What Retro Games Taught Us About Life: Gunpei Yokoi Edition – Part 1
Famicom. Super Famicom.
When we talk about the history of Nintendo’s game consoles, it’s easy to focus on the evolution of hardware performance. But behind that brilliant history lies a different philosophy—one that laid the very foundation of Nintendo’s success, thanks to a lesser-known genius.
His name was Gunpei Yokoi.
The creator of the Game & Watch and Game Boy, Yokoi championed a unique philosophy:
“Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology.”
This idea was simple yet revolutionary:
Instead of using cutting-edge, expensive technology, combine mature, widely available, low-cost technologies (“withered technology”) with fresh, creative ideas (“lateral thinking”) to create completely new ways to play—surprising and delighting everyone.
In an era when most companies believed that “advanced technology equals competitive power,”
why did Yokoi go against the grain and arrive at such a philosophy?
(To be continued in Part 2)