OREANDA-NEWS.  Masayuki Uemura, the creator of Japan's Nintendo game consoles, has passed away at the age of 79. This was reported by NHK.

According to the channel, Uemura passed away on Monday, December 6, but this has only become known now. No cause of death has been released.

Masayuki Uemura was born in Tokyo during World War II, but because of constant bombings his family moved to Kyoto, where he later graduated from Ritsumeikan University. Uemura's first job was with Sharp, where he worked on projects involving solar cells. During one of his working meetings, when Sharp sent Uemura to negotiate a deal with Nintendo to sell his technology, he met game designer and engineer Gumpei Yokoi. The latter eventually offered Uemura a job with him.

Uemura joined Nintendo in 1971, later becoming a major figure in Nintendo's "golden age" of gaming. He was responsible for the technical development of the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and the 16-bit Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). Uemura was the longtime head of Research & Development 2 (R&D2) at Nintendo.

The engineer left Nintendo in 2004, retaining his status as a consultant to the company. He then became a professor at Ritsumeikan University, where he founded the Video Game Research Centre.