Hiroshi Yamauchi, the man who ran the primier Kyoto-based Nintendo Co. franchise, and was once ranked Japan's richest man, has died at age 85, Bloomberg News reported.
Yamauchi had been the company's second-largest shareholder with about 10 percent of its stock, data compiled by Bloomberg showed.
Hiroshi Yamuachi was the great grandson of Nintendo's founder, and had led the company from 1949 to 2002 when he transformed what was once a maker Japanese playing cards into the world's biggest entity for video games, like big hits "Super Mario Bros." and "Zelda." (In 1977, he hired Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo's chief game designer, and created memorable characters in the video games, like Mario the plumber, the aforementioned Zelda and Donkey Kong utilized in the video games.) 1985 saw the introduction of "Super Mario Bros."
In 1992, Yamauchi bought the Seattle Mariners baseball team. The acquisition in 1992 made the Seattle club the first in the major leagues to have foreign ownership. He sold the team to Nintendo's U.S. unit in 2004, news reports said .
Yamauchi handed over the company to his successor the current president Satoru Iwata. Yamauchi moved into an advisory role for three years.
"We will continue to treasure the values Yamauchi taught us - that what makes you unique lies at the core of entertainment. And we at Nintendo will continue to change the company flexibly to adapt to the times, as Yamauchi did, to carry on his spirit," Iwata said in a statement.
Forbes Asia ranked Yamauchi as Japan's richest man in 2008 with a net worth of $7.8 billion, amid the rising sales of the Wii console.
A funeral for Yamauchi is scheduled for Sunday, and the Japanese icon is survived by his eldest son Katsuhito.
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