The Museum

Human Stories

Behind every console and cartridge, a person made a decision. These are the stories of those decisions — written not as biography, but as the life lessons that still travel forward.

  1. The Man Who Asked What He'd Built

    Masayuki Uemura — The engineer who designed the Famicom.

    July 15, 1983 — a grey box, ¥14,800

  2. The Programmer Who Became President

    Satoru Iwata — The man who never stopped being a programmer, even when his business card said president.

    December 1992 — Yamanashi, Japan

  3. The Cave and the Garden

    Shigeru Miyamoto — The boy who spent a summer inside a cave, and grew up to put that feeling into a game.

    Summer, circa 1961 — Sonobe, Kyoto

  4. The Final Wager

    Hironobu Sakaguchi — The man who named his last hope 'Final Fantasy' — and then had to keep making it.

    December 18, 1987 — Tokyo

  5. Tajiri's Six-Year Bet

    Satoshi Tajiri — The man who turned his childhood bug-hunting into Pokémon.

    February 27, 1996 — Tokyo

  6. Yamauchi at Twenty-One

    Hiroshi Yamauchi — The 21-year-old who took over Nintendo and ran it for 53 years.

    April 25, 1949 — Kyoto

  7. Yokoi's Last Morning

    Gunpei Yokoi — The Nintendo engineer who designed the Game Boy.

    October 4, 1997 — Hokuriku Expressway, Ishikawa Prefecture