Namco founder, pioneer of Japan’s arcade industry, dies at 91

When I went to Japan in December, I spent some quality time in a Namco arcade. Japan still has a number of arcades, and many feature one of the games that started it all: Pac-Man. And Bandai Namco announced sadly that one of the people who helped build the industry, Namco founder Masaya Nakamura, has died.

Nakamura was 91, and he was one of the pioneers of Japan’s arcade industry. He founded his first company in 1955. He acquired Atari’s struggling Japan subsidiary, and then he renamed the company as the Nakamura Amusement Machine Manufacturing Co., or Namco, in 1977.