How Nintendo’s Game & Watch was inspired by a calculator and boredom

Nintendo is now a company synonymous with video games, but that wasn’t always the case. Much of Nintendo’s current legacy goes back to one man, Gunpei Yokoi, who led the creation of Game & Watch. When Yokoi joined the company in 1965, it was in trouble. The stock had recently fallen from 900 yen to just 60, but that would almost single-handedly turn around thanks to the new employee’s innovation.

When it was founded in 1889, Nintendo was a manufacturer of hanafuda playing cards based in a small company in Kyoto. Over the years, the company has tried several initiatives to stay relevant as cards fell out of favor, from taxi service to instant noodles. But it really began to find its place in the modern market with the production of toys. In 1966, Yokoi created the Ultra Hand, a reach-extending toy, which sold 1.4 million units worldwide. After several other toy projects – which varied in success – he turned his attention to the digital market, with inspiration coming from an unexpected place.

By the late 1970s, Nintendo had shifted its focus almost entirely to the video game market, releasing the TV-Game 6 and TV-Game 15 home consoles in 1977, and opening a paid games division in 1979. The same year that division launched, Yokoi was on the train when he noticed an employee idly playing with a calculator to pass the time. That’s when the inspiration came: games should not be limited to arcades and at home, but should also be available on the go. This is how the idea of ​​Game & Watch was born, even if its realization required a lot of ingenuity.

By a fortuitous coincidence, Yokoi ended up presenting the idea for Game & Watch to Hiroshi Yamauchi, then president of Nintendo, just before Yamauchi met the president of Sharp. At the time, Sharp was the world’s largest manufacturer of calculators and the two men discussed a collaboration. The technology behind the Game & Watch is similar to calculators of the era: both used LCD screens and button batteries, and obtained their visuals using a system of segments. In a calculator, each number is made up of seven segments, and the number of digits one can calculate depends on the segmentation capability of its chip. 1980s Game and watch: Ball was the first in the range and used a chip capable of displaying 72 segments.

Prototyping the game was first done physically, with a combination of carefully cut acrylic plastic and tiny wheat bulbs placed on a circuit board matching the size of the Game & Watch. Soon, the team was releasing a Game & Watch title almost every month, 59 in total between its inception and 1991. Over time, technology improved, first moving to the big screen before introducing the iconic dual-screen clamshell format seen on other Nintendo handhelds. In total, the Game & Watch series has sold more than 43 million units worldwide.

While working on Game and Watch, Yokoi invented a philosophy that still holds true at Nintendo: lateral thinking with withered technology. In other words, finding new applications for older, proven hardware – repurposing calculator technology for gaming is a perfect example. Yokoi applied this idea to his next project after the Game & Watch, the Game Boy, opting for simpler and more affordable hardware than that of main competitors. This resulted in a more portable device with better battery life, and in turn, it became one of the most popular handhelds of all time. Even today, devices like the Nintendo Switch 2 may not have the most powerful hardware, but excel in portability and price.

Yokoi’s lasting impact on the gaming landscape cannot be overstated. Its pioneering role in on-the-go gaming led to the introduction of two extremely important concepts: the aforementioned portable but protected clamshell design and the D-pad, both of which are used to this day. In an internal interview, the late producer and president of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata, said: “Without Game & Watch, today’s handheld game consoles would probably be different. I doubt that the Game Boy and Nintendo DS consoles would have managed to break through in the world. »

While these devices might never have seen the light of day due to lack of innovation, it’s also possible that they wouldn’t have existed due to Nintendo going bankrupt due to massive debts. Thanks to the success of Ultra Hand and Game & Watch, Yokoi managed to pull the company out of a financial hole twice. If Yokoi had not joined the company, it may never have had the time to flourish in the video game field. Even though the iconic handheld line that started it all is only occasionally celebrated today with themed Game & Watch releases and in-game references, Yokoi’s influence is evident in everything Nintendo does.