THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
December 10, 2021 at 18:05 JST
Former Nintendo Co. video game developer Masayuki Uemura, known as the “Father of the Family Computer,” died on Dec. 6, according to his family. He was 78.
Nintendo's Family Computer, also known as the Famicom, was a massively popular home video game console that was launched in July 1983. It was sold overseas under the name of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).
In an interview timed with the 30th anniversary of its debut, Uemura told The Asahi Shimbun he was surprised when it became a smash hit.
“At first I thought it wouldn’t sell well, but it has turned out to be a monster of a home video game console,” he said at the time.
The Tokyo native graduated from the Chiba Institute of Technology with a major in electronic engineering in 1967.
After that, he started working at Hayakawa Electric Industry Co., now called Sharp Corp., until he joined Nintendo in 1971.
In 1979, he became the head of a development division and supervised the development of the Family Computer and its successor, the Super Family Computer, known internationally as the Super Nintendo.
He became a professor at the Ritsumeikan University Graduate School of Core Ethics and Frontier Sciences in 2004, and then became the first head of the Ritsumeikan Center for Game Studies in 2011.
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Masayuki Uemura speaks while holding up a controller for the Family Computer video game console at Nintendo Co. headquarters in Kyoto in 2013. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
