Masayuki Uemura, The Lead Architect Behind the NES and SNES, Has Passed Away

In very unfortunate news today, Masayuki Uemura has passed away. The lead architect on both the NES and SNES was 78-years-old. Archipel, the Japanese documentary group, shared the information today on Twitter that has led to much mourning from the gaming community.

Masayuki Uemura was most known for being the designer of the Famicom/Nintendo Entertainment System as well as its successor the Super Famicom/SNES. He initially joined Nintendo in the early 1970s and worked with the technology that would be used for the light detection on the NES Zapper peripheral.

Uemura would go on to lead the hardware development division of Nintendo, R&D2, which was responsible for the development of Nintendo’s Color TV-Game line of systems.

No is no further information on his passing, but we did lose a brilliant mind today that helped to bring so much joy to the gaming world for many, many years. We at Nintendo Link mourn alongside Masayuki Uemura’s family and friends in this difficult time.

Thank you for stopping by Nintendo Link for all of your gaming news and updates. Please share any strong memories you have of playing the NES or SNES systems, and take a moment of silence some time today for Uemura-san. Happy gaming, everyone.