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Gunpei Yokoi, also seen as Gumpei Yokoi (横井 軍平 Yokoi Gunpei) (September 10, 1941 - October 4, 1997) was one of the most important figures in the history of the video game company Nintendo.
Toys
Game & Watch When Nintendo eventually began selling video games, Yamauchi asked Yokoi to come up with products in this field. The initial result was Nintendo's popular Game & Watch series of handhelds (for infomation on what inspired Yokoi to the make game & watch series, see Game & Watch). Game & Watch games were individual handheld games which featured an LCD-display. Some consider the small handhelds to be a prototype of the Game Boy, which would be released later and prove to be Yokoi's greatest work. These games also featured a "control-cross," which many video game enthusiasts today know as the D-Pad. The Game & Watch series saw 59 titles between 1980 and 1986. Many popular arcade games were translated into Game & Watch titles, including Donkey Kong and Mario Bros., which Yokoi helped to create alongside Shigeru Miyamoto. Many of these Game & Watch titles were put onto large compilations for the Game Boy series of handhelds, and included classic as well as reinvented versions of Ball, Flagman, Oil Panic, and Fire among other titles. These are known as the Game & Watch Gallery series. Research & Development 1 Nintendo began assigning its chief engineers to head their own divisions as the electronic industry boomed in the late seventies. Yokoi was appointed to the general manager of the Research and Development 1 (R&D1) group. R&D1 consisted of fifty-five designers, programmers, and engineers. It was with this group that Yokoi came up with many new ideas for Nintendo as it entered into the video games market. Before Miyamoto got his own R&D department in 1984, Gunpei Yokoi helped to produce many of his famous arcade games like Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., and the original Mario Bros.. In 1985, Yokoi and his R&D department were responsible for Kid Icarus, as well as the first title in one of Nintendo's longest running series, Metroid. Later in 1986, a part of Yokoi's R&D1 group branched off to form Intelligent Systems, and Yokoi later produced Battle Clash, Panel de Pon (scored by Masaya Kuzume), and Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu (scored by Yuka Tsujiyoko) along-side them. He is also the creator of Princess Daisy R&D1 was also responsible for the Robotic Operating Buddy (R.O.B.) accessory for the Famicom. The remaining members of R&D1 remained with Yokoi, and they began developing what would become one of Nintendo's most profitable products, the Game Boy. Game Boy Yokoi's perhaps most notable work in the hardware area was the Game Boy handheld, released in 1989. The Game Boy was a small, although bulky, handheld that appeared to be the successor to the Game & Watch games. However, the Game Boy played numerous games through cartridge-based gameplay, and presented games on a monochromatic screen (essentially black and green). In short, it was all the portability of the Game & Watch titles but with the cartridge interchanging capabilities of the Famicom. During its Game & Watch days, Nintendo marketed the handhelds at an affordable price, while keeping a standard of high quality, which transitioned into the Game Boy. This marketing technique has proven very effective for Nintendo, and has helped it to beat many competitors. One of the Game Boy's longest traditions has been to provide the user with an affordable product with a decent battery life. Even though higher-ups at Nintendo wanted a full-color screen version of the Game Boy (because other competitors like the Game Gear and Atari Lynx were full-color handhelds), Yokoi refused to release a color version until technology permitted a color handheld that would last a significant period under the power of a few batteries. Indeed, Yokoi's standard of high quality saw the Game Boy, with a superior game library and long battery life, dominate the handheld market while the color screen Game Gear and Atari Lynx failed due to high battery consumption. Yokoi and Nintendo even played a joke on fans who demanded a color Game Boy by revealing a line of Game Boys which had been painted various colors on the outside. The screen was still colorless; the change was merely cosmetic. In 1996, the Game Boy Pocket updated the monochrome screen with a true black-and-white one and slimmer profile. Finally, in 1998, the Game Boy Color was released, a full-color version of the Game Boy. Keeping with the late Yokoi's standards, the Game Boy Color required 2 AA (compared to 4 AA for the original) batteries and had approximately the same battery consumption rate. Many games for the Game Boy were developed by Yokoi and R&D1. Due to its success, they were assigned to develop exclusively for the Game Boy. Some of them include the Super Mario Land series, Metroid II: Return of Samus, and the puzzler Dr. Mario. Virtual Boy Gunpei Yokoi had become one of Nintendo's most respected members with his developing of the Game Boy alongside his other achievements. However, his success was shadowed by a dark period when he developed the Virtual Boy, a home console which presented games in red and black. While the Virtual Boy did present a level of 3-D, the red presented by the machine often irritated many players' eyes, and the machine itself was also fairly uncomfortable to use. The system also had a very small library. As a result, the Virtual Boy flopped in both Japan and North America and was subsequently never released in Europe. Yokoi was crushed by the Virtual Boy's failure and the disaster had many at Nintendo questioning Yokoi's capabilities. According to an episode of Icons on the G4 TV channel, Yokoi was treated as an outcast before handing in his resignation on August 15, 1996, only days after the Game Boy Pocket was released. After Nintendo
Koto Laboratory Soon after he left Nintendo, Yokoi began the company Koto Laboratory in Kyoto. There he began development of the WonderSwan, a handheld developed in partnership between Koto and Bandai. Yokoi never saw the final product of the WonderSwan, which was released in 1999, long after his death. The first game released for the WonderSwan was named "Gunpey" in his honor. Death On October 4, 1997, Yokoi was killed in a car accident. He was riding in a car driven by Etsuo Kisō, a businessman from Nintendo. Seeing a car accident, Kisō and Yokoi pulled over to examine the damage of two automobiles. While examining, two cars rammed into the broken down car from either side, crushing Yokoi. Yokoi was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead two hours later. Kisō endured two badly broken bones and severe whiplash. Awards and recognition Lateral Thinking of Withered Techonology (枯れた技術の水平思考 Kareta Gijutsu no Suihei Shikou) One of Yokoi's philosophy is called "Lateral thinking of withered technology" which he discussed in the book, 横井軍平ゲーム館 (tran, "Yokoi Gunpei Game House", collection of interviews with Yokoi). Withered technology in this context refers to a mature technology which is cheap and well understood. Lateral thinking refer to finding radically new way of utilising such technology. Toy/Game does not necessarily require cutting edge technology, rather it requires novel and fun gameplay. He even went as far as stating in the interview that expensive cutting edge technology sometimes get in the way of developing new product. Game & Watch was developed based on this philosophy. At the time of development, Sharp and Casio were engaged in excessive competition for dominance in digital calculators. For this reason, there was excess stock of liquid crystal displays and semiconductors. His innovation was to divert this cheap and abundant technology into a toy. Gameboy, Famicom, and Super Famicom were all developed under a similar philosophy. However, when Videogame Consoles went into the 4th and 5th generation, Sony and later Microsoft adopted cutting edge technology, selling their console at loss to create market dominance. The Failure to adopt Compact Discs instead of cartridges was cited as the main reason rival Playstation gained the upper hand in the console market. On the other hand, in the hand held market, the refusal of Yokoi to adopt a colour display in favour of long battery life is cited as the main reason Gameboy won against Game Gear and Atari Lynx. See also | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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