Hiroshi Yamauchi was a Japanese businessman who has served more than half a century as the president of Nintendo. Nintendo was founded by Yamauchi’s great-grandfather as a playing-card manufacturer where he became Nintendo’s third president. After Yamauchi assumed control of Nintendo, he expanded the company’s offering to toys and other novelties, a move that provided modest success for the firm.

As video games became increasingly popular in the late 1970’s, Yamauchi ushered Nintendo into the emerging video game market. Nintendo soon became a household name around the globe, with the introduction of the Family Computer in Japan and the Nintendo Entertainment System in North America where they dominated the home console market throughout the 1980’s and early 90’s.

Hiroshi Yamauchi was the last member of the Yamauchi family to serve as president of Nintendo, after Satoru Iwata succeeded him after his retirement on May 31, 2002. Yamauchi held the position of president from 1949 until 2002. During his 53 year tenure, Yamauchi transformed Nintendo from a hanafuda card-making company that had been active solely in Japan, into the multibillion-dollar video game publisher and global conglomerate that it is today.