Hiroshi Yamauchi

Hiroshi Yamauchi (山内 溥) (November 7, 1927 – September 19, 2013) was the third president of Nintendo, serving from 1949-2002, a total of 53 years. He was succeeded by the late Satoru Iwata. Yamauchi is credited with transforming Nintendo from the hanafuda card-making company it was founded as, into the multibillion-dollar video game corporation that it is today. At the time of his death, Yamauchi was also the largest shareholder at Nintendo.

In 1970, Hiroshi Yamauchi, the third president of Nintendo, was observing a Nintendo hanafuda factory. He noticed an extending arm, which was made by one of their maintenance engineers, Gunpei Yokoi, for his own amusement. Yamauchi ordered Yokoi to develop it as a product for the Christmas rush. The Ultra Hand was a huge success, selling approximately 1.2 million units, causing Yokoi to be moved from maintenance duty to product development. Yokoi would later go on to be a part of the creation of the Metroid series, and be involved in the first three games before his death.

Yamauchi was the executive producer of Super Metroid. His credit was unused, however, for unknown reasons.