Gunpei Yokoi
Gunpei Yokoi, also seen as Gumpei Yokoi, (September 10, 1941–October 4, 1997), was a long-time Nintendo employee, creator of the Game Boy, and producer of the long-running Metroid series.
Gunpei Yokoi began working at Nintendo in 1965, after graduating college with a degree in electronics from Doshisha University. Yokoi started out working on the assembly line for the Hanafuda cards as a maintenance engineer.
In 1970, Hiroshi Yamauchi, president of Nintendo at the time, came to a hanafuda factory Yokoi was working at and took notice of a toy, an extending arm, which Yokoi made for his own amusement during spare time as the company's janitor and machine maintenance man. Yamauchi ordered Yokoi to develop it as a proper product for the Christmas rush. The Ultra Hand was a huge success, selling approximately 1.2 million units. Yokoi was soon moved from maintenance duty to product development. Yokoi went on to develop many other toys during Nintendo's toy era, including the Ten Billion Barrel puzzle, a baseball throwing machine called the Ultra Machine, and a Love Tester. Another invention of his, in collaboration with Masayuki Uemura from Sharp, was the Nintendo Beam Gun Games, the precursor to the NES Zapper.
Yokoi's perhaps most notable work in the hardware area was the Game Boy handheld, released in 1989. The Game Boy was a small 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 had all the portability of the Game & Watch titles but with the cartridge interchanging capabilities of the Famicom. During its Game & Watch days, Nintendo had marketed the handhelds at an affordable price, while keeping a standard of high quality.
Gunpei Yokoi had become one of Nintendo's most respected members with his developing of the Game Boy alongside his other achievements. However, he lost some status 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 performed poorly 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.
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.
On October 4, 1997, Yokoi was killed in a car accident. He was riding in a car driven by Etsuo Kiso, a businessman from Nintendo. After a minor car accident involving a truck, Kiso and Yokoi pulled over to examine the damage of the 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. Kiso suffered two badly broken bones and severe whiplash.
Gunpei Yokoi, also seen as Gumpei Yokoi, (September 10, 1941–October 4, 1997), was a long-time Nintendo employee, creator of the Game Boy, and producer of the long-running Metroid series.
Gunpei Yokoi began working at Nintendo in 1965, after graduating college with a degree in electronics from Doshisha University. Yokoi started out working on the assembly line for the Hanafuda cards as a maintenance engineer.
In 1970, Hiroshi Yamauchi, president of Nintendo at the time, came to a hanafuda factory Yokoi was working at and took notice of a toy, an extending arm, which Yokoi made for his own amusement during spare time as the company's janitor and machine maintenance man. Yamauchi ordered Yokoi to develop it as a proper product for the Christmas rush. The Ultra Hand was a huge success, selling approximately 1.2 million units. Yokoi was soon moved from maintenance duty to product development. Yokoi went on to develop many other toys during Nintendo's toy era, including the Ten Billion Barrel puzzle, a baseball throwing machine called the Ultra Machine, and a Love Tester. Another invention of his, in collaboration with Masayuki Uemura from Sharp, was the Nintendo Beam Gun Games, the precursor to the NES Zapper.
Yokoi's perhaps most notable work in the hardware area was the Game Boy handheld, released in 1989. The Game Boy was a small 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 had all the portability of the Game & Watch titles but with the cartridge interchanging capabilities of the Famicom. During its Game & Watch days, Nintendo had marketed the handhelds at an affordable price, while keeping a standard of high quality.
Gunpei Yokoi had become one of Nintendo's most respected members with his developing of the Game Boy alongside his other achievements. However, he lost some status 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 performed poorly 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.
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.
On October 4, 1997, Yokoi was killed in a car accident. He was riding in a car driven by Etsuo Kiso, a businessman from Nintendo. After a minor car accident involving a truck, Kiso and Yokoi pulled over to examine the damage of the 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. Kiso suffered two badly broken bones and severe whiplash.
