LudoScience

History of videogames (biography)

Author(s) : Takefumi Makino, Florent Gorges
Editor : Editions Pix'n Love
Publication date : 11-18-2010
Language : french

The biography of Gunpei Yokoi, one of the most creative employee Nintendo ever had. He is the creator of the Game & Watch, the Gameboy and the Virtual Boy, among others popular toys. This book is an excellent companion to the book series about the history of Nintendo, and offers many details about each creation of this little known genius. Besides the games and toys, this book also deals with the man itself, and more specificially with his famous "lateral thinking for old technologies" philosophy, that states the creation of products in a sector A with old and proofed technologies coming from a sector B. This philosophy was the main guideline for the creation of the Gameboy, which, thanks to its old but trusty black and white screen, allowed to play for hours with only two batteries, while its main competitor the Game Gear required six batteries for less than two hours of play on its brand new color screen. In the end, the history will clearly show that Gunpei Yokoi made the right call... This book is vibrant tribute to this man who made countless positive things for videogames (and for Nintendo), but who sadly disappeared in 1997 during a car accident. This book is well written, full of beautiful pictures, and truly touching during its last pages, so we definitively recommend it to anyone without any hesitation.