Hiroshi Yamauchi was born on 7 November 1927 in Kyoto, Japan, and was a businessman best known for being the third president of Nintendo, and expanding the company during his presidency. He passed away in 2013.
So just how rich was Hiroshi Yamauchi? Authoritative sources estimate that Yamauchi’s net worth was as high as $4.2 billion, accumulated largely from his presidency at Nintendo, which lasted for almost five decades. During the ‘90s he was also the owner of the baseball team the Seattle Mariners.
Hiroshi Yamauchi Net Worth $4.2 billion
Hiroshi Yamauchi attended preparatory school at the age of 12. He was originally supposed to study law or engineering, but his plans were interrupted by World War II, and although Hiroshi was too young to fight, he was put to work in a military factory. Once the war was over, he went on to study law at Waseda University, however, when his grandfather, the president of Nintendo suffered a stroke, Yamauchi dropped out of college and replaced him in the company. Despite being young and inexperienced, he managed to expand Nintendo, establishing its new headquarters in Kyoto. Nintendo’s big breakthrough happened when Hiroshi signed a licensing agreement for his plastic playing cards with Walt Disney in 1959 – Nintendo was making playing cards for family games. Yamauchi’s ideas were a huge success with more than 600,000 units of cards sold in a year, firmly establishing his net worth.
In the following period, Hiroshi had several ideas for the expansion of the company, but all of those failed and almost bankrupted Nintendo. However, in the upcoming period, he focused on toy making, teaming-up with Gunpei Yokoi, who was working in the toy development. Nintendo produced toys that were new to the market, and received recognition for their originality. Having realized that electronics and software had their big breakthrough and could be used in the entertainment section, he went on to launch Color TV Game 6 in Japan, and Nintendo began to expand in the US market as well. After creating several games that received mediocre response, Yamauchi went on to team up with the designer Shigeru Miyamoto and create Donkey Kong. The previously mentioned game was released in 1981 and was a hit, earning a total of $280 million.
In the following years, Yamauchi focused on something that was cheap enough so that almost everyone could buy it, going on to create Famicom, Nintendo’s Family Computer home video game console. Yamauchi then released Nintendo 64, a fully 3D capable console in 1999, and Gamecube in 2001, so Nintendo achieved notable success during Hiroshi’s presidency, however, he retired in May 2002. Nonetheless, Yamauchi remained respected and on a high position in the company until 2005, when he completely retired. He refused the pension Nintendo was offering him, stating that the company could use it for something better.
In his personal life, Yamauchi’s grandparents arranged a marriage for him with Mitchiko, and he had three children with her. She gave birth to their daughter Yōko, but suffered several miscarriages in the following period. Later on, the couple had another daughter, Fujiko, and a son, Katsuhito. Hiroshi was on bad terms with his father, who left the family when Hiroshi was just a child; they never spoke again.
Leave a Comment