Masayuki Uemura – Nintendo mastermind who invented the NES and SNES consoles dies aged 78

THE inventor of the beloved Nintendo NES and SNES consoles has died at the age of 78.

Chief engineer Masayuki Uemura oversaw the development of the legendary devices after joining the gaming company in 1972.

He first worked alongside Gunpei and Genyo Takeda to create an electronic light gun used in the Japanese arcade Laser Clay Shooting System.

Masayuki was then appointed as head of Nintendo’s R&D2 division, which focused on hardware.

By 1981, he began working on the Famicom, otherwise known as the NES – allowing people to play games on a TV rather than an arcade machine.

The device was released in 1983 and was an instant hit – prompting the development of the SNES – with the consoles revolutionising video gaming and fuelling it to become a multi-billion dollar industry.

From the consoles spawned franchises such as Mario, Zelda and Donkey Kong.

The Nintendo mastermind retired from the company in 2004 – but remained an advisor in the Research and Engineering Department.

During a talk at The National Videogame Museum last year, Masayuki spoke of his time at Nintendo.

“There was something different about Nintendo,” he said, reports Eurogamer.

“Here were these very serious men thinking about the content of play.

“Other companies were importing ideas from America and adapting them to the Japanese market, only making them cheaper and smaller. But Nintendo was interested in original ideas.”