Kotaku: gunpei yokoi

Happy Birthday Game Boy!

Brian Ashcraft — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 04:00:00 MDT

Twenty years ago today, the original Game Boy first went on sale in Japan. What better way to pay tribute than with a series of cheesy retro ads.

The Game Boy was created by Nintendo's Gunpei Yokoi, who also created the company Game & Watch handhelds. Worldwide, the Game Boy and its later iteration Game Boy Color have sold 118.69 units. Nintendo produced a variety of accessories for the portable, including Game Boy Camera.

ゲームボーイ生誕20周年記念 CM編 [Inside]

Gunpei Yokoi Remembered In Papercraft

Luke Plunkett — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:00:00 MDT

This is a papercraft model of Nintendo's own late, great Gunpei Yokoi. Considering the amount of papercraft we see that's devoted to Nintendo characters, it's a strangely fitting tribute to the father of the Game & Watch, Game Boy, Metroid and Kid Icarus. Click through for the full, downloadable template, which is courtesy of Raccoon Sam.

Download The Full-Size Gunpei Yokoi Papercraft Model

Download The Full-Size Gunpei Yokoi Papercraft Model

Gunpei Yokoi Papercraft [Gunpei Yokoi in Credits, via Go Nintendo]

Remembering Gunpei Yokoi

Michael McWhertor — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 18:20:16 MDT

Today, October 4th, 2007, marks the tenth anniversary of the death of Gunpei Yokoi, the Nintendo engineer responsible for inventing the company's Game & Watch and Game Boy hardware. Yokoi also acted as producer on Nintendo-developed software like Metroid and Kid Icarus with the R&D1 and Intelligent Systems teams. For those who haven't yet watched RobotBling's fantastic piece on Yokoi titled "The Greatest Inventor", I highly recommend doing so.

Great thanks to Eric for the reminder. RIP Gunpei.

Let's Have A Gunpei Yokoi Love-In!

Michael McWhertor — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 21:10:54 MDT

Yesterday, we celebrated the "birth" of the Sega Dreamcast, but today we should take a few minutes to remember one of the founding fathers of Nintendo and creator of influential products like the Game Boy and the Metroid series.

I'm talking, of course, about Gunpei Yokoi, who would have been 65 today, had he not been killed in a car accident in 1997. After giving us countless hours of enjoyment with his and his team's fantastic products, whether we're talking about Dr. Mario or Kid Icarus, he should be well remembered by anyone who calls themselves a gamer. Hell, anyone who's used a crosspad enabled controller should be thanking Mr. Yokoi right about now.

If you aren't aware of the technical and artistic achievements Gunpei brought to this industry, you're well advised to read up on him at his Wikipedia entry and at this much more personal article by Wired's Chris Kohler.

My most memorable Gunpei inspired moment? Dedicating a Saturday to replaying Super Metroid from start to finish to get the Samus sans armor ending, only to receive many puzzled WTF-esque stares from my college roommates. "That's IT?" they said, "You spent 3 hours for that?!". Michael McWhertor