Hiroshi Yamauchi

Hiroshi Yamauchi (Japanese: 山内 溥; 7 November 1927 – 19 September 2013) was the third president of Nintendo, serving in the role from 25 April 1949 to 24 May 2002, and principal owner of the Seattle Mariners from 1992 until his death. Before joining Nintendo, he had strong familial connections; his great-grandfather, Fusajiro Yamauchi, founded the company, and was its first president, and his grandfather, Sekiryo Kaneda, was its second president. During his tenure, Nintendo was transformed from a Japanese manufacturer of hanafuda into a global conglomerate largely focused on manufacturing video game consoles and publishing video games. On the basis of this success, and his ownership of most of Nintendo's shares, he became considerably wealthy. In 2008, he was Japan's wealthiest person, with an estimated net worth of $7.8 billion. Even in 2013, with this figure having declined to $2.1 billion, he was the 13th richest person in Japan and the 491st richest in the world.

Early life