Nintendo
Nintendo started as a small Japanese business by Fusajiro Yamauchi near the end of 1889 as Nintendo Koppai. Based in Kyoto, Japan, the business produced and marketed a playing card game called Hanafuda. The handmade cards soon began to gain popularity, and Yamauchi had to hire assistants to mass produce cards to keep up with the demand.

In 1963, Yamauchi renamed Nintendo Playing Card Company Limited to Nintendo Company, Limited. The company then began to experiment in other areas of business using the newly injected capital. During this period of time between 1963 and 1968, Nintendo set up a taxi company, a "love hotel" chain, a TV network and a food company (trying to sell instant rice, similar to instant noodles). All these ventures eventually failed, and after the Tokyo Olympics, playing card sales dropped, leaving Nintendo with 60 yen in stocks. In 1966, Nintendo moved into the Japanese toy industry with the Ultra Hand, an extending arm developed by maintenance engineer Gunpei Yokoi in his free time. The Ultra Hand was a huge success, selling approximately 1.3 million units.[citation needed] Gunpei Yokoi was moved from maintenance to the new "Nintendo Games" department as a product developer. Nintendo continued to produce popular toys, including the Ultra Machine, Love Tester and the Kousenjuu series of light gun games. Despite some successful products, Nintendo struggled to meet the fast development and manufacturing turnaround required of the toy market, and fell behind the well-established companies such as Bandai and Tomy.

Game&Watch und Gunpei Yokoi
When Nintendo eventually began selling video games, Yamauchi asked Yokoi to come up with products in this field. After viewing a bored business-man playing with a calculator on a bullet-train, Yokoi invented a prototype.The initial result was Nintendo's popular Game & Watch series of handhelds. Game & Watch games were individual handheld games which featured an LCD-display. Some consider the small handhelds to be a prototype of the Game Boy, which would be released later and prove to be Yokoi's greatest work. These games also featured a "control-cross," which many video game enthusiasts today know as the D-Pad, a controller part that consists of four buttons grouped in a + shape which correspond to the directions up, down, left, and right. In most games this is used to control the direction of certain objects. The Game & Watch series saw 59 titles between 1980 and 1991. Many popular arcade games were translated into Game & Watch titles, including Donkey Kong and Mario Bros., which Yokoi helped to create alongside Shigeru Miyamoto. Many of these Game & Watch titles were put onto large compilations for the Game Boy series of handhelds, and included classic as well as reinvented versions of Ball, Flagman, Oil Panic, and Fire among other titles. These are known as the Game & Watch Gallery series.

On October 4, 1997, Yokoi was involved in a car accident. He was riding in a car driven by Etsuo Kiso, a businessman from Nintendo. After a minor car accident involving a truck, Kiso and Yokoi pulled over to examine the damage of the two automobiles. While examining, a passing car sideswiped them. Yokoi was grievously injured and pronounced dead two hours later. He was 56. Kiso suffered two badly broken bones and severe whiplash.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: Wiki
Edited by: Gawaleus

 

 

Game&Watch Patents

If you invent something, you have to protect it...
A search in databases for patents shows, that Nintendo did claim a few hundred of them. Many are from the inventor of Game&Watch, Gunpei Yokoi. Most interesting are those patents, which have to do with Game &Watch.

 

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

The first time Game&Watch was announced for a patent: Ball AC-01. The patent describes a Timepiece apparatus having a game function. Later on another patent was announced, Electronic toy having a game function (Download as PDF, 1'694 KB).














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

The LCD was invented and patented as well...!








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

It seems to me, that this patent is a follow up for patent No. 4438926.






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

A very interesting fact here is, that this patent dated 1981 allready contains drawings of a Table Top game. Did Nintendo plan to manufacture TT's at this time? Or was it just an idea or a possible variation? The first Table Ttop game (Donkey Kong Junior CJ-71) was released on April 28th 1983, that was two years later...!




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

Was the G&W game invented again here?







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

The official pronouncement of the Multi Screen series!







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

The Panorama Screen games did follow after the Multi Screen games.








Patent: Multi directional switch
Patent No.: 4687200, August 9th 1985
Inventor: Ichiro Shirai
Download as PDF (539 KB)

Nintendo did invent the cross pad (D-Pad) as well. But it wasn't Gunpei Yokoi, the inventor was Ichiro Shirai.