The Father of the Nintendo Game Boy: Gunpei Yokoi
By: James Benson There have been numerous inventors that have had their names stand the test of time. Achievements in technology that have benefited humanities health, knowledge, and even education. Not only were there inventors in those fields of technology, there are also those inventors whose inventions innovated entertainment and play, and video games are one of those inventions. We play them on our TVs, computers, portable gaming devices, and on our phones and have made video games a huge part of our culture. However, there is one invention that is so recognizable by practically everyone because of how dominant in the handheld games market it had been for almost two decades bulldozing over any competition, and that invention was the Nintendo Game Boy, and the man who was behind the birth of the little handheld that could was Gunpei Yokoi. To me as a gamer, Gunpei Yokoi changed the face of gaming forever, and left behind a legacy of achievements in the video game industry.
Gunpei Yokoi: Early Career At Nintendo: Gunpei Yokoi was born in Kyoto, Japan on September 10th, 1941. He also grew up in the same town where he would attend Doshinsha University and graduate with a degree in electronics. Like any other college graduate, he applied for multiple different jobs for different companies and businesses to make a living (Groenendijk). Gunpei Yokoi was hired by Yamauchi in 1965, where he started as the maintenance man of the
The very first ‘Video Game’ was invented by Edward U. Condon in 1940, At first it was a simple game called ‘Nim’. In nim players try to avoid picking up the last match. Thousands of people played it, although the computer won at least 90% of the games. Around ten years later in 1950, a new computer program was created by Claude Shannon for the game of chess. In autumn of 1972 the first gaming console was released by ‘Magnavox’ and they called it the Odyssey. Three years later, the next big gaming console arrived when Sears sold the first ‘Atari Pong.’ This was the beginning of a long partnership between Atari and Sears. This relationship lasted multiple years, and Sears sold several successful games. Multiple years later in 1985, Nintendo released the Nintendo Entertainment System. This new gaming console dominated the Gaming Industry and grew Nintendo’s Company. Nintendo created several gaming console legends, such as the Game Boy, Nintendo 64, Game Boy Advanced, Nintendo Gamecube, Gameboy Advanced SD, and Nintendo DS, all of which made a huge impact on everybody’s childhood from 1985 to 2005. In the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century Playstation and Xbox also started releasing consoles. They are still to this day making successful Gaming Consoles, and individual games, as well as Xbox and Playstation.
"William Higinbotham, who in 1958 created a game called Tennis for Two " (The Beginning), is the one credited for the invention of the video game. At this stage in time, this new innovation did not spark much interest with the public. "Computer and video games themselves did not become part of the
Although, seeing as video games are increasingly popular today, not everyone met as unfortunate of a fate. Today, many could credit this to the video game development corporation known as Atari, which arose in 1972 and continuously flourished until about 1982. In 1972, Atari came out with PONG, the first electronic arcade game, and it was an enormous accomplishment that exploded into what is now called the electronic gaming revolution. As time passed, Atari managed to triumph over its competition time and time again, but that is not to say that each of the failed corporations did not feature something that is used today. In fact, a couple of the failed organizations contributed something original to what is common today. For instance, Fairchild Camera and Instrument creating the first system that could play several different games, rather than just one. Another aforementioned group, RCA, was the first to produce and utilize keypad controllers instead of paddles or joysticks. Other consoles that came along, such as Intellivision and Vectrex, sported better graphics than the Atari’s consoles and games, but they still did not manage to gross the amount of money that Atari did because Atari was still on top of collecting all of the most entertaining and enjoyable games of their time. Keep in mind what attracted the masses to video games in the past: fun and addictive gameplay, not how good they looked. Now that the principal eras of gaming have been
When video games were first being introduced to the general public, they weren’t all that exciting. Most gaming took place in arcades and most arcades didn’t have many game cabinets due to their being very few games to begin with. However, all of this changed when the Atari 2600 was released. At the time, Atari was known for their home computers and their hit arcade game “Pong”. Though the Atari 2600 might not have been the first video game system, it was definitely the most successful at that time and a great success for Atari’s first attempt at a home video game console. Thanks to the success of the 2600, video games began to take off and arcades started popping up all over the world with hits like “Pac-Man” and “Donkey Kong”. These would be the
After seeing how the Nintendo Gamecube was doing many 3rd party developers did not want to work with Nintendo. Developers wanted to make mature games for the Play Station 2 and the soon to be released Xbox. Another reason developers shied away from developing on the Gamecube was for the lack of power and storage space with the discs (Thomas, L). Sony was using standard sized discs which meant that bigger games would be able to be played and developed, because of all the storage. Nintendo decided to try using smaller discs that had minimal storage and games would not be as big. This turned developers away and as of 2017 this decision Nintendo made back in 2001 still affects Nintendo.
