The Escapist profiles Gunpei Yokoi

[botticus]

Good read about the creator of Donkey Kong, Game Boy, and tons of other Nintendo properties.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/87/7

[soonersfan60]

Thanks for the article. It's too bad that he got most of the blame for the Virtual Boy. The main problem is that it came out too late. I saw the technology in 1991 when my company had a chance to license it. (I'm sure the cool helmet set-up that I played wasn't used because of liability issues with kids walking around without watching where they were going.) But the real problem was that it came out about the same time as Saturn and Playstation. If it had come out back in, say, 1992 or maybe 1993 with a Christmas selling season all to itself, it would have done better. Some of the design changes were a mistake, I think, especially compared to the prototype I played, but I think Gunpei was a scapegoat for the failure of the product.

But DK is one of my all-time favorite games. :)

[Puffa469]

The man invented the D-Pad. 'Nuff said


Great article, and if you keep hitting 'next' it goes into an article about Ralph Baer, who invented the home console, as well as many other wonderful things.

[mykevermin]

An excellent read. His legacy is clearly still influencing the company in a positive way, as they are experiencing a massive boon of public goodwill and large, large sales of the Wii compared to higher-end competitors.

Ultimately, though, you have to wonder why the Virtual Boy failed where other innovations have paid off for Nintendo. Can it be as simple as the price of the console?

I could read stuff like this, written by a real journalist and devoid of any smarmy and snide commentary, all day long compared to your kotakus. Thanks for the link.

[Dead of Knight]

Ultimately, though, you have to wonder why the Virtual Boy failed where other innovations have paid off for Nintendo. Can it be as simple as the price of the console?


I doubt it. Though if it had launched at like $99 or less it probably would have sold a lot more. Even so I doubt it would have been very successful at the time. Like soonersfan said, if it had been released a few years earlier, it most likely would have been a hit. It was a cool little piece of technology, but it was pretty impractical.

I had one, but I hardly ever played it. This was probably due to the lack of games more than anything else.

[Puffa469]

If you have ever played a Virtual Boy, you'd know in about 15 minutes why it failed. Keep some Advil handy. ;)

[soonersfan60]

You didn't get a headache from the prototype. Nintendo tried to make it too fancy. They thought it was a necessity, I guess, since it was being released so "late" and had to compete with other 32-bit systems from Sega and Sony. If it was released right away as it was in prototype form, with wire-frame graphics like the Vectrex, I think it would have done great. Since the prototype was fine, it could be the red LEDs Nintendo used that caused the headaches, but I am guessing it was the complex graphics. The prototype had white lines for its wire frame graphics. It was incredibly immersive and cool as it was.

[Vegan]

I recommend this article. It's extremely interesting.

It was better than Cats.