Hiroshi Yamauchi was the most important president at Nintendo. This man lead the company with an iron fist for a whopping 53 years before he handed over the reins to the current president, Satoru Iwata. Yamauchi is known for ripping Nintendo from the days of selling playing cards to manufacturing video game consoles, which ultimately changed many lives.

To give you an idea how long Yamauchi was the head of Nintendo, he oversaw the creation of every single Nintendo console right up until the GameCube, let that sink in for a little bit fanboys. We’re certain Mr. Yamauchi died a proud man as Nintendo has wrestled its way back to the top of the video game food chain, and the company did it without using space bending technology in its devices.

However, at the moment Nintendo is in trouble as the Wii U is not selling as well as the company would have wanted. Still, with the announcement of great contents scheduled for release later in the year, and the recent release of Pikmin 3, Nintendo could yet again be on the verge of wiping the floor with the competing next gen consoles from Microsoft and Sony.

Let’ hope the spirit of Yamauchi keeps Nintendo going and never enabling the company to go the way of Nokia.

[via Nikkei, image via SP]