After the death of his grandfather in 1949, Hiroshi Yamauchi took over as President of Nintendo, a company that at the time were famous for making 'hanafuda', or Japanese playing cards. After tinkering with the hotel and taxi businesses during the 50s and 60s, he decided to concentrate solely on toys.

In 1970, Yamauchi ordered the young engineer Gunpei Yokoi to create something special for the Christmas rush. Gunpei created the Ultrahand, a plastic arm complete with moving claw, which sold no less than 1.2 million units. In 1980, and with a firm footing in the toy industry, Yamauchi increased his talented staff and aggressively challenged other companies in the sector with Nintendo's groundbreaking Game & Watch handheld series.

1983 saw the Japanese release of the Famicom (Family Computer), which saw a US release two years later under the moniker NES, or Nintendo Entertainment System. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Despite all of his success, Yamauchi continues to strike fear into the hearts of his employees and has been described as 'impudent', 'arrogant' and even 'sturdy'. One employee went as far as to say that his boss reminded him of the evil Motherbrain boss from Metroid.

Yamauchi has recently announced his decision to retire in the year 2000, after 51 years as President. He will certainly go down in history as one of the true pioneers of the videogames industry.