RF Generation Message Board

The legendary leader of Nintendo passed away this morning of pneumonia. We all know what he has done for the video game world. Without him many or perhaps most of our gaming memories would cease to be or exist in a vastly different manner. May his legacy never die.

 http://techland.time.com/2013/09/19/nintendos-hiroshi-yamauchi-dead-at-85/

O no! That is horrible. His spirit and memory will love on though.

50 years as president, wow! what a legacy, he will be missed.

Rest in peace Hiroshi Yamauchi.
Know that your legacy will live on forever.

Such an incredible business man. We owe him a lot of respect for his ability to cultivate and motivate talented people.

Sad times on planet earth.

The guy had a very interesting way of doing things back then. We owe him a lot. Never forget.

Such a shame.  Without his personality and drive we certainly wouldn't be having nearly as much fun as we are now.

It's hardly horrible. An old man died. it happens all the time.

Old people regularly die like this. They go into hospital for something minor, say a bladder infection or a broken arm, often in reasonable health. Then they contract pneumonia in the hospital. Then they die because of that.

Not saying the guy hasn't been huge in the history of video games. He has. But it's not as if he died at the age of 40 or something. ;)

.He oversaw the transition from a card company to a love hotels to a taxi service to a toy company and finally a Video game Company. He is also the one who took a young hired cabinet painter in the company and asked him if he had any ideas on a new type of game. That man went to create Mario,Zelda Donkey Kong and more. The man was arrogant and even shunned his family plus made many mistakes however without him the industry be a very very different place. RIP

Frankly, if there had not been a Nintendo Entertainment System, would there even be a video game console industry today?  I dare say that someone would have tried to spark the embers since the '83 crash, but without Mario or Zelda where would we really be? 

We would have come out of the Crash, but I think it would have taken far longer, and it would have been more out of nostalgia.  Nothing but point-oriented games play badly translated from the arcade.  Arcades might have spent more time around though.

Oddly enough, I think a good chunk of PC gaming would have survived as it was, but wouldn't have been influenced by the console action and platforming gaming on the early nineties and the "console-ification" of the '00s.

Given that the crash was essentially limited to the NA market with both the Famicom and Sega Mark 1000 coming out in 1983 itself I would say our most beloved gaming mascots would probably be Alex Kidd and Sonic. With no NES there is no SNES. With no SNES there is no CDi (does anybody really care?) and no Playstation (dear god...)

Maybe there could have been a stronger Neo Geo CD? The Saturn dominates instead of being the forgotten Sega console popular among importers? No death of Sega could mean no or limited Microsoft?

I think no Nintendo in the console biz would have lead the US market to more closely resemble Europe, being heavily dominated by computers and a fair showing from SEGA. This was already the trend after the crash until the NES showed up, but who really knows? I'm just glad that he made Nintendo into what it is.