23 search results for "gunpei yokoi"

The Escapist searches for Gunpei Yokoi

Who is Gunpei Yokoi? You have to ask? Game & Watch, R.O.B., the D-pad, Kid Icarus, Fire Emblem and Metroid. The Game Boy. The Virtual Boy. I own them all (high five!) and now you know who invented them. The late, great Gunpei. Today the Escapist’s Lara Cringer digs deep into Gunpei’s past. Gunpei, a man responsible for much of what makes Nintendo Nintendo today, yet is still a pret...

More on Gunpei (David beats Goliath every time)

From beyond the grave, Gunpei still influences an entire generation of gaming: “Although fancier, more powerful handheld technology existed at the time, Yokoi maintained that the Game and Watch systems should use affordable components that offered a decent battery life. Consumers, he believed, would prefer cheaper products with fun gameplay over the hottest, cutting-edge gadgets. This design...

Nintendo’s surprising history in gambling

Gambling in Japan is not yet legal, at least not in the general sense. Horse racing and pachinko machines are a dime a dozen, But you won’t see any casinos in the Land of the Rising Sun, at least not yet. In December 2016, the Japanese parliament passed a new law that opens the door to the gambling industry, and a potential $30 billion a year industry. That isn’t to say that the Japane...

10 Classic Nintendo Games That Haven’t Been Remade, but Should Be

I know what you’re thinking. Doesn’t Nintendo already remake everything? Well, yes, Nintendo is notorious for releasing, re-releasing, and re-re-releasing many of their more popular titles. Take Metroid for example. Excluding its original release on the Famicom Disk System and Nintendo Entertainment System, Metroid has been rereleased a grand total of six times (the Classic NES Series ...

Super Metroid Retro Review

It is regarded by many as one of the greatest games of all time on any system. It has inspired countless sequels, spin-offs, and imitators. It helped create and define an entire sub-genre of video games… …and it has sat on my shelf of shame for roughly 20 years. For most Nintendo fans, this game requires no introduction. Released on the Super Famicom/Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1994, it...

Infendo Presents: The History of Nintendo – Part 6 Project Ruh Roh

Welcome to the Infendo Presents: The History of Nintendo! Join us as we chronicle Nintendo from their humble hanafuda beginnings, to the dominance of the Wii and DS and beyond! To this point in its history, Nintendo has made almost no poor business decisions, almost to the point of clairvoyance. Aside from an early mishap by a young Hiroshi Yamauchi in the Laser Clay Shooting System, Nintendo has ...

Infendo Presents: The History of Nintendo – Part 5 Game Boy

Welcome to the Infendo Presents: The History of Nintendo! Join us as we chronicle Nintendo from their humble hanafuda beginnings, to the dominance of the Wii and DS and beyond! Outside of Japan, if you asked your average person if they knew who Nintendo was in 1979, chances are you would get a resounding no. Fast forward just a few short years to 1981 and the name Nintendo was on the collective co...

Infendo Presents: The History of Nintendo – Part 4 Famicom

Welcome to the Infendo Presents: The History of Nintendo! Join us as we chronicle Nintendo from their humble hanafuda beginnings, to the dominance of the Wii and DS and beyond! When last we left Nintendo, the company was just starting to crawl out from behind their toy-making shadow with their entrance into the arcade market. At this point, many key people at the company were beginning to emerge w...

Infendo Presents: The History of Nintendo – Part 3 Arcade Madness

Welcome to the Infendo Presents: The History of Nintendo! Join us as we chronicle Nintendo from their humble hanafuda beginnings, to the dominance of the Wii and DS and beyond! Make sure to check back in everyday for more content! So if you couldn’t believe that Nintendo started off making cards, it may have been even more surprising that they also made plastic toys. By the end of 1977, when...

Infendo Presents: The History of Nintendo – Part 2 Electronic Beginnings

Welcome to the Infendo Presents: The History of Nintendo! Join us as we chronicle Nintendo from their humble hanafuda beginnings, to the dominance of the Wii and DS and beyond! Make sure to check back in everyday for more content! When last we left Nintendo, hanafuda was on it’s way out as toy making was the new profit driver with successes such as The Ultra Hand and the Ultra Machine. Meanw...

Infendo Presents: The History of Nintendo – Part 1 Origins

Welcome to the Infendo Presents: The History of Nintendo! Join us as we chronicle Nintendo from their humble hanafuda beginnings, to the dominance of the Wii and DS and beyond! Make sure to check back in everyday for more content!  By now it’s pretty common knowledge that long before Nintendo was in the video game making business, the company got its start producing handmade hanafuda cards i...

Nintendo’s Hiroshi Yamauchi has died at age 85

A sad, yet perpetual state of mourning for Nintendo today, as the company announced that their longtime former president, Hiroshi Yamauchi, has died. He was 85. Yamauchi first became president of Nintendo in 1949, when the company was just a simple card-playing game manufacture. By 1963, Yamauchi had renamed Nintendo Card Playing Co. to just Nintendo. With the boom of video games quickly taking sh...