Game Over for Nintendo President Yamauchi

Japanese video game maker Nintendo said Friday that its charismatic president Hiroshi Yamauchi, 74, would step down after more than half a century at the helm, handing power to a carefully groomed management group.

Yamauchi, outspoken but publicity-shy and a standout with his purple suits and plainspoken style, guided Nintendo’s meteoric rise from a tiny maker of card games to a video game powerhouse.

His strategy, centered on creating innovative games rather than building ambitious entertainment technology like the rival PlayStation 2 and Xbox, is expected to remain intact under the new management team. 

Taking the post of president on May 31 will be Satoru Iwata, the 42-year-old chief of corporate planning who joined the company two years ago from a game software developer.

“Six executive board members will form a management team that I hope will move quickly on vital matters,” Yamauchi told a news conference at the company’s headquarters in the ancient capital city of Kyoto, Japan.

“My job now will be simply to keep an eye on the whole process.”

He will retain the title of adviser to the company but will not be part of the top management team.

The market had long expected that Yamauchi would be replaced by a team rather than a single, charismatic individual, said Takashi Oka, chief analyst at Tsubasa Research Institute.

There are worries that Yamauchi’s influence with game software companies may be sorely missed–particularly his knack for selecting talented partners and enforcing strict loyalty to the Nintendo brand.

“The new management does not have a charismatic or godlike figure, so there is a risk that software makers may be able to get the upper hand in their dealings with Nintendo,” Oka said.

Other members of the top management team will include Genyo Takeda, head of hardware development, and Shigeru Miyamoto, software development leader and creator of the hit “Zelda” game series. Executive Vice President Atsushi Asada will become chairman.

Yamauchi, who succeeded his grandfather as Nintendo’s president in 1949, while still a university student, led the company through such milestones as the 1983 launch in Japan of the so-called family computer.

Later successes such as the GameBoy handheld game machine and hit game titles such as “Mario” and the Pokemon series fueled rapid profit growth.

A perennial fixture on Japan’s billionaire list, Yamauchi dropped hints of his impending retirement in January, telling reporters that he may step down in the first half of the year.

He built the company into one of Japan’s most cash-rich enterprises and grabbed headlines when he bought the Seattle Mariners baseball team.

His departure comes at a challenging time for the game maker, with its flagship GameCube home console entangled in a fierce three-way battle that includes Sony’s PlayStation 2 and Microsoft’s Xbox. 

From: C|Net