Masafumi Miyamoto

Masafumi Miyamoto (宮本 雅史, Miyamoto Masafumi, born 1957) was the founder of Square in 1983. Initially, he was the president of the company which was a subsidiary of Denyuusha (which was owned by his father). While at the time game development was usually conducted by only one programmer, Miyamoto believed that it would be more efficient to have graphic designers, programmers and professional story writers working together on common projects. His initial staff was composed solely of university students working for him on a part-time basis. Two of his first staff members were Hironobu Sakaguchi and Hiromichi Tanaka, both of whom quit university to work at Square full-time after Square's first game The Death Trap was released.

In 1992, he left the company to pursue other interests, and Tetsuo Mizuno replaced him as president of Square. On departure, he still owned 50% of his company.

During the discussion of the merger of Square and Enix in 2002, his approval of the merger was essential because of his major stake in Square. When the merger went through, .81 shares of Square resulted in 1 share of Enix.