Gunpei+Yokoi

=Gunpei Yokoi: Nintendo Gameboy=

Gunpei Yokoi, born in 1941, started his career at Nintendo Co., Ltd in 1965. Yokoi was most famous for the Gameboy and WonderSwan from Bandai. However, his inventions did not start there, he was recognized early on by the head of Nintendo, Hiroshi Yamauchi when he saw Yokoi playing with an extendable arm that he invented. This invention was a huge success for Nintendo as well as for Yokoi. This was the beginning of a career that defined his life and on the of this success he was promoted from line maintenance to design. In this area Yokoi played an instrumental part in propelling this card company into the video game industry. At a time when Space Invaders and Pong were the talk of the gaming industry, Yokoi introduced the Game & Watch series in 1980. He offered consumers an alternate style to game play on the go, which remained in circulation until 1991 at which point it was retired.



In 1989 Yokoi released Game Boy, which was the leading edge on handheld video gaming. Gaming was being moved from the living rooms, arcades and placed into the hands of consumers on the go and while competition was present, no other handheld gaming device offered swappable game cartridges and running for several hours on four AA batteries. He released several versions of Game Boy during the sixteen years that it has been in circulation, which included the Pocket, the Light (only in Japan), the Color, the Advance and Micro, which was released in 2005. media type="custom" key="6562261" width="96" height="83" align="center"





Seeking the next enhancement to the gaming experience, Gunpei Yokoi discovered Virtual Boy and released it in 1995 at the price of $180.00. After 30 years of success, this game proved to be less than what Yokoi was known for producing, and it did poorly in the market ultimately ending career at Nintendo. His vision of making games fun and exciting seem to have gotten away from him because this game was capable of giving consumer headaches, the system was not portable and the player had to wear a large headset.



After Yokoi departure from Nintendo in 1996, he began a new company called Koto Laboratory in Kyoto. Through his company partnership with Bandai, Yokoi developed WonderSwan, a handheld game. Unfortunately, Yokoi was never able to see the finish product due to his early dismiss at the age of 56 in 1997, which was caused by a car accident.

Patent: Timepiece apparatus having a game function Patent No.: 4438926, June 20th 1980 Inventor: Gunpei Yokoi [|Download as PDF] (2'103 KB)

Patent: Liquid crystal display unit Patent No.: 4398804, July 18th 1980 Inventor: Gunpei Yokoi Download as PDF (579 KB)

Patent: Figure displaying game apparatus Patent No.: 4415153, June 15th 1981 Inventor: Gunpei Yokoi Download as PDF (1'818 KB)

Patent: Display Patent No.: 4403216, April 22nd 1981 Inventor: Gunpei Yokoi [|Download as PDF] (1'008 KB)

Patent: Timepiece apparatus having a game function Patent No.: 4424967, December 10th 1981 Inventor: Gunpei Yokoi Download as PDF (1'828 KB)

Patent: Handheld game apparatus Patent No.: 4542903, December 22nd 1982 Inventor: Gunpei Yokoi, Satoru Okada [|Download as PDF] (1'440 KB)

Patent: Foldable liquid crystal display unit Patent No.: 4589659, July 20th 1984 Inventor: Gunpei Yokoi, Ichiro Shirai Download as PDF (1'010 KB)

Grogon, Wes. (2007, July 27). The World According to Gunpei Yokoi. Retrieved July 12, 2010, from []

Raider, Groove. (2008). In Memory of Toy & Game Inventor Gunpei Yokoi 1941 - 1997. Retrieved July 16, 2010 from http://vimeo.com/1501372

Game & Watch Patents. (2008, 16 June). Retrieved July 17, 2010 from []