Masaya Nakamura, “Father of Pac-Man” and an arcade games pioneer, has died at 91 in Japan.
Bandai Namco, which was partially founded by Nakamura, confirmed his Jan. 22 death on Monday. The company didn’t provide any information on the cause of death, honoring the family’s wishes, said CBS News.
As the founder of Namco for decades before it merged with Bandai in 2005, Nakamura is mostly known for his major contribution to the launching of Pac-Man, which became a staple in the video game world globally.
The New York Times called him “a Japanese toy and game entrepreneur.”
One of Nakamura’s first creations was when he installed two wooden horses on the roof of a store. The purpose behind it was for children to be able to ride the horses, with the roof aspect adding some sort of a thrill. That catapulted into a deal in the early 1960s with Mitsukoshi, a popular Japanese department store at the time.
The deal allowed him to install another children’s ride on the store’s roof. This ride was a lot more creative than the “two wooden horse” installment, as it included “small replica automobiles” which ran on tracks.
It was named Roadway Rides and Mitsukoshi would later invest in having the attraction at each of its store locations.
In the 1970s, Nakamura made his mark in the video game world when his company, Nakamura Manufacturing, now Namco, began creating titles for arcades, the Times noted.
He first scored with a space invaders game called Galaxian. His company created Pac-Man the following year.
“I never thought it would be this big, Nakamura said about Pac-Man in an interview back in 1983, according to Pacman Museum. “You know baseball? Well, I knew it would not be a single. But I thought maybe a double, not a home run.”
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