Masayuki Uemura (上村雅之, Uemura Masayuki; 20 June 1943 – 6 December 2021) was a Japanese engineer, video game producer, and professor. He worked for Nintendo from 1971 to 2004 and played an important role in creating the Family Computer.

Before joining Nintendo, Uemura was employed by Sharp Corporation. At Nintendo, he worked with Gunpei Yokoi and Genyo Takeda to develop solar cell technology for the Laser Clay Shooting System arcade game. Later, as General Manager of Nintendo R&D2, he was the main designer for the Family Computer and Super Famicom video game consoles. In 2004, Uemura retired from Nintendo and became a director at the Center for Game Studies at Ritsumeikan University.

Education

Uemura finished school at the Chiba Institute of Technology with a degree in electronic engineering. He wrote in his book about his life that he really enjoyed the time when he was studying.

Career

After graduating from college, Uemura worked at Sharp Corporation, where he sold solar cell batteries. He also sold light-sensitive technology to companies, including Nintendo, which used it for a light gun called a "ray gun." Gunpei Yokoi, Nintendo's main toy designer, talked with Uemura about using Sharp's solar cells in new products. They worked with Genyo Takeda to create electronic light gun games. In these games, players used a gun to shoot a light beam at targets that used the solar cells. In 1971, Uemura joined Nintendo. In 1973, they released the Laser Clay Shooting System, an arcade game where players shot at images of pigeons. The game used photoreceptors to detect shots. Although the game was successful at first, the 1973 oil crisis caused most orders to be canceled. This left Nintendo with about ¥5 billion in debt. Later, Nintendo made a smaller version of the game for home use, called Duck Hunt, which became popular and was later adapted into a 1984 video game.

When Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi divided the company into research and development groups, he made Uemura head of R&D2, a group focused on hardware. Uemura led the creation of the Color TV-Game line of consoles.

In November 1981, Yamauchi called Uemura and asked him to develop a system that let people play arcade games on their TVs at home. Uemura and his team, working with Ricoh, created a console that could run Nintendo's popular arcade game Donkey Kong. Released in July 1983, the console became the Family Computer (Famicom), an 8-bit system that used interchangeable cartridges. Though Uemura was unsure about its success at first, the console sold 2.5 million units by the end of 1984. Due to the 1983 video game crash, which caused distrust in consoles because of poor quality, the Famicom was redesigned for the United States. The cartridge slot was changed to be front-loading, like a VCR, and the NES Zapper was added to attract American buyers. Renamed the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), the console was successful in Western markets. Uemura also designed the Family Computer Disk System, an add-on for the Famicom that used floppy disks to play games.

In 1988, Uemura began designing the Super Famicom, a 16-bit version of the Famicom. He worked with Ken Kutaragi, a Sony engineer who later helped create the PlayStation. The Super Famicom was released in Japan in 1990 and renamed the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in the West. In 1995, Uemura's team released the Satellaview, an add-on for the Super Famicom that allowed players to download games via satellite.

During his time at Nintendo, Uemura also created video games such as Soccer, Baseball, Golf, Clu Clu Land, Ice Climber, and Marvelous: Mōhitotsu no Takarajima.

Uemura retired from Nintendo in 2004 but stayed as an advisor in the Research and Engineering Department. He later became a professor at Ritsumeikan University, where he taught and researched video games.

On February 26, 2020, Uemura spoke at the National Videogame Museum in the United Kingdom about his career.