Posts Tagged ‘yamauchi’
Podcast: The Life of Hiroshi Yamauchi
On Thursday, September 19, 2013, we lost a pivotal man in the history of video games: Hiroshi Yamauchi. Known to many as the “Father of Nintendo” he used pride, stubbornness, and aggression to literally force his products to market. Responsible for taking a growing playing card and distribution company into the gaming powerhouse that not only flooded into Japanese households, but defied the so-called “gaming crash” of the United States with the NES. Here is his story complete with family line, birth, and the lifetime of one of the most forward thinking and intimidating men in video games.
Opening Song – Main theme fromTenchu
Closing Song – Hiroshi Yamauchi, Nintendo’s Father Forever by Jonathan Mann
Storytelling: How Shigeru Miyamoto Saved NOA
When Nintendo decided to move over to America, it wasn’t to begin the world of the NES but rather to establish a market for arcade games. Nintendo of America (NOA) had struggled ever since it migrated to the United States, complete with difficulty finding a home base in both New York and New Jersey, eventually staying for good in the Seattle area. At the time Nintendo’s owner, a gruff businessman by the name of Hiroshi Yamauchi, had inherited the company and vowed to make it into the powerhouse it eventually became. Yamauchi recently warmed up to his son-in-law, Minoru Arakawa, and decided to make him in charge of Nintendo’s American migration thanks to his free-spirited nature, familiarity with the country and ability to overwork himself. Now Arakawa was attempting to find the big arcade game that would put NOA on the map like Space Invaders had done for Taito. That game was to be a linear space shooter called Radarscope.
Gaming History 101 