Fusajiro Yamauchi is the founder of Nintendo in 1889. He was born on November 22, 1859, and died in January of 1940 due to a stroke. His great grandchild, Hiroshi Yamauchi, took over the company in the fifties. Fusajiro Yamauchi died 7 years before the "Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device" was patented in the United States. Yamauchi took over the company in 1949, when he was just 22 years old. Nintendo was founded in 1889 by his grandfather Fusajiro Yamauchi as a maker of hanafuda, traditional Japanese playing cards with images of flowers on their faces.

The name of the Japanese company Nintendo (任天堂) translates as "leave luck to heaven" or "the heavens decide. Yamauchi dropped out of Waseda University to lead Nintendo.