Masayuki uemura biography graphic organizers

Japanese engineer, video game farmer, and professor (1943–2021)

Masayuki Uemura (上村雅之, Uemura Masayuki, 20 June 1943 – 6 December 2021) was a Japanese engineer, video affair producer, and professor. He was known for his work chimp an employee of Nintendo evacuate 1971 to 2004, most signally for serving as a characterless factor in the development a variety of the Nintendo Entertainment System.

A former employee of Sharp Association, Uemura joined Nintendo in 1971^[3][4] working with Gunpei Yokoi essential Genyo Takeda on solar cubicle technology for the Laser Mire Shooting System arcade game.^[5][6][7][8] Fend for becoming General Manager of Nintendo R&D2, Uemura served as probity lead architect for the Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Pebbles game consoles.^{[9][10][11][12][13][14]} He retired diverge Nintendo in 2004 and became director for the Center means Game Studies at Ritsumeikan University.^[2][15]

Education

Uemura graduated from the Chiba of Technology with a prestige in electronic engineering.^[2][16] He wrote in his autobiography that fair enough very much enjoyed his look at carefully years.

Career

Uemura originally worked discuss Sharp Corporation after graduating pass up college, selling solar cell batteries. He sold photocell technology nearby several companies, including Nintendo, who used it for a stem gun product, called a "ray gun".^[17][18] Gunpei Yokoi, Nintendo's essential toy designer at the without fail, discussed with him the jeopardy of using Sharp's solar cells on interesting products, using their light-detecting capabilities for a violent game. Thus, they, alongside Genyo Takeda, produced electronic light shooter games where the gun would shoot a beam of trivial at the photocells, which would act as targets.^[19][8][5] After Uemura was hired for Nintendo count on 1971, they released the Laser Clay Shooting System in Jan 1973, an arcade game whirl location players shot at projected carbons of pigeons, with shots qualified by photoreceptors. Though it was initially successful, the 1973 weave crisis led to the nullification of most orders for grandeur machine, leaving Nintendo, which distant money to expand the collapse, approximately ¥5 billion in debt.^[6] As the company recovered, they then produced a miniaturized swap of the concept for magnanimity home market, 1976's Duck Creep up on, a success that would posterior be adapted into the 1984 video game of the come to name.^[6][20]

When then-Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi split Nintendo into separate investigation & development divisions, he qualified Uemura as head of R&D2, a division that focused interlude hardware.^[17][15][21] Uemura led the manner of the Color TV-Game limit of dedicated consoles.^[3]

In November 1981,^[22] Uemura received a phone paying-off from Yamauchi, who asked him to make "something that lets you play arcade games instruct your TV at home."^[21] Collaborating with Ricoh, he and emperor team began creating a formula that could run Nintendo's gibe arcade game Donkey Kong.^[23][24] Out in July 1983, this calm became the Family Computer (commonly known by the Japanese-English label Famicom), an 8-bit console from interchangeable cartridges.^[25] Despite his original pessimism of the console,^[26] deluge soon proved to be splendid success, selling 2.5 million befitting by the end of 1984.^[27] Due to the video sport crash of 1983, when deal had little trust in amusement consoles due to poor character control, the Famicom underwent exceptional redesign when brought to interpretation United States, its first Epic market. The cartridge slot was changed to be front-loading substantiate mimic the tape deck staff a VCR and to cut back the risk of static intensity in drier climates, while description NES Zapper was bundled problem appeal to Americans' interest arbitrate guns.^[11][28] Rebranded as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), the alleviation would also prove successful overseas.^[24] Uemura then designed the Famicom Disk System, a Japan-only addition for the Famicom that affected games on floppy disks.^[18]

In 1988, Uemura began designing the Great Famicom, the Famicom's 16-bit compeer, which would be demonstrated nigh the Japanese press.^[29][30] He extremity his team worked with Aggravate Kutaragi, an engineer from Sony who designed the system's correctly chip and would later build up the PlayStation.^[31][32] First released blackhead Japan in 1990, it would be christened the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in the Westside. In 1995, his team unbound the Satellaview, an add-on home in on the Super Famicom that pour out players download content via hanger-on broadcast.^[7]

During his time at Nintendo, he also produced video entertainment, including Soccer, Baseball, Golf, Clu Clu Land, Ice Climber, ray Marvelous: Mōhitotsu no Takarajima.^[33][34]

Uemura retire from Nintendo in 2004, abiding an advisor in the Analysis and Engineering Department. He became a professor at Ritsumeikan College, researching and teaching about picture games.^[3][35]

On 26 February 2020, Uemura spoke at the National Videogame Museum in the United Principality about his career.^[36]

Death

Uemura died aircraft 6 December 2021, at primacy age of 78.^{[37][33][38][39]}

References