is a Japanese businessman and executive who is the sixth and sitting president of the video game company

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles. The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi ...

. He succeeded

Tatsumi Kimishima is a Japanese businessman who served as the 5th president of Nintendo from September 2015 to June 2018. He was formerly the president of Nintendo of America from January 2002, succeeding Minoru Arakawa, until Reggie Fils-Aimé took his place in ...

for the position in June 2018.

Early life

Furukawa was born in

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

, Japan, on January 10, 1972. He grew up playing games on Nintendo's

Famicom The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on 15 July 1983 as the and was later released as the redesigned NES in several test markets in the ...

console, mainly third party games such as

Nobunaga's Ambition is a series of turn-based grand strategy role-playing simulation video games developed and published by Koei (now Koei Tecmo). The original game was one of the first in its genre, being released in March 1983 in Japan. ''Nobunaga's Ambitio ...

and baseball games like Super Batter Up, not Nintendo games, until he was recommended by another student to play

Super Mario Kart is a 1992 kart racing game developed and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). The first game in the ''Mario Kart'' series, it was released in Japan and North America in 1992, and in Europe the following yea ...

, making it the reason he became interested in joining. Furukawa is a graduate of

Kunitachi is a city located in the western portion of the Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 76,423 in 38,825 households, and a population density of 9,400 persons per km2. Approximately 41.9% of the city population is over ...

Senior High School, and graduated from

Waseda University Waseda University (Japanese: ), abbreviated as or , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the Tōkyō Professional School by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the fifth Prime Minister of Japan, prime ministe ...

's School of Political Science and Economics in 1994. Furukawa is fluent in English.

Career

In April 1994, he joined Nintendo and worked as an

accountant An accountant is a practitioner of accounting or accountancy. Accountants who have demonstrated competency through their professional associations' certification exams are certified to use titles such as Chartered Accountant, Chartered Certif ...

at the European headquarters for a decade. In May 2012 he became an outside director in the board of directors of the partly owned

The Pokémon Company , simply known as Pokémon is a Japanese company responsible for brand management, production, publishing, marketing, and licensing of the ''Pokémon'' franchise, which consists of video games, a trading card game, anime television series, f ...

as the Nintendo representative, due to the company owning 32% shares in the joint venture, until 2018 when

Satoru Shibata is the senior executive officer, general manager of marketing and licensing for Nintendo, as well as the outside director of The Pokémon Company. He was named president of Nintendo of Europe when ''Shigeru Ota'' left in August 2000 until 30 ...

succeed him in the position. In July 2015, he was promoted to senior director, corporate planning department. In June 2016, with some company restructuring he joined the Nintendo Board of Directors and as the Managing Executive Officer of the Corporate Analysis & Administration Division. In September 2016 he also became in charge of Global Marketing Department prior to the launch of the new console, which he was involved in the marketing, development and release of the

Nintendo Switch The is a video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. Released in the middle of the Eighth generation of video game consoles, eighth generation of home consoles, the Switch succeeded the ...

. On June 28, 2018, he succeeded

to become the sixth company president in Nintendo's history.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Furukawa, Shuntaro Living people 1972 births Japanese chairpersons of corporations Japanese chief executives Japanese video game businesspeople Nintendo people Businesspeople from Tokyo Waseda University alumni 21st-century Japanese businesspeople Proprietary technology salespersons