Gunpei Yokoi was once just an assembly line worker at a Nintendo factory. But armed with inventiveness and his education, Yokoi started tinkering around in his free time. His invention gained the notice of his boss. And within twenty years, he was a star of his company, responsible for some of the biggest names in the videogame industry. Game Boy. Metroid Donkey Kong . All of these seminal moments were guided by the genius of Yokoi, a brilliant creator with a storybook arc shattered by a tragic ending.

Octopus+Game+&+Watch+(1981)

Kid+Icarus+(NES,+1987)

Yokoi was born in Kyoto, Japan on September 10, 1941. After earning an electronics degree from Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan, Yokoi applied for a position at Nintendo in 1965. At the time, Nintendo was still primarily a hanafuda card manufacturer. Yokoi worked various jobs at a Nintendo factory over the next five years, including janitor. But during his down time, Yokoi started experimenting with machine parts and created an extendable arm toy.Gunpei Yokoi In one of those cosmic moments, Yokoi's invention caught the eye of the president of Nintendo, Hiroshi Yamauchi . Nintendo itself was undergoing changes, too, as Yamauchi was looking far beyond the primary card business. Yokoi's invention was a perfect product to start the shift. Yamauchi wanted Yokoi's invention on store shelves in time for the upcoming holiday. Yokoi obliged Yamauchi, perfecting the toy and releasing it as the Ultra Hand. The Ultra Hand ended up selling over 1.2 million units. Nintendo was now also a toy company. And Yokoi was one of its newest star players.With Yamauchi's blessing, Yokoi developed a series of toys for Nintendo over the next several years. The Ultra Scope was a periscope for children. The Ultra Machine pitched balls for kids to bat away. But soon Yokoi returned to his training in electronics and his love for tinkering. Nintendo released a Love Tester, where a couple held hands and then held on to the toy with their free hands, creating a circle. The toy then told them how compatible they were. It too was a big hit.Yokoi soon teamed up with Masayuki Uemura, a Sharp executive hired away by Nintendo, to work on light-detecting solar cell technology. The two created the Beam Gun games. The player aimed a toy gun at a target. If the light hit the sensor correctly, the toy would react. Uemura also became a significant presence at Nintendo, spearheading development of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and its follow-up, the SNES.From here, Yokoi moved almost exclusively into the realm of electronic toys. Yokoi's next invention for Nintendo would significantly shape the future of the entire company. Seeing that the cost of parts needed to make basic electronics like calculators had severely fallen in the seventies, Yokoi set about creating an electronic game that used existing technology in order to keep the price in check. The toy was the Game & Watch, one of the world's first portable videogames and the genesis for almost every single handheld gaming device in Nintendo's future.The Game & Watch series were simple LCD games controlled by a series of face buttons. The screen was painted with a static backdrop and monochromatic objects appeared on-screen. The first series of Game & Watch games in 1980 included Vermin, Fire, and Judge (which was the first appearance of Mr. Game & Watch). The following year saw Manhole, Octopus, and Turtle Bridge, as well as licensed games like Popeye and Mickey Mouse.As these handhelds became more complex, Yokoi was forced to come up with better control inputs. He created the control-cross, a single button that moved the on-screen character in four directions depending on the direction of pressure. This was, obviously, the first instance of the D-pad which is now an essential factor of almost every single game controller, including the Wii Remote.At the same time Yokoi was working on his electronic games, another Nintendo employee was also busy with completing Nintendo's transition into a videogame company: Shigeru Miyamoto . Miyamoto was assigned to create a game to convert a huge order of unsold Radar Scope arcade machines in America. Miyamoto came up with Donkey Kong . Yokoi helped produce the game, although history has largely credited Miyamoto with the invention of the game and its memorable characters that went on to define the company.The Game & Watch series continued to be successful for Nintendo. Donkey Kong and other Nintendo games were released for the simple handhelds. The Game & Watch line expanded to include tabletop games and double-screen releases. These clam-shell handhelds look like the precursor to the Nintendo DS.In 1984, Yokoi was assigned to head up R&D1, the lead research and development team within Nintendo. As the NES project within Nintendo picked up steam, Yokoi's team contributed both hardware and software for the landmark console. R&D1 created the R.O.B. peripheral as well two important NES games: Metroid and Kid Icarus Game Boy (1989) After members of R&D1 split to form Intelligent Systems , a first-party developer for Nintendo, Yokoi and the remaining team turned to a new project. The Game & Watch series proved that portable electronic games were immensely popular if the price was kept in a reasonable range. This was a core philosophy that drove the development of the Game Boy, a monochromatic handheld device that used cartridges like the NES instead of housing the game onboard the machine. There was concern inside Nintendo about the monochromatic display, but Yokoi insisted upon it as he wanted to keep the cost of the Game Boy low and not have it inhale batteries.When it launched in 1989, the Game Boy was an instant success. The machine sold out in both Japan and America. The success of the machine in America is largely credited not only to the price, but also the inclusion of Tetris, which was a firestorm puzzler popular around the world. The Game Boy became one of the Nintendo's best-selling products, selling over 118 million units worldwide (this figure includes the Game Boy Color, though, which was created after Yokoi left Nintendo). R&D1 was not only responsible for the hardware, but also some of the best-selling games for the system, including Super Mario Land and Dr. Mario.Virtual Boy (1995) Unfortunately, Yokoi's winning streak was soon to come to an abrupt end. Nintendo was interested in virtual reality technology (as was the rest of the world), and assigned Yokoi to research the area for Nintendo. Yokoi toiled on a secret VR project for Nintendo for over two years. The project, released in 1995, was the Virtual Boy. The Virtual Boy is considered one of the highest profile flops in videogames. While the Virtual Boy did indeed create a reasonable 3D effect, the machine was ungainly and quickly earned a reputation for causing serious eye strain thanks to the red-and-black graphics. Because it stumbled out of the gate, the Virtual Boy never amassed a large software catalog. Nintendo lost confidence in the system quickly, even going so far as to not release it at all in Europe.Despite being responsible for over two decades' worth of successes, Yokoi's reputation inside Nintendo suffered due to the Virtual Boy's failure. Whether it was shame or just the decision to start anew, Yokoi tendered his resignation to Nintendo on August 15 of 1996. It was truly the end of an incredible era for Nintendo.After leaving Nintendo, Yokoi started his own company. Called Koto Laboratory, Yokoi and his engineering team went back to work in videogames, an industry that Yokoi had helped build during his tenure at Nintendo. At Koto, Yokoi oversaw the development of the WonderSwan handheld for Bandai. He was making a run at an empire he helped create.Sadly, Yokoi never saw the release of the WonderSwan. Yokoi was involved in a traffic accident on October 4, 1997. The accident was only minor, but when Yokoi and the other man in the car, Etsuo Kiso of Nintendo, got out to look at the damage, they were struck by another car. Yokoi died in the hospital later that day.Even though Yokoi's career in videogames ended on a low note with his resignation from Nintendo, his influence over the industry can never be overstated. Whether it was the production of the Game Boy or the invention of the now ubiquitous D-pad, Yokoi earned the respect of his peers and competitors.Yokoi's story also underscores how much success is about being the right person with the right idea at the right time. Just as Yamauchi wanted to shift Nintendo into being a toy company, there was Yokoi with his extendable arm toy. And his genius with electronics would later serve Nintendo well when it transitioned from toys to videogames. So never mind that tragic ending. Focus on the humble beginning and consider how so many of the games we play today simply would not exist without Yokoi and his penchant for tinkering.