The video game that popularized video games, Super Mario Bros. The man that designed that game back in 1985 was Shigeru Miyamoto. A living legend in the world of video games. He created a number of Nintendo biggest franchises. Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, Star Fox, and The Legend of Zelda are just a few of the games he has helped to create.
In 1889, Fusajiro Yamauchi founded a small company in a building in the heart of Kyoto, Japan.(Nintendo History. n.d.) The company's purpose was to create a form of Japanese playing card called Hanafuda. He called this company Nintendo. Over the next century Nintendo grew and expanded, changing its products and services, and attempting new things as the times changed. Then, during the 1970s Nintendo fixed its eyes on a new market, video games. Nintendo showcases how a small card company can become a gaming powerhouse and a legend for companies and gamers alike.
Alot of people like video game, but don’t really think much about who came up with this and how did it get so popular well here are the answers to those questions. In 1972 Atari develops the very 1st video game Pong a table tennis like game.The game came in a console of its own you could not play anything on it but pong.Today pong seems like a pile of junk, but back in 1972 It was like the invention of the light bulb.Atari was the biggest company for 3 whole years until the competition came to rise.
Several years had passed and a Japanese company by the name of Nintendo decided it wanted to enter the market. Nintendo’s Family Computer, or Famicom, was doing well in Japan and Nintendo wanted to try and find success in North America. This proved to be difficult because America was still wary on the idea of game consoles after the crash. To try and avoid the skepticism that came with items labeled as a game console, Nintendo rebranded the Famicom as the Nintendo Entertainment System and marketed it as a toy. Believe it or not, this actually worked and Nintendo became a household name. In order to keep their success going Nintendo took steps to avoid another market crash. Nintendo would put developers under a contract that kept them on their console and would keep them from developing games for developers. Developers also had a limited amount of games they could release in a year as
Anderson begins by telling his audience that with the creation of the popular and first Nintendo GameBoy game Tetris, a new tradition begins that he calls “stupid games”. Continuing his critical analyst he pointed out how technology has evolved a lot since Tetris was created and with so did video games leaving our world of today surrounded by what he calls “stupid games”. He talks about how Game-studies scholars have noticed a trend, that video games are often made during a time where they would be socially needed. Examples given by Anderson were, “Monopoly, for
“During the 1940s and the 1950s, computers took up entire rooms and were so expensive that only universities and large companies could afford them” (Behring 1). Being as that, computers were too expensive to obtain to be able to create a game, “students Steve Russell and his friends” used their school’s computer to create the “dueling game between two spaceships”, called “Spacewar”. (Behring 1) They game began to be used at other universities that also had computer programs. Ralph Baer who was an engineer, considered using the television to play video games on. Baer then created the first video games for the television in 1967(Behring2). Once the first games were created more games followed. Then what would be known as the gaming industry by a “Nolan Bushnell”, who wanted to use they games for retail. The industry would grow within a short span of time in which the sales declined until evolved games would once again rise sales and future advancements.
Gaming consoles have come a long way from where they started. There was many variations of the game Pong to 3D realistic environments. From the start as a simulator all the way down as way of exercising. There were many consoles at the beginning, and then through time it came down to a final three top selling companies. Every gamer, close to the age of thirty and over, has seen the generations of game consoles evolve. There are 7 generations total of game consoles. Game consoles have become part of our culture, some people do not know it yet, but in some way they are gamers. In the beginning there was Ralph H. Baer, “The Father of Video Games”, and he created the “Brown Box” in 1968. Now the Brown Box was a working prototype. It was the
The dawn of Nintendo was when gaming evolved (Cobbett). Nintendo and others have changed the world of gaming (Cobbett). In 1981, Nintendo released the famous Donkey Kong (Cobbett). Still to this day, it’s a popular game (Cobbett). Nintendo revolutionized gaming by becoming the first gaming company to release a game that featured jumping over objects as a mechanic (Cobbett). This was the most revolutionary advance in gaming since the first Nintendo “EVR Race” (Cobbett).
The role of technology is vital in this industry as it focuses on technological efforts for competitive advantage. Every new development uses new technology. Though there are restricted innovations in the gaming industry, the speed of technological transfer is very high. Nintendo’s role from playing cards to toys to video games and then with each console introduced, included many technological changes. Technological up gradation increased hardware costs and discouraged innovation. The online capability of Nintendo Wii was a major change in the technology of the video game industry though they were not able to do as well as their competitors (Sony, Microsoft).
Herman et all (2002) points out that history of video games begins from 1971 year, when Nutting association released 1500 machines with Spacewar video game. At the beginning it was too difficult to control the game process and playing machines had huge dimensions. But by the time with new technologies they become more compact and easier to play. According to the information given by Herman et all (2002), the period between the years of 1978-1981 is called ‘golden age’ of video game industry. In this period the arcade games ‘Football’ and ‘Space Invaders’ were released. All previously known sale records were broken by these two games with nearly equal wages. In this time interval great breakthroughs in the field of graphics were achieved,