The design lead on Nintendo hardware from the Color-TV Game Series to the Satellaview has died.

Masayuki Uemura, former lead of Nintendo's R&D 2 hardware division from 1979 - 2004, passed away on December 6 at the age of 78. The death was announced by Ritsumeikan University, where Uemura founded a Game Research Centre during an academic career that began in 2004 and continued until his passing.

Uemura joined Nintendo in 1971 after starting his career at frequent Nintendo supplier Sharp. His early work focused on selling technology at Sharp that Nintendo would use in the creation of "light guns", and indirectly led to the creation of Duck Hunt. In 1979 he was appointed as the head of Nintendo's second research and development division (R&D2) by Hiroshi Yamauchi, where he led the design of the Color-TV Game series of devices. In 1981-82, R&D 2 led the charge to create a device that could play Donkey Kong and other arcade titles at home, which was the Famicom; he also designed the Western adaptation, the Nintendo Entertainment System. Following the success of the Famicom and NES, and the creation of the Famicom Disk System, Uemura also led the creation of the Super Famicom (redesigned into the Super Nintendo for Western release). Several Nintendo arcade and home titles - including Ice Climber and Clu Clu Land - were also produced by Uemura.

In 2004, Uemura stepped down from his leadership role at Nintendo, but remained on with the company in an advisory role while also serving as a professor at Ritsumeikan University.