Gunpei Yokoi (Japanese: 横井 軍平, Hepburn: Yokoi Gunpei; September 10, 1941 – October 4, 1997) was a Japanese toy maker and video game designer. He worked for Nintendo for many years and is best known for creating several important Nintendo products, such as the Ultra Hand toy, the Game & Watch, and the Game Boy handheld game systems. He also helped produce popular video game series like Metroid and Kid Icarus. Yokoi believed that making games fun and interactive was more important than using the latest technology.

Career

Yokoi graduated from Doshisha University with a degree in electronics. In 1965, he was hired by Nintendo to keep the assembly-line machines working, which were used to make hanafuda cards.

In 1966, Hiroshi Yamauchi, the president of Nintendo, visited a hanafuda factory where Yokoi was working. He noticed a toy—an extending arm that Yokoi had made during his free time while doing maintenance. Yamauchi asked Yokoi to develop the toy as a product for the Christmas season. The Ultra Hand became very popular, and Yokoi was then asked to create other Nintendo toys, including the Ten Billion Barrel puzzle, a small remote-controlled vacuum cleaner called the Chiritory, a baseball-throwing machine called the Ultra Machine, and a "Love Tester." He continued working on toys until 1974, when Nintendo decided to make video games. Yokoi became one of the company’s first game designers, following only Genyo Takeda. While traveling on the Shinkansen, Yokoi saw a businessman playing with an LCD calculator by pressing the buttons. This inspired him to create a watch that could also be used for playing video games.

In 1981, Yamauchi appointed Yokoi to oversee the development of Donkey Kong, an arcade game created by Shigeru Miyamoto. Yokoi shared many details about game design with Miyamoto early in his career. The project was approved only after Yokoi presented Miyamoto’s ideas to the president.

After Donkey Kong became a global success, Yokoi worked with Miyamoto on the next Mario game, Mario Bros. He suggested the idea of multiplayer gameplay and helped give Mario special abilities, such as jumping from great heights without harm.

After Mario Bros., Yokoi designed several R&D1 games, including Kid Icarus and Metroid. He also created R.O.B. and the Game Boy, which became a worldwide success. Another of his projects, the Virtual Boy, did not sell well. Nintendo said the Virtual Boy’s poor sales were not the reason Yokoi left the company, stating his retirement was "absolutely coincidental" to the product’s performance. According to Yoshihiro Taki, a colleague at Nintendo and Koto, Yokoi had planned to retire at age 50 but delayed it. David Sheff’s book Game Over noted that Yokoi never intended for the Virtual Boy to be released in its final form. However, Nintendo pushed the Virtual Boy to market to focus on developing the Nintendo 64.

After the Virtual Boy’s failure and the success of the Game Boy Pocket, Yokoi left Nintendo on August 15, 1996, after 31 years with the company. He formed a new company called Koto with several of his employees and led the development of the Bandai WonderSwan handheld game console.

Design philosophy

Yokoi said, "The Nintendo way of adapting technology is not to look for the state of the art but to use mature technology that can be made in large amounts at low cost." He explained his idea called "Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology" (枯れた技術の水平思考, Kareta Gijutsu no Suihei Shikō), also known as "Lateral Thinking with Seasoned Technology," in the book Yokoi Gunpei Game House. In this context, "withered technology" means well-established and widely understood technologies that are usually less expensive and more dependable. "Lateral thinking" refers to finding creative ways to use these technologies. Yokoi believed that toys and games do not always need the most advanced technology; instead, new and fun gameplay is more important. In an interview, he noted that expensive, cutting-edge technology can sometimes make it harder to create a successful product.

The Game & Watch was created based on this idea. When it was developed, Sharp and Casio were competing strongly in the digital calculator market. This competition led to an oversupply of liquid crystal displays and semiconductors. The "lateral thinking" involved using these inexpensive and widely available materials in a unique and fun way. The NES and Game Boy were also developed using this same philosophy. In the handheld game market, Yokoi's decision not to include a color LCD (a cutting-edge feature at the time) in the Game Boy allowed the device to have much longer battery life. This choice is often credited as a major reason the Game Boy outperformed competitors like Sega's Game Gear and Atari's Lynx.

Satoru Iwata, who was Nintendo's CEO from 2002 until his death in 2015, stated that this philosophy was passed on to Yokoi's colleagues, such as Miyamoto, and continues to influence later Nintendo products like the successful Wii. The Wii used technology similar to that of Nintendo's earlier console, the GameCube, and was not as advanced as its competitors, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, in terms of computing power and multimedia features. Instead, the Wii introduced motion-based controls, which changed how video games were played and helped attract a broader audience. This strategy showed Nintendo's belief that improving graphics is not the only way to advance gaming technology. After the Wii's success, Sony and Microsoft also released their own motion control devices. Nintendo's focus on accessories for the Wii is also seen as an example of Yokoi's "lateral thinking" in action.

Death

On October 4, 1997, Yokoi was in a car driven by his associate, Etsuo Kiso, on the Hokuriku Expressway when the car crashed into a truck from behind. After leaving the car to check the damage, Yokoi was struck and injured by another car. The driver of that car was Gen Tsushima, who worked in the tourism industry. Yokoi’s death was confirmed two hours later, and his only serious injury was a broken rib. The location of Yokoi’s ashes has not been made public, but his tombstone was designed by Miyamoto. Miyamoto also spoke about Yokoi’s life at his funeral and listed some of Yokoi’s important achievements at Nintendo, including contributions to projects like Ultra Machine and the Game Boy.

Legacy

The title of his main biography from 2010 translates to "Father of Games – Gunpei Yokoi, the Man Who Created Nintendo's DNA." A 1997 book's title translates to "Yokoi's House of Gaming," which was explored in English in 2010 by Tokyo Scum Brigade. A 2014 book about him is titled "Gunpei Yokoi: The Life & Philosophy of Nintendo's God of Toys."

In 2003, Yokoi received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the International Game Developers Association after his death. GameTrailers included him on their list of "Top Ten Game Creators." An art gallery in Japan created an art exhibit in 2010 titled "The Man Who Was Called the God of Games," which displayed all his key Nintendo works. In 1999, Bandai began releasing a series of handheld puzzle games named "Gunpey" as a tribute to Yokoi, their original creator.

Works

• Ultra Hand (1966)