Hiroshi Yamauchi (November 7, 1927 – September 19, 2013) was a Japanese businessman. He was the third president of Nintendo, joining the company in 1949 until stepping down on May 31, 2002, to be succeeded by Satoru Iwata. Yamauchi is credited with transforming Nintendo from a small hanafuda card-making company inJapan to a multi-billion dollar video game company. He also became the majority owner of the Seattle Mariners baseball team in 1992; the current CEO of the Mariners is former Nintendo of America chairman Howard Lincoln.