Kazuhisa Hashimoto, the inventor of the world-famous Konami Code has sadly died, according to a number of online sources.
Hashimoto is probably not a name that a lot of gamers will immediately recognise, and his name is rarely included when considering who might be among the industry's most important contributors. But his work's legacy cannot be understated.
Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A and Start is a cheat code that transcended games and bled into popular culture after its initial use in the 1986 NES port of the arcade shooter Gradius. Codes like this were initially used by developers to test out portions of a game or potential new pieces of code, but it didn't take long before players started finding out about (and utilising) them for themselves.
The rumour goes (via Nintendolife) that Hashimoto was struggling to get through the game while porting it to the Famicom - the name for the NES in its home turf of Japan - so he invented the code to give himself back-door access. And then he accidentally left it in when the game went out on sale.
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Konami decided to leave the code in the game fearing the mass complications of removing it, and eventually put the code in most of their games (with many non-Konami games following suit) as the use of it by consumers became more popular.
The initial news of Kazuhisa Hashimoto's sad passing was confirmed by one-time Konami composer Yuji Takenouchi on his Twitter account.
The rough English translation reads "Programmer Kazuhisa Hashimoto, the creator of the Konami command 'Top, Bottom, Left, Right, Left and Right BA', died last night. We pray for the souls."
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Without this simple input command, millions of gamers would have been deprived of the ability to play games on their own terms throughout the 80s and 90s, creating cherished memories and compounding the Konami Code's place in gaming folklore. The man who created it may have passed, but his legacy will endure with all of us. RIP.
Featured Image Credit: KonamiTopics: Konami
