Game & Watch

Transcript
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Before Nintendo became the video game powerhouse they are today, they produced toys and playing cards. Even legendary video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto’s first project at the company was making package designs for a Disney-themed board game. But this business model would be drastically altered after the creation of the Game & Watch series, Nintendo’s first successful entry into the handheld video game market.

After the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, Nintendo’s tried and true business model was in dire trouble. They struggled to stay afloat with then president Hiroshi Yamauchi experimenting with a variety of business ventures such as taxis and love hotels. While these ventures weren’t successful, Nintendo saw some potential in the toy market, especially since they had some experience in the industry with themed playing cards.

Gunpei Yokoi (who, at the time, was an engineer at Nintendo) brought one of their earliest successes: the Ultra Hand, an extendable arm that grabbed things from a distance. The Ultra Hand would go on to sell 1.2 million units, and Yokoi was eventually promoted within Nintendo to lead Research and Development 1 Group. One day while Gunpei Yokoi was travelling on the bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto, he noticed a passenger near him using a calculator as a toy to pass time. That’s when Yokoi began to wonder if a portable gaming device would have a market. His epiphany led to the creation of the Game & Watch series, Nintendo’s first portable gaming system.

Yokoi’s pitch to Hiroshi Yamauchi for the Game & Watch was a series of lucky coincidences. Yamauchi’s personal driver was sick one day and Yokoi was asked to drive Yamauchi’s Cadillac. Yokoi loved foreign cars and was one of the few people at the company who could drive it. During the drive, Yokoi pitched his idea for Game & Watch to Yamauchi, who didn’t seem particularly enthusiastic. Days later, executives from Sharp came to Nintendo and Yamauchi enthusiastically brought Yokoi on to develop the idea. Nintendo ended up partnering with Sharp (known at the time for their work on calculators) in order to make the Game & Watch.

For the series, Gunpei Yokoi wanted to create something that was small and could easily fit in people’s hands and pockets discreetly. This is because Yokoi felt that businessmen would be embarrassed to pull out a big gaming machine in public. This led the team to focus on a small, rectangular design that could be inconspicuously held in their hands. However, this origin story might not be entirely accurate, and is actually up for debate.

In an interview with Retrogamer, Satoru Okada (who worked with Gunpei Yokoi closely) stated that the MB Microvision directly inspired Nintendo’s Game & Watch series. Okada and Yokoi enjoyed playing games on it, but they didn’t understand why it was so big. Even with different games on the MB Microvision, the graphics and gameplay were basically the same due to its 16 x 16 pixel display. The two imagined a smaller device with better graphics, and eventually settled on a calculator-like screen for the device. Since the events surrounding the Game & Watch’s creation occurred over forty years ago, and Gunpei Yokoi is unfortunately no longer with us, it’s unlikely that we’ll ever know the true origins of the series.

The game “Ball” was the first title in the Game & Watch series, and went on sale on April 28, 1980, selling around a quarter of a million units. In Ball, players control a nondescript person who juggles balls. Ball has been re-released and remixed several times over the years, most recently with the Game & Watch Mario. One of the more surprising inclusions was with the Japanese-exclusive DS title called “Rakubiki Jiten DS”, which was an electronic dictionary developed by Nintendo. By typing in “Ball” or “Game & Watch” in the dictionary, players can access the game “Ball” within the software itself, as well as the game “Manhole”. While playing, the games will even display the current time on your system, a nod to the game’s original functionality that wasn’t present in some of the re-releases on the GameBoy. Players can also use the control pad or the touch screen to control both of these games.

One of the last official Game & Watch titles was actually a 1991 game titled “Mario the Juggler”. It was the only Game & Watch released in the 1990s, and features a vibrant colorful screen. Lakitu