Rest in Peace Hiroshi Yamauchi

This week, the flags in the Mushroom Kingdom will be at half staff and the unseen firework operators will be firing a 21 gun salute to Hiroshi Yamauchi, the legendary business man who pushed Nintendo forward and made the company, and the videogame industry, what it is today.

Yamauchi died yesterday at age 85, from complications of pneumonia.

Hiroshi Yamauchi ran Nintendo for 53 years and became Japan's richest man.

He's often remembered by gamers as the person who's also driven Nintendo to the negative place that they're currently sitting in. But the great-grandson of Nintendo’s founder transformed a maker of Japanese playing cards into the world’s biggest producer of video games, bringing the industry back from the "dark age" on the back of hits including Mario, Zelda and Donkey Kong, after nearly driving the company to the brink of bankruptcy after failed attempts to grow the business into areas like toy guns, baby carriages and even fast food. Without him, his vision to make something more of his families company, and his key move to hire  Shigeru Miyamoto, we may not have our beloved hobby, as we enjoy it, right now.

The people of Seattle have reason to be grateful for the man, as well.

In 1992 the Seattle Mariners baseball team was in a position of being for sale, or they'd have to move to Florida. Reaching out, Slade Gorton, one of Washington's senators at the time, asked Nintendo, who's U.S. offices are based in Seattle, to help them find a Japanese backer. Yamauchi himself stepped up and bought the team, much to the dismay of the baseball commissioner and ownership committee, making him the first foreign owner of an American major league team.

And the funny thing of it, he had never seen a game of, or any interest in, baseball.

But, under his ownership, the Mariners stayed in Seattle, went to the playoffs for the first time, signed Japanese superstar Ichiro Suzuki, and even built a new stadium, in 12 years, before selling the team to Nintendo's U.S. branch in 2004.

So, rest in Peace Hiroshi Yamauchi. You may have bucked the system, but you never gave up and did things your way, in spite of all critics. You did far more good for this world then you ever did bad. Your mark, your legacy, will always be remembered.

1927-2013