Another giant in the video game industry, Gunpei Yokoi's influence is still seen today. If not for him, the handheld gaming market wouldn't look anything like it does today. Unfortunately, despite numerous grand slam successes, Gunpei Yokoi is often known for his biggest failure. A sad fate indeed for a man whom single handedly saved one of the largest companies in the world.
Born in 1941, Gunpei Yokoi attended Doshisha University and graduated with a degree in electronics. After putting in a handful of applications at various businesses in Kyoto, Japan, he was hired by Nintendo Co., Ltd. in 1965 to help maintain the machines that were producing their Hanafuda Cards.
During the mid-1960s, Nintendo was busy trying to find a new niche market to settle into. While their Hanafuda cards were quite popular, there was only so far playing cards could take you. The company began a flurry of new business ventures including a love hotel, a taxi service and an instant rice company.
Unfortunately, none of those ideas were quite the successes the company was hoping for. This led then-president Hiroshi Yamauchi to ponder new ideas. While walking around the manufacturing floor, he noticed a young Gunpei Yokoi playing with an odd looking device. When Yamauchi spotted it, he approached the man and asked him to show him how the device works. After watching it in action, Yamauchi was very impressed and requested Yokoi to help manufacture more of them.
This was the birth of Yokoi's first major success, the Ultra Hand. The Ultra Hand helped bring Nintendo into the toy industry in 1966 and sold over a million units the following holiday season. The popularity of the toy injected new capital into the company, which they then used to attempt to compete with Tomy and Bandai, the two major toy companies in Japan.
Designed to extend your reach before breaking while grabbing a weight.
Though they were initially successful, Nintendo opted to exit the toy industry for the most part and began to focus on the development and manufacturing of electronics. With his background in it, Yokoi was brought on as the company's second game developer.
In the late-1970s, Yokoi was on a bullet train when he spotted a businessman idly punching at the buttons on his LCD calculator. This inspired Yokoi who quickly developed a handheld gaming system that could be used to pass the time. In 1980, Yokoi's first series, the Game and Watch line, was launched with quite a bit of success.
Mr. Game and Watch breaking balls once again.
The games were simple LCD games that ran on small batteries and were a gaming device that happened to have a time function which inspired the name Game and Watch. Many of them were designed with a unique clamshell design that would later be used by Nintendo for use on their Game Boy Advanced SP and Nintendo DS. Many, many different titles were launched under the Game and Watch line and the series lasted, in total, 11 years with over 40 million units sold.
During the early 1980s, Yokoi was put in charge in keeping an eye on the development of the company's new Donkey Kong game. It was at this time that he really got to know Shigeru Miyamoto and soon became the younger Miyamoto's mentor. Donkey Kong became a massive success and soon Yokoi and Miyamoto were working on a new game, their second Mario game, Mario Bros. which was released in 1983. Yokoi suggested that the game be a multiplayer game with one person controlling Mario and the other controlling Luigi.
In 1983, the gaming industry came to a screeching halt due to the infamous video game crash of that year. Many retailers were very worried over stocking video games, viewing them as a passing fad. Yokoi assisted in the development of one of the Famicom's/NES' main selling points, the Robotic Operating Buddy, popularly known as R.O.B.
Yes, you could program him to grab you a beer.
After distribution negotiations with Atari fell through, Nintendo sought to market their system in North America themselves. The R.O.B. was a cornerstone of their marketing plan, helping make the NES stand head and shoulders above their competition. Who didn't want a personal robot back in the 1980s? The plan was a massive success, allowing Nintendo to build a fan base before discontinuing their R.O.B. add-on. During the mid-1980s, Yokoi helped design two major titles for Nintendo, Metroid and Kid Icarus.
I know it's a monochrome screen, but I argue puke-green is more than one color.
While at this point, Gunpei Yokoi would've easily been well remembered as a giant in the gaming industry, his biggest contribution to the world of video games was to be developed at the close of the 1980s. In 1989, Yokoi's handheld system, the Game Boy, was launched. It became a titanic success and helped secure Nintendo's domination in the handheld market until this very day.
The Game Boy basically defined the handheld market and in less than 10 years, had sold in excess of 60 million units. The system had a long battery life, though was limited in the color displays as the screen was a monochromatic display.
It's said that it was always Gunpei Yokoi's intention to retire at the age of 50 to do what he pleased. Though 1991, his 50th birthday, came and went. In 1994, the sequel to Yokoi's popular Metroid game was released, Super Metroid. It was in this year that Nintendo began to develop their latest gaming device. It was designed to be a "true" 3D gaming experience that utilized an effect similar to the Red Blue anaglyph format.
Yokoi was reported saying (David Sheff's "Game Over" from Random House, 1993) that he didn't think the device, named the Virtual Boy, was quite ready for production. But at this time, Nintendo was facing quite a bit of heat from Sony and their PlayStation system. The company quickly redirected focus and energy from the Virtual Boy into the development of their next generation gaming console, the Nintendo 64. The Virtual Boy was released in 1995 and bucked Yokoi's trend of successes. The system was considered a miserable failure. Many players reported dizziness and a general lack of comfort thanks to the display set up.
You're telling me that causing eyestrain and forcing people to sit uncomfortably for hours may be a design flaw? Get outta here.
By this time, Yokoi was ready to retire. Though he helped redesign the Game Boy to make it smaller and more portable. The Game Boy Pocket was released in 1996 and was yet another major hit. It was the last item developed by Yokoi for Nintendo before retiring to set up his own company, Koto. Koto was tapped to assist Bandai in the development of their WonderSwan handheld system.
Though his post-Nintendo life was going to be tragically short. In October 1997, while driving northeast of Tokyo with a friend Etsuo Kiso. The two accidentally hit a truck in front of them. The accident was minor and Yokoi stepped out of his vehicle to inspect the damage when another car hit him, causing fatal injuries.
Gunpei Yokoi passed away October 4th, 1997, just after the accident. Leaving a tremendous legacy and having influenced many of the great video game designers of the 1980s and beyond. He was 56 years old. The WonderSwan would go on to be released and stay in production for a few years. Though it couldn't hold much of a candle against Yokoi's main claim to fame, the Game Boy. The final device in the Game Boy system line was the Game Boy Micro in 2005.
Gunpei Yokoi simply waved his hand and created magic. Suck it, David Copperfield.
Though the inspiration lives on. Metroid and Kid Icarus are considered classics from gaming's second golden age and the designs used for the original Game and Watch line are still being used in Nintendo's DS systems. It's very clear that without Yokoi, Nintendo may not have been around as we know it today. If not for his idle creation, the Ultra Hand, Nintendo may never have attempted to enter the toy industry that led to their entry into the gaming world.
Nintendo didn't have a huge budgeting campaign for the Game Boy. Instead, they took this picture and managed to sell millions of units.
So, for his awesome work in the world of gaming, we here at Virtual Vintage Antiques and Collectibles tip our hat to him and bestow him with the greatest honor that we can: Gunpei Yokoi - Legendarily Awesome!
