Nintendo: The Company and its Founders - Sharyland ISD

NINTENDO
MASAYUKI UEMURA
Masayuki Uemura was born
in Nara, Japan, in 1943. He
moved with his family to Kyoto
to escape the bombing during
World War II. His family was
poor, and the young Uemura
did not have toys. He used his
imagination to create toys of
his own. He even made radiocontrolled
airplanes from stray
pieces of junk he had found.
He was eventually trained
as an electronics technician,
and then got a good job at
Sharp selling electronic parts.
In 1972, he went on to lead
Research and Development
Team 2 (R & D 2) at Nintendo.
the need for wires and expensive
batteries and had the advantage of
being lightweight as well. Nintendo
tried the technology out on a
shooting game, which evolved to
the Nintendo Beam Gun. It was a
version of popular shooting games
from arcades, where players pointed
a toy gun at a screen to hit objects
on it, but it was made for home
televisions. This successful product
sold more than 1 million units.
Uemura later remarked how
Nintendo was unique among
entertainment companies in Japan.
He said Nintendo had a knack for
coming up with completely original
ideas, like the Beam Gun, while
other companies were busy trying
to adapt their products to US
versions.
SOLAR CELLS AND SHOOTING GAMES
Thinking of ways to improve and expand on ideas,
Yokoi discovered that the solar cell technology
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