Masaya Nakamura, the founder of Japanese video game company Namco, has died at age 91. Nakamura is widely known as the "Father of Pac-Man" for his role in bringing the arcade classic—created by designer Toru Iwatani in 1980—to Japan and to the US via a licensing deal with Midway.

Nakamura originally founded the company as Nakamura Manufacturing, selling coin-operated children's rides to a department store in Yokohama, Japan. He later changed the name of the company to Nakamura Amusement Machine Manufacturing Company (NAMMCo!) and began producing electromechanical arcade machines like 1976's Namco F-1.

Namco hit the big time when Nakamura shrewdly purchased the struggling Atari Japan from owner Nolan Bushnell for $500,000—far higher than the $80,000 offered by Sega. The deal granted Namco an exclusive license to distribute Atari's games in Japan for ten years and led to the development and release of original games such as Gee Bee and Galaxian.

The release of Pac-Man (known as Puck-Man in Japan) cemented Namco's place as the leader in arcade games. Pac-Man has since become a pop-culture icon. Guinness World Records has named it the world's most successful coin-operated arcade game.

Nakamura continued to hold an honorary position at Bandai Namco, a company formed in 2005 from a merger between Namco and Japanese toy maker Bandai, until his death on January 22. He was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun in 2007 by the Japanese government for his achievements.