Yamauchi Relinquishes Final Role At Nintendo

Nintendo ex-president Hiroshi Yamauchi has announced that he plans to retire from his management position at Nintendo. The aging industry giant resigned as president and chairman of the company in May 2002, handing the reins over to current president Satoru Iwata. As the largest single stockholder in the company, Yamauchi retained a management role and was reportedly instrumental in the basic design and concept of the Nintendo DS portable. Noted for his plain talking and sometimes antagonistic tone, even towards his own products and employees, Yamauchi will still retain his consultant role at the company – although what, if any, input he will have on Nintendo’s next generation home console is unclear at this point. However, with the machine presumably almost finalized, Yamauchi’s influence is likely to extend well into the next generation, at least. Yamauchi will step down on June 29th, after a lifetime at the company which he moved into the nascent video games business in the late 1970s. His influence on the company in recent years is still considerable, despite Iwata's position as president - for example, it was Yamauchi who has spearheaded Nintendo’s expansion into the animation business starting last year.