Kazuhiko Nishi (西 和彦, Nishi Kazuhiko?, born February 10, 1956 in Kobe, Japan) launched ASCII magazine. Gradually ASCII started to publish software solutions too. Later he become Bill Gates' friend and in charge of Microsoft's Far Eastern operations.
In 1986, Kazuhiko Nishi's Gate's path become separate and he left Microsoft to devote himself mostly to ASCII Corporation to develop the MSX standard together with NEC executive Kazuya Watanabe. ASCII was once the biggest multimedia empire on the west side of the Pacific, but after its expansion and failure, it became a subsidiary of Kadokawa Group Holdings in 2004, and merged with another Kadokawa subsidiary MediaWorks on April 1, 2008, and became ASCII Media Works. Since 1986 Nishi has written for newspapers and authored a number of books. He sat in several committees on behalf of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications and of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, and he is presently a member of the Committee for World Economy in the 21st Century. Mr. Nishi is the president of MSX Association, a private organization originating from an assembly of people with affinity with the MSX standard, and the president of Digital do MaiN, audio engineering company.
In 2005, Mr. Nishi ran unsuccessfully for president of a small university in rural Japan.