Hiroshi Yamauchi - The Bear and Badger

regmcfly

1927-2013

So Yamauchi-San died on Sunday, and people have been saying we should start a thread. I think it's fitting, when you consider the man's legacy; despite the state that Nintendo may be in now, the man did some crazy important stuff.

So I guess I'll start by listing some of the things the man did, and then we can take it from there, on things you love, things you miss etc.

- Brought Nintendo to the West, starting with Donkey Kong, in 1981

-Was in creative control behind game releases on the NES / Famicom, and engineered their releases

- Continued the 'Nintendo Seal of Approval' with the SNES and approved games for this.

- Launched and 'had faith' in the Virtual Boy

- Intentionally made the N64 difficult to program for, trying to ensure that 'good' games would be made for it.

- Released the Gamecube as a powerful, inexpensive, easy to develop for platform

- Owned a whack of the Seattle Mariners because why not

- Retired in 2002 to be repleaced by IWATA

So, I think the best and worst thing that Yamauchi did was the 'quality control' upon the games. Yes, it meant that Nintendo's first party refined and developed some of the most incredible, perfectly honed titles of all time, but it's something that has really hindered them in recent years, and that same mentality still pervades with third party, and getting out titles as a system seller. Still, I commend the man for his attention to quality.

What do you guys think?

optimark_prime

Regardless of whether you're a Nintendo fan, the industry wouldn't exist without them, and Hiroshi Yamauchi.

R.I.P

Speedhaak

GG Hiro, all the best!

Mod74

Probably deserved an obituary photo that didn't make him look like a prisoner of war camp guard vampire paedo.

Had some damn fine times on his consoles, so cheers for that.

On the plus side, at least he doesn't have to suffer watching Iwata take them back to being a playing card manufacturer. Boom.

Speedhaak

In typical Japanese fashion they'd rather fall on their swords *ahem* than conform to western philosophies.

Edit* Conform was the wrong choice of word, embrace would be more suiting.

retroking1981

That Nintendo Seal of Approval was very important at the time but I think it also became a hindrance to them in later years.

Its really quite interesting reading up on him. I read he rushed the Virtual Boy out to be a stop gap between SNES-N64 even though Gunpei Yokoi wasn't happy with it at the time and wanted more time on it.

I also read he accused Masahiro Sakurai of being gay after showing him his design for the Kirby character, or maybe thought Kirby was gay? Can't quite remember now.

I think his greatest flaw was his stubbornness. The whole Squaresoft thing speaks for itself and it wasn't until Iwata took over that they built bridges.

Regardless he was a very important player in the industry and it could be a very different hobby without the impact he made.

R.I.P.

Bollockoff

retroking1981 wrote:

I also read he accused Masahiro Sakurai of being gay after showing him his design for the Kirby character, or maybe thought Kirby was gay? Can't quite remember now.

The former. He's given a lot to the industry no doubt but he was apparently a foul mouthed and authoritarian businessman. Which must be some of the reasoning he did so well.

retroking1981

Bollockoff wrote:

He's given a lot to the industry no doubt but he was apparently a foul mouthed and authoritarian businessman. Which must be some of the reasoning he did so well.

... and bad. I wonder what he said to Square when they decided against developing for the N64.

ZMM

The gaming landscape would certainly look very different right now without his efforts. The N64 years were and still remain the finest gaming years of my life. RIP!

Escape

He didn't fare too well from others' opinions in this old doco:

Yokoi was the man.

dynamiteReady

Dude did things his way, and won.

While doing that, he hurt no-one (no malice, at least), brought a lot of happiness to a lot of of people, and created some very, very strong cross-cultural bonds.

Quite a legend, that.

Vela

Much respect for the man who insisted on quality, durable products. We need more like him today, not fewer.

Brooks

Gonzo wrote:

Meh.

Agreed, but read this slightly hilarious interview anyway.

They needed to harness the power of the atom to defeat us.

There's this old American saying that applies to Japan: there's no such thing as a free lunch.
Well, there obviously is in America, otherwise, they wouldn't be so goddamn fat.

