The gaming industry has been struck just recently with a sad news. One of the prominent persons in the gaming industry has just passed away and it is Masaya Nakamura. The late Masaya Nakamura was the founder of Namco Limited corporation and is known as the Father of Pac-man.
Namco Limited, as well as the entire gaming industry, has just suffered a loss as another one of the great minds behind several of the classic great games bites the dust. Masaya Nakamura has reportedly passed away on Jan. 22 at the age of 91. Unfortunately, the news was revealed late has Bandai Namco only announced his passing on Jan. 30 since his family wanted this time of mourning to be as private as possible, even not disclosing his cause of death.
Masaya Nakamura may be the founder of the Namco Limited, the third largest company in Japan that ventures in developing video games, but he is widely known to be the person who gave life to one of the most popular video game characters of all time, Pac-Man. Masaya Nakamura developed the first "Pac-Man" video game and released it on arcade in May 1980. “Pac-Man” actually was recognized by the Guinness World Record, naming the said arcade video game as the world’s most successful one that was coin-operated. Becoming one of the most popular arcade games, it has also spawned sequel spinoffs such as “Ms. Pac-Man”, which was another arcade game but was released in 1981.
Aside from video games that starred Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man, he was also known for being the brains behind the arcade game called “Galaxian” that was released in 1979. Masaya Nakamura paved way for many opportunities for several video game titles to expand. He ventured on pioneering some of the most successful video games to this day, seeing the potential in them. He invested not just on arcade video games but on handheld gaming consoles as well when the successes of “Tekken” and “Ridge Racer” in the early 1990s took place.
