KYOTO  — Masayuki Uemura, lead architect for the breakthrough Nintendo Entertainment System and the Super NES, and a visiting professor at Ritsumeikan University, has died, the university said Dec. 9. He was 78.

After joining Nintendo Co. in 1971, Uemura was in charge of developing the NES and its successor the SNES.

Both consoles, known in Japan as “Famicom,” an abbreviation of family computer, became huge hits with combined sales of 100 million units worldwide.

The mega hit propelled Nintendo to become one of the world’s leading video game companies.

The cause of Uemura’s death on Dec. 6 was not released.