Image via Reuters

Masayuki Uemura might not be the get-go name that comes to mind when you think of innovators at Nintendo, merely much of the company's success was thanks to his work. The engineer helped Nintendo switch from a toy company to the video game behemothic we know and dear today. He was the pb builder on both the NES and SNES projects, making him instrumental in bringing nigh the age of console gaming. Masayuki Uemura passed away on December 6 at the historic period of 78.

Uemura joined Nintendo in the mid-70s when the company was all the same focused on the card games that was their biggest business. He was instrumental in developing light gun game engineering in Nihon before he was tasked with developing home consoles for the company. In 1983, the NES, known in Nippon as the Famicom, was released and paved the style for Nintendo to become one of the biggest names in video games. The iconic SNES followed upward this success in 1990.

Uemura retired from Nintendo in 2004 after nearly 30 years with the company to take up a professor position at Ritsumeikan Academy. The university announced his passing, leaving a lasting legacy in the gaming and entertainment industries still being felt nearly 40 years afterward.