Geeks in History: Gunpei Yokoi
Perk up, video game geeks. This one’s for you. Do you have a Nintendo 3DS or a DSI? Have you owned an original Game Boy? How about going back to the original Nintendo Entertainment System and remembering Kid Icarus and Metroid? None of these things might have happened if not for one man, Gunpei Yokoi.
Gunpei Yokoi ( 横井 軍平 Yokoi Gunpei ) was born on September 10, 1941, the son of a director of a pharmaceutical company, and grew
up in Kyoto where he graduated from Doshinsha University, earning his degree in electronics. He began working for Nintendo, which was then a manufacturer of hanafuda playing cards, in 1965 at the age of 24. His job duties were janitorial and equipment maintenance, but in his spare time, he loved to make toys. One of his toy inventions was noticed by Hiroshi Yamauchi, the president of Nintendo at the time, and as a result, the Ultra Hand, and extendable gripping arm, started mass production and became a major money-maker for the company. He went on to create a number of other toys, and soon became the mentor of a game designer named Shigeru Miyamoto while he was creating Donkey Kong.
After the success of Donkey Kong, Yokoi worked with Miyamato on Mario Bros, suggesting the multi-player aspect of the game as well as supernatural game physics. In the Eighties, President Yamauchi assigned Yokoi to develop a hand-held gaming device. Yokoi was inspired by watching a man on a train playing with his calculator, and so he created the Game & Watch, which sold more than 40 million game worldwide. After becoming the head of first-party research and development (the area responsible for Metroid), he created the Game Boy, revolutionizing handheld gaming. Among his other creations are Pit from Kid Icarus, Princess Daisy, and Wario.
One of his notable inventions, the Virtual Boy, was put out before Yokoi was ready for it to be released. After this failure, he retired from Nintendo, having intended to do so when he turned fifty and not related to the Virtual Boy according to his colleague, Yoshihiro Taki. As a going-away present to Nintendo, he completed the Game Boy Pocket, which went on to great success. He later formed a company named Koto, and he contributed to the development of Bandai’s WonderSwan handheld system.
On October 4, 1997, while driving on the Hokuriku Expressway, Yokoi rear-ended a truck. When he and his passenger, Etsuo Kiso, stepped out to inspect the damage, Yokoi was hit and fatally injured by a two passing cars, one driven by Gen Tsushima, a member of the tourism industry. His death was broadcasted worldwide soon after. In 2003, Yokoi posthumously received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Game Developers Choice Awards, acknowledging his influence in and contributions to the industry. Next time you play your Nintendo 3DS or see Donkey Kong in an arcade, don’t forget about Gunpei Yokoi.
Geeks in History is a biweekly column about notable geeks of the past and how they impacted modern life.
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