Masayuki Uemura

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Masayuki Uemura (上村 雅之, Masayuki Uemura^? born 1943) is a Japanese game hardware designer. Due to the bombings in Japan in that era, his family was forced to move to Kyoto. Having little money, he was forced to make his own toys. His toys became more and more complex, and he wanted to learn more, so he went to industrial college. Once he graduated, Sharp Corporation hired him immediately.

One day, Sharp sent him on a sales call to Nintendo to see if they wanted solar cells, which caught the eyes of Gunpei Yokoi because these cells can be used in their entertainment products. Yokoi kept in touch with Uemara, and eventually hired him away from Sharp.

These solar cells were used in the Nintendo beam gun games. They put these games on the market to the consumer, which turned out to be a success for Nintendo.

When Hiroshi Yamauchi split Nintendo's Research and Development into three groups (which later became four), Uemura became the head of Nintendo's Research and Development 2 team. This team focused exclusively on hardware, it is better known for designing the NES and SNES consoles, but it also was responsible for the NES Zapper and other peripherals involved in playing their games. The R&D2 also made a few games, but were not as prominent as the other development teams. Uemura retired from Nintendo in 2004.