Nintendo Wii makes Yamauchi Japan's richest: For

Soaring sales of Nintendo's Wii game machine have made former Nintendo chairman Hiroshi Yamauchi Japan's richest man, worth .8 billion, Forbes magazine said in its annual rankings.

The net worth of Yamauchi, 80, jumped billion in the past year -- boosting him from third place to surpass property tycoon Akira Mori, Japan's richest man last year, the magazine said.

Nintendo's Wii, with its motion-sensing controller and quirky games that attract casual users, has far outsold rival game machines such as Sony's PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360 since its launch in 2006.

Shares of Kyoto-based Nintendo have more than tripled in the past two years, boosting the value of the company to around billion, and the fortune of Yamauchi, who owns 10 percent.

Mori, whose Mori Trust is one of the Tokyo's biggest landlords fell to second spot with a net worth of .7 billion, the magazine said.

Kunio Busujima, the 83-year-old founder of pachinko gambling machine maker Sankyo Co Ltd, was third with a net worth of .4 billion, Forbes said.

A new arrival to Forbes' Japan 40 Richest List is a 32-year-old Kenji Kasahara, who created social networking site Mixi, Forbes said.

Forbes said its rich lists calculations were based on public share prices and its own estimates of privately held wealth.

《福布斯》杂志日前公布了日本年度富豪榜，由于“任天堂”Wii游戏机的热销，“任天堂”前任董事长山内溥以78亿美元的身价成为日本首富。

据《福布斯》介绍，今年80岁的山内溥的个人净资产在过去一年中暴涨30亿美元，超过去年的首富、地产大亨森章，从去年的第三位一跃成为今年的冠军。

任天堂Wii游戏机以其独有的动作感应控制器以及有趣多变的游戏吸引了大批普通用户，自2006年推出至今，它的销量已远远超过其竞争对手索尼的PS3和微软的Xbox 360。

“任天堂”公司总部位于京都，该公司股价在过去两年中涨了两倍多，其总市值达到约79亿美元，而拥有10%股份的山内溥的个人资产也随之暴涨。

地产大亨森章今年的排名下滑至第二位，他的个人净资产为77亿美元。森章的“森章信托”公司是东京房地产业的几大巨头之一。

“柏青哥”赌博机制造商三协公司的创始人、83岁的杜岛邦夫以54亿美元的身价名列第三。

日本社交网站Mixi的创始人、32岁的笠原健司今年首次登上《福布斯》日本40大富豪榜。

据介绍，该富豪榜是《福布斯》杂志根据各企业的股价及其对各富豪个人总资产的估算编撰而成的。