The Nintendo Entertainment System, which helped start a global revolution in home gaming, was developed by Masayuki Uemura. He died at 78.
The Center for Game Studies was led by Mr. Uemura at the University. No other information was given.
The market for video game consoles collapsed in the early 1980s due to poor quality control and uninspired software that did not provide the thrills of arcade hits like Space Invaders. Retailers decided that home gaming systems had no future after truckloads of unsold game consoles ended up in landfills.
The Nintendo Entertainment System was released in the United States in 1985. The gray box with its distinctive controllers became a must-have for an entire generation of children and prompted Nintendo to have a virtual monopoly over the industry for the better part of a decade.
The Nintendo system was released in Japan in 1983. The Super Nintendo was one of the lesser-known products for the company.
The quality of Nintendo software was a factor in the United States, but the hardware created by Uemura would never have made it into the hearts of gaming fans in Japan.
He was an architect of the global game industry.
The machine made Nintendo one of the most profitable companies in Japan, and the games it ran, like Super Mario Brothers and The Legend of Zelda, have become classic franchises.
The success of the video game console led to the development of the $40 billion console gaming market.
On June 20, 1943, Masayuki Uemura was born in Tokyo. The family was moved to Kyoto in order to avoid the bombing raids that ravaged Japan during World War II.
He showed an interest in technical things when he was a child. Mr. Uemura said in an interview with Hitotsubashi University that he built his own radio from components purchased for him by a student who was boarding with his family. He built his own pachinko machine, a game that resembles a fusion of slots and pinball, after earning money carrying firewood down from the mountains.
After graduating from high school, he studied electrical engineering and wanted to design color televisions.
He was recruited to join Nintendo in 1971 by Gunpei Yokoi, the head engineer at the time. It was a small maker of playing cards and other traditional Japanese games with an ambition to create innovative new toys.
Mr. Uemura was inspired by Nintendo. He took the job because Sharp was going to send him to the United States without his wife.
His decision to stay in Japan was a big deal for himself and Nintendo.
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The Nintendo Entertainment System was released in the early 1980s. The console really took off with the later introduction of Super Mario Brothers.
Nintendo was riding high on the popularity of the arcade game Donkey Kong in the U.S. market, so the company's president asked Mr. Uemura to create an affordable entertainment system that would bring the arcade experience home.
The Famicom was a red and white box. The Famicom had smooth animation that was almost like a cartoon. It looked like the one in the arcade. It could play music, unlike the other gaming systems.
In Japan, just a few hundred thousand units of the console were sold in the first year. Mr. Uemura admitted that he was skeptical that the Famicom would succeed. The early version of the system had a lot of problems, one of which was the square buttons on the controllers.
When his son told his classmates that his father was the designer, Mr. Uemura was able to see the potential of the system.
He told Weekly Famitsu magazine that there were so many requests that he realized that the thing was really selling.
The system took off after the introduction of Super Mario Brothers. Mr. Uemura told Nintendo Dream Web that it was likegasoline on a fire.
Nintendo became a giant not just of gaming but also of Japanese industry after he created an upgraded and redesign of Famicom for the American market. David Sheff wrote in his book " Game Over: How Nintendo Conquered the World" that the company was using 3 percent of Japan's chip manufacturing capacity and making more money than all the American movie studios combined.
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The Famicom allowed people to play Donkey Kong at home rather than in an arcade.
Mr. Uemura was asked to design another upgrade. The Super Famicom sold more than 49 million units worldwide, cementing Nintendo's reputation as the world's most influential game company and one of the most successful entertainment businesses of all time.
Mr. Uemura was the director of the Center for Game Studies at the time of his death.
His survivors were not immediately available.
Mr. Uemura said in an interview with the video game website that working on the Famicom project had changed him.
He said that he used to be just an office grunt, but then he ran into toys and changed his outlook on life.
