Masaya Nakamura who founded the company that eventually created arcade hit “Pac-Man” has passed away. He was 91-years-old.
From the Montreal Gazette:
TOKYO – Masaya Nakamura, the “Father of Pac-Man” who founded the Japanese video game company behind the hit creature-gobbling game, has died. He was 91.Nakamura, who died on Jan. 22, founded Namco, part of Bandai Namco, in 1955. It started out as just two mechanical horse rides on a department store rooftop but went on to pioneer game arcades and amusement parks.Bandai Namco, formed in 2005 from a merger of two game companies, confirmed Monday that Nakamura had died.Pac-Man, designed by Namco engineer and video game maker Toru Iwatani, went on sale in 1980, at a time when there were few rival games, such as Space Invaders. The plucky yellow circle with the huge mouth was a huge hit.It’s estimated to have been played more than 10 billion times: Guinness World Record has named it the world’s most successful coin-operated arcade game.The game was non-violent but just challenging enough to hook players into steering the Pac-Man for hours through its mazes on the hunt for ghostly tidbits.The iconic Pac-Man adorns T-shirts and other merchandise and inspired animation shows, a breakfast cereal and even the nickname for Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao.The idea for Pac-Man’s design came from the image of a pizza with a slice carved out. Nakamura reportedly chose the word “Pac,” or “pakku” in Japanese, to represent the sound of the Pac-Man munching its prey.”Pac-Man is a gamer friendly game with tons of cute characters and that’s why it was loved for such a long time,” Iwatani said in 2015 at a New York red carpet premiere of “Pixels,” that featured Pac-Man creatures and featured him in a cameo role.
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