Yamauchi’s Harsh Criticism of Square Enix’s Nintendo Games
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Hiroshi Yamauchi: The Tough Negotiator Behind Nintendo’s Success
Hiroshi Yamauchi, the last member of the Yamauchi clan to lead Nintendo as the end of the last century, helmed the company from 1949 untill 2002, when he passed the leadership to Satoru Iwata. He passed away in 2013, aged 85, and is remembered for two key achievements: transforming a local card manufacturer into a global video game giant, and being an incredibly tough negotiator.
Ten years after his passing, Yamauchi-san was wonderfully portrayed by Togo Igawa in The Tetris Movie, a tribute reflecting his hard-nosed negotiation tactics in the mid-1980s.
Now, Tetris’ chairman Hank Rogers, whose personal story inspired the film, has published the book The perfect Game: Tetris: From Russia With Love.This book not only clarifies the events depicted in the film based on the true story but also expands the narrative to include numerous side stories that ultimately led to the meeting with Alexey Pajitnov and the launch of Tetris in the West.
One especially compelling anecdote occurred several years before that pivotal meeting, when Hank had already begun working as a publisher in Japan, and he “dared to ask” Yamauchi-san for a publishing license for a Go game.
“Yeah, so the teaser is this”, he told Gamereactor when asked to preview his favorite anecdote in the video…