10 years after death, Game Boy creator lives on
Thursday, October 4th, 2007 at 11:45pm by Jack
On October 4, 1997, Gunpei Yokoi, the father of the Game Boy and a Nintendo icon, was struck by two vehicles, pinned and crushed while attending his own damaged automobile. He died two hours later from his injuries.
Now, this isn’t some post that asks “what could have been at Nintendo” if Gunpei had remained with us, because he had actually left Nintendo to work with Bandai to develop the Wonderswan well before his death. Actually, it’s a fairly quick post that examines how Gunpei’s legacy lives on at Nintendo today anyway, ten years later, in spite of the tragedy that befell him.
Here’s the portion of Gunpei’s life that resonated with me:
Yokoi articulated his philosophy of “Lateral thinking of withered technology” (枯れた技術の水平思考, “Lateral thinking of withered technology”? “Kareta Gijutsu no Suihei Shikou”) in the book, Yokoi Gunpei Game House (横井軍平ゲーム館, Yokoi Gunpei Game House?), which consists of a collection of interviews. Withered technology in this context refers to a mature technology which is cheap and well understood. Lateral thinking refers to finding radical new ways of utilizing such technology. Yokoi held that toys and games do not necessarily require cutting edge technology; novel and fun game play are more important. In the interview he went as far as to suggest that expensive cutting edge technology sometimes gets in the way of developing a new product.
Of course, in Gunpei’s earlier days this philosophy led to the insanely popular Game & Watch series. Today, however, even though he’s been gone for some time, I can’t help but see a little of Gunpei’s touch in the DS and Wii as well. For that I celebrate Gunpei’s legacy on this somber day.
October 5th, 2007 at 2:40 am
God bless his soul. He made a fine portable system.
October 5th, 2007 at 9:37 am
It also helps that he mentored Miyamoto in his early days so it’s not much wonder his legacy stayed with Nintendo.
It shows that it’s endured too, as the DS and Wii both use mature technology instead of the bleeding edge (RROD or $600 anyone? :P)
It’s been so many years since the gameboy and yet it seems he definitely knew his stuff as that philosophy still makes the best systems around.
October 5th, 2007 at 10:50 am
Gunpei-san is one of my personal heroes, right up there with Mr. Miyamoto, himself. This is the man who gave the Game Boy, the Virtual Boy (in all his glorious eccentricity), and (my personal favorite) Metroid. I remember practically going into a depression when I heard of his death that fall. I remeber that I was playing Mischief Makers at the time, so that game makes me think of him, too (eve though it was a Treasure title). The Wonderswan was an amazing machine with the avid endorsement of great publishers like Konami and Squaresoft (before the Squix merger). And have you people played Gun Play on the DS? The initial design for that game is what was sitting on his desktop the day he died. I bought the game just because of that (it’s also a hell of a puzzle game!). He is definitely one of those individuals without whom the industry would never have survived and succeeded.
Sayonara, Gunpei-san…
October 5th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
I wouldn’t go as far as to say his philosophy influenced the designs of the DS and Wii, but I think he would definitely be pleased with them if he saw.