FILE - In this Friday, June 12, 1992 file photo, Hiroshi Yamauchi, then-president of Japan's Nintendo Co., answers questions during a news conference after he won the final approval to buy the Seattle Mariners at the company's head office in Kyoto, western Japan. Yamauchi, who ran Nintendo for more than 50 years and led the company's transition from traditional playing-card maker to video game giant, has died of pneumonia, Thursday, Sept. He was 85. AP Photo/Katsumi Kasahara, File TOKYO (AP) - Hiroshi Yamauchi, who ran Nintendo for more than 50 years and led the Japanese company's transition from traditional playing-card maker to video game giant, has died. Kyoto-based Nintendo said Yamauchi, who was also known for owning the Seattle Mariners major league baseball club, died Thursday of pneumonia at a hospital in central Japan. Yamauchi was Nintendo president from 1949 to 2002, and engineered the company's global growth, including developing the early Family Computer consoles and Game Boy portables. Nintendo, which makes Super Mario and Pokemon games as well as the Wii U home console, was founded in 1889. Reputed as a visionary and among the richest men in Japan, Yamauchi made key moves such as employing the talents of Shigeru Miyamoto, a global star of game design and the brainchild of Nintendo hits such as Super Mario and Donkey Kong. A dropout of the prestigious Waseda University in Tokyo, Yamauchi's raspy voice and tendency to speak informally in his native Kyoto dialect was a kind of disarming spontaneity rare among Japanese executives. Yamauchi had little interest in baseball, but was approached to buy the Mariners, who may have had to move to Florida without a new backer. The acquisition in 1992 made the Seattle club the first in the major leagues to have foreign ownership. Yamauchi sold the Mariners to Nintendo's U.S. unit in 2004. After being succeeded at the helm of Nintendo by Satoru Iwata, Yamauchi stayed on as adviser, but his role increasingly diminished with the 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. The company has floundered in the past couple of years, hurt by a strong yen and competition from games on smartphones and tablets. Yamauchi is survived by Katsuhito Yamauchi, his eldest son. A funeral is scheduled for Sunday at Nintendo, following a wake on Saturday.