Masaya Nakamura, a Japanese toy and game entrepreneur whose company's most enduring creation, Pac-Man, became a worldwide cultural touchstone has died aged 91. His death was announced by Bandai Namco, the business where he retained the title of honorary adviser.
Mr Nakamura began making a business of amusement in 1955. A decade after Japan's calamitous defeat in World War II, the country's economy was springing back to life, and the sombre mood of the first post-war decade was retreating. Japanese were ready to embrace fun and games again.
![It is estimated that Pac-Man has been played more than 10 billion times since its release in 1980.](/web/20170201025126im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/1/t/r/v/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gu2wjj.png/1485912430852.jpg)
His first venture – installing two wooden horses for children to ride on the roof of a department store – was simple, and turned into a modest success.
Rooftops gave him more success as time went on. In the early 1960s, he secured a deal with Mitsukoshi, a leading Japanese department store chain, to install another children's ride, this one using small replica automobiles running on tracks, on the roof of its flagship Tokyo location. The attraction, Roadway Rides, proved popular and Mitsukoshi commissioned it for all of its stores.
![Masaya Nakamura, known as "the Father of Pac-Man" in Tokyo, 1997.](/web/20170201025126im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/2/v/l/m/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gu2wjj.png/1485912430852.jpg)
Real fame and fortune came later, with the rise of video games. Nakamura was an early believer in their potential. In the 1970s he hired software engineers and directed his growing company, Nakamura Manufacturing – later renamed Namco – to develop titles for arcades. His first hit was Galaxian, a Space Invaders derivative that he sold to the American company Midway Games in 1979. Pac-Man was born the next year.
It was conceived by a 25-year-old Namco employee, Toru Iwatani, who later said that he was inspired by the shape of a pizza with a slice missing. The "Pac" came from the Japanese onomatopoeic word "pakku," equivalent to the English "gobble" or "munch".
And as fast as Pac-Man could gobble up pellets in his maze, players gobbled up Pac-Man.
"I never thought it would be this big," Mr Nakamura told an interviewer in 1983, after the game took the world by storm. "You know baseball? Well, I knew it would not be a single. But I thought maybe a double, not a home run."
The game spawned spinoffs (Ms Pac-Man, among others), an animated television series and voluminous merchandise. The Buckner and Garcia novelty song Pac-Man Fever reached No.9 on the Billboard singles chart in 1982.
In the 36 years since its release, it is estimated to have been played more than 10 billion times. The Smithsonian Institution and the Museum of Modern Art have Pac-Man machines in their collections.
Nakamura tested Namco's products intensively. Employees said he would play for up to 23 hours a day before a game's introduction. Despite that habit – or perhaps because of it – he warned against what today would be called screen addiction.
Nakamura led Namco until 2002, when he took on a more ceremonial role. When Namco merged with a rival toy and game maker, Bandai, in 2005, public tax records indicated Mr Nakamura was Japan's 68th-richest person.
Born in Yokohama, Japan, on December 24, 1925, Nakamura attended what is now Yokohama National University. He studied shipbuilding, according to a short resume provided by Bandai Namco.
The company did not release information on survivors, citing what it said was his family's wish for privacy.
New York Times