Creator of the NES and SNES Masayuki Uemura Has Died

Former Nintendo engineer and game producer Masayuki Uemura has died. Uemura is widely known as the creator of the Famicom (NES) and Super Famicom (SNES) consoles. Masayuki Uemura died on December 6, 2021, at the age of 78 years old. [Thanks, Famitsu]

Masayuki Uemura was born in Tokyo, Japan on June 20, 1943, and later joined television manufacture Sharp in 1967. Though initially starting his career researching electronic circuits, he would later move on to research semiconductors. In 1971, he joined Nintendo and helped develop its first home console: the Color TV-Game, which Nintendo released in 1977.

Afterwards, Uemura became the head of Nintendo’s second R&D division. From 1981 onwards, Uemura led the development of the NES, which ultimately led to Nintendo’s success in the video game market. Using his knowledge in semiconductors, he also developed the Famicom Disk System peripheral. Later, Uemura developed the SNES and lesser-known Satellaview satellite modem peripheral, which was only sold in Japan.

Though Uemura left Nintendo in 2004, he continued to conduct research as a professor at Ritsumeikan University’s Graduate School of Core Ethics and Frontier Sciences. He also founded the Ritsumeikan Center for Game Studies in 2011 and served as the head until March 2021. His death was announced via the RCGS’s official website.