Nintendo president and gaming pioneer Hiroshi Yamauchi dies aged 85 Hiroshi Yamauchi, great-grandson of Nintendo founder Fusajiro Yamauchi and president of the company from 1949 to 2002, has died. Yamauchi is credited as the man who transformed Nintendo from a small company that made playing cards to the world's largest video game company by revenue. Under his tenure, the company introduced legendary game franchises including Mario, Pokémon and The Legend of Zelda. The company confirmed the news via an official statement saying "former Nintendo president Mr Hiroshi Yamauchi... sadly passed away this morning." Although Yamauchi became the company's president in 1949 his greatest successes did not come until the late 1970s and early 1980s, after the company began to focus on the newly-emerged electronic gaming industry. A key milestone was the creation of Donkey Kong by the equally legendary designer Shigeru Miyamoto. The eponymous 1981 game based on the character was one of the best-selling arcade titles of the 1980s and is credited with launching the company onto the world stage. Yamauchi then moved into the home console market, creating the Nintendo Entertainment System (the NES, also known as the Famicom) in 1983 and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (or SNES) in 1990. Many of Nintendo's most famous franchises first appeared on the NES including Mario, The Legend of Zelda and Metroid and the company sold 61.91 million units worldwide. The even greater success of the SNES turned Nintendo into a multi-billion dollar giant. Yamauchi stepped down in 2002 following the launch of the GameCube console. The console received a mixed reception, and despite the success of the Nintendo Wii (launched in 2006) Nintendo has since been eclipsed by Microsoft and Sony. However, Nintendo's legacy for family-friendly and high quality games has not been lost, and the company continues to release new devices (such as the Nintendo 2DS) and attract younger customers with its hand-held consoles. On his death Yaumachi had a personal fortune of more than $2 billion. His successor from 2002, Satoru Iwata, still runs the company. Mario waits for visitors at a booth being set up for 2007 International CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas, Nevada January 7, 2007.