that afternoon Gunpei Yokoi got on the bullet train (shinkansen) like many other times, but he discovered something strange next to him. Another passenger, returning from work, was busy doing something strange with a calculator next to him.

Soon Yokoi realized that he was using her like a toy and came up with an idea. In his biography quoted in Shmuplations, he explained that he thought to himself: ‘Hmmm… What would a little video game console with which you could entertain yourself…’.

This concept seemed interesting, but Yokoi didn’t think much about it at first. Shortly after, something equally strange happened: Yokoi was a car enthusiast and There was a left-hand drive imported oneIt’s weird because in Japan they drive with the steering wheel on the right.

At that time, Nintendo’s legendary president, Hiroshi Yamauchi, was using a Cadillac to get around, but one day his driver got sick. Someone called the then-head of the company’s R&D department: “Hey, you know how to drive left-hand drive, right? Can you take the president to his meeting?” Yokoi agreed but took the opportunity to talk about business. And specifically to talk about an idea that came to my mind a while ago.

“I think it would be very interesting if we did this A video game console the size of a calculator” he told him. “Until now our philosophy on games has been that the bigger the games the better they sell, but I think a small gaming device like this could allow any employee like us to play games secretly.”

The president arrived at the meeting seemingly indifferent to the idea, but at that meeting he sat next to Akira Saeki, president of Sharp, then the world’s largest calculator maker, and told him about the concept. This convinced the Nintendo president that Yokoi’s idea made sense, and they immediately started working on those little consoles.

Yokoi exceptionally knew how to apply this method. lateral thinking – solve problems creatively – and this led to an absolutely legendary product that Nintendo eventually called Game & Watch, which allowed not only to play games but, as the name suggests, to control the clock and even – starting in 1981 – to set caused it to come out. alarms. .

Other versions of the story

Other sources, yes, add some elements to that creation myth. As PadAndPixel points out, there may have been less “romantic” factors in the creation of this console. In fact, Mattel had had great success with portable LCD consoles such as ‘Auto Race’ (1976) – much more primitive, which is saying something – but later Milton Bradley’s Microvision (1979) made the portable console concept work.

At least that’s what he said Satoru Okadawho worked with Yokoi in the R&D department during the creation of Game & Wach, and who apparently has a very distinct memory of that legendary inventor’s role. In an interview in issue 163 of RetroGamer, Okada stated that the origins of consoles are very different:

“What really led to the birth of Game & Watch? We succeeded in getting MB Microvision. I loved this machine and played the Breakout clone a lot. But we didn’t understand why the machine had to be so big! So, first of all, we tried to make a portable console that people could actually carry in their pocket, except that the screen resolution was very poor and the graphics were very abstract. We also thought the idea of ​​interchangeable cartridges was interesting, but due to Microvision’s limitations all cartridges looked the same in terms of both graphics and gameplay concept. So we said to ourselves: ‘Why not just one game per machine, but at least have good graphics?’ That’s when the idea of ​​using a calculator screen came up. All this led to the birth of Game & Watch. Yokoi designed the games, and I was responsible for the technical side, including the electronics and coding of the games.”

‘Chef’ (1981), which sold over a million copies, was another clear demonstration that simplicity works. Two buttons, play now.

Okada continued to criticize Yokoi in this report, stating that he had little knowledge of electronics and underlining that his involvement in the creation of the Game Boy was much less than what was attributed to him in the story.

According to this engineer, “The Game Boy as we know it today has nothing to do with what Yokoi had in mind” because he saw it as a direct sequel to the Game & Watch, but for him the device had “more ambition.” He even claims that Yokoi gave him control of the project after he complained repeatedly, saying, according to him, “I made the Game Boy project my own. Yokoi just gave it his seal of approval“.

It’s hard to know how much truth there is in these stories, but the truth is that history credits Yokoi with the creation of the Game & Watch or Game Boy.

Great device

He was a genius in terms of device design and conception. One of the principles was to make it as cheap as possible, and the way to do that was to use it. a simple LCD screen at least as in calculators where basic graphs can be displayed.

In 1982, the console that all children wanted to own was ‘Donkey Kong’ Game & Watch. Image: Sketchfab

A button battery and as ergonomic a design as possible were also preferred: Initially, Nintendo integrated several action buttons and later, following the success of the legendary Donkey Kong portable console, incorporated the digital pad (D-pad). . This element would be another (silent) revolution in the history of video games, as it eliminated the need for joysticks.

These “little machines” – as we children of the time knew them – were fascinating not because of their graphics or visual effects, but because of the playability of their games. this philosophyfunction over form– has become part of Nintendo’s DNA, not competing with modern consoles from Microsoft or Sony in terms of graphical power, but staying true to the legacy already seen in Game & Watch.

They also mention this origin in an old special issue of Retro Gamer UK magazine. There they quoted journalist Lara Crigger, who explained what the key to Game & Watch games is:

“There was very little room to break the design. If the game mechanics It wasn’t simple or addictive enough.The game failed. He couldn’t hide behind spectacular images or complicated stories. There was just one player and one mechanic, that’s all.”

As they explain in this report, Game & Watch games may seem primitive from our current perspective, but that same simplicity was a key factor in the success of this lineage and, in fact, remains a tangible reality today. Nowadays: If the mechanics work, the game will be successful, no matter how simple. As Crigger puts it, these games were “appealing for the same reason Tetris never dies: simplicity is addictive.”

First Play and Watch He honored this simplicity. Even the ‘Ball’, released in 1980, was very crude, but it was the first of the monochrome ‘machines’ with a silver case. When Nintendo decided to create gold-plated versions, they did so with a very specific distinction: There were colors (static, of course) on the screen.

Then came the dual-screen versions, which made their debut in 1982’s ‘Oil Panic’ and were most prominently represented in the aforementioned ‘Donkey Kong’s Game & Watch’. That model, the little machine that every kid in 1982 wanted to have – I was one of them, they left it for a few days and I could barely tear myself away from those screens – was ultimately a unique precursor to the modern age. Nintendo DS and its (hugely successful) successors.

In 1983, Game & Watch wanted to develop with formats such as Table Top, which included ‘Popeye’ among its protagonists. Source: Sketchfab.

The list of Game & Watch consoles, each bearing the name of the game played on them, is quite extensive, and many have surpassed sales of one million units (Vermin, Manhole, Chief – of course -, Turtle Bridge, Fire Attack) but It was Donkey Kong that sold eight million unitsThis was the real “blockbuster” of the format, which later tried to conquer different formats such as larger screen, horizontal multi-screen instead of vertical, and even “Desktop” and “Panorama” formats that were no longer pocket-sized.

The truth is that Game & Watch was a turning point in the industry and, of course, a revolution that would make Nintendo a benchmark in the industry. In fact, this was the beginning of a long career of success.

Image | Wikimedia Commons

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