The Death of Kazuhisa Hashimoto

Up , Down , Up , Down , Left , Right , Left , Right , B , A , true gamers will know this code by heart as the Konami Code. Created by Kazuhisa Hashimoto for consoles such as Nintendo entertainment system that was widely used in the 1980’s and granted players extra lives , unlimited strength and additional firepower has sadly passed away at 61.

Originally made for Gradius for the NES in 1986. It was made because Kazuhisa was finding the game too hard to play while testing the games so he made a code to give players a full set of power ups and just simply forgot to remove it. The mistake discovered after the release of the game was then left in as removing it could result in bugs or glitches. He said in a 2003 interview “I hadn’t played that much and obviously couldn’t beat it myself, so I put in the Konami code, because I was the one who was going to be using it, I made sure it was easy to remember.”

Made famous when he reused the code in Contra (1988) where it grants players 30 additional lives if entered at the title screen. Since then , this has gone to become one of the most popular culture references around the world that are used as easter eggs even till date in certain games , still used after over three decades even being used in games outside of Konami such as Mario Kart and more famously in games like Bioshock Infinite and Borderlands 2. Not only games but even movies like the hit disney movie Wreck-it-Ralph has a character use it as a password.

His death was confirmed by his friend Yuji Takenouchi who lends his skills on games like Dark Souls and also an official spokesperson for Konami (where Kazuhisa Hashimoto had worked for several decades) tweeted “We pray for the souls. As someone who got on the same boat and shared a little time, the obituary was a bit painful, please keep making games in heaven. Thank you very much.”

The company tweeted “We are saddened to hear about the passing of Kazuhisa Hashimoto, a deeply talented producer who first introduced the world to the Konami Code, our thoughts are with Hashimoto-san’s family and friends at this time. Rest in peace.”