Shyam39

Although fake, that interview always brings the lulz.

retroking1981

ZMM wrote:

The gaming landscape would certainly look very different right now without his efforts. The N64 years were and still remain the finest gaming years of my life. RIP!

Always good to hear this, couldn't agree more. N64 blew my mind.

[Deleted User]

The man had an obsession with quality you can only admire.

Those heady days of the Snes and N64 will likely never be repeated. The best and most diverse games producer of all time at the very peak of their powers. Those were indeed the days.

mistercrayon

Also worth pointing out that the Wii revolution was first announced by Yamauchi. He made a speech deriding the arms race and said the future would be similar hardware with novelty hardware extending the life of consoles. (possibly correct a generation early).

davyK

Was pretty unrelenting when it came to quality. When there was a flaw revealed in some early Famicoms he recalled the whole lot and replaced them.

The seal of quality thing was the result of watching the shambles that the Atari 2600 library turned into.

The good outweighed the bad on the whole I feel.

And as far as I know Nintendo still make playing cards. I believe Ninty were also in the instant rice and love hotel businesses for a while. You can't say he wasn't into diversification.

retroking1981

I'd like a pack of their cards, anyone know where you can get them? Guess eBay might have some?

That love hotel business is almost unbelieveable. They also ran a Taxi firm at one point.

davyK

retroking1981 wrote:

I'd like a pack of their cards, anyone know where you can get them? Guess eBay might have some?

That love hotel business is almost unbelieveable. They also ran a Taxi firm at one point.

Cards were available for stars from the club website. There were mascot-themed regular decks plus hanfuda cards - I was pretty tempted but blew the lot on the SNES controller.

An early lesson they learned about the value of IP and protecting it was when they made a deal with Disney way back to print themed playing card decks which blew the competition away. They seem to have a really good way of retaining lessons from the past and re-using them.

It's amusing looking at the dual screen G+W handhelds and then looking at the DS for example.

beano

Deffo would be no console wars without him. Japan's Steve Jobs. Hiroshi is better than Steve.

Tendo still make cards? You could get some gold plated ones last I went looking. They had some regular polymer coated which had watercolour prints of traditional folklore characters for the suit cards on them.

beano

Note, Steve wasn't a great person and Hiroshi wasn't miles better.

Diluted Dante

I heard he was a fantastic lover though.

dynamiteReady

beano wrote:

Note, Steve wasn't a great person and Hiroshi wasn't miles better.

Dunno... Never met either, but one thing they both had in common was the whole art vs technology thing... You could argue that Yamauchi got there first... Can you imagine? Making Miyamoto a tech project lead, even though he had never touched a computer before he started at Nintendo?

He wanted to make puppets ffs...

Probably the single most profitable hire in the history of business that...

retroking1981

Didn't they both do quite a bit of charity work?

I know Hiroshi Yamauchi opened a cancer clinic or something along those lines in Japan.

Mod74

The Saville similarities grow..

Sasukekun

retroking1981 wrote:

Didn't they both do quite a bit of charity work?

Didn't Jobs actually stop charity work by Apple when he re-joined the company.

As for Yamauchi, if it weren't for him, gaming as we know it today wouldn't be the same.

Yossarian

Sasukekun wrote:

retroking1981 wrote:

Didn't they both do quite a bit of charity work?

Didn't Jobs actually stop charity work by Apple when he re-joined the company.

He certainly stopped the company talking publicly about charity work, but then he himself was criticised for not giving to charity because he preferred to keep it anonymous.

http://www.news.com.au/money/money-matters/steve-jobs-secretly-gave-millions-to-charity-publically-criticised-for-not-doing-enough/story-e6frfmd9-1226650636880

[Deleted User]

Gonzo wrote:

I heard he was a pedo.

"Come and see the secret new console".

Possibly the most successful grooming line ever.

Yossarian

Interested in a game, boy?

hunk

The man responsible for the SNES.
Good times, thank u Yamauchi san!

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