Re: SARAtonin]
#18864084 - 09/19/13 05:39 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
SARAtonin said:
Yamauchi was the visionary president responsible for Nintendo being the company we all know and love today.
Say what? Nintendo sucks donkey balls nowadays.
But I will mourn (not really) for the dude. Nintendo was the shiet in the 90s.
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Bodhi of Ankou
*alternate opinion blocks path*


Registered: 06/02/09
Posts: 24,778
Loc: Soviet Canukistan
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Re: Sad news everyone! Hiroshi Yamauchi is dead! (Nintendo President) [Re: ganjfather]
#18864098 - 09/19/13 05:42 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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Ill give him a nod ofacknowledgment, actually I wont evne do that, whos this thread about again? I think somewhere around 400 people died ever since this threads been made. Its cool though, cause they aint famous.
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akira_akuma
Φύσις κρύπτεσθαι ὕψιστος φιλεῖ


Registered: 08/28/09
Posts: 82,455
Loc: Onypeirophóros
Last seen: 4 years, 1 month
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Re: Sad news everyone! Hiroshi Yamauchi is dead! (Nintendo President) [Re: Bodhi of Ankou]
#18864133 - 09/19/13 05:48 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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no, it isn't cool. you fool.
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Bodhi of Ankou
*alternate opinion blocks path*


Registered: 06/02/09
Posts: 24,778
Loc: Soviet Canukistan
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Re: Sad news everyone! Hiroshi Yamauchi is dead! (Nintendo President) [Re: akira_akuma]
#18864166 - 09/19/13 05:54 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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When you think about it people are just constantly doubling over and dieing every waking minute of every day. I dont even know why people act surprised when it happens. Its like they forget what weak fleshy little sacks of mobile death we are.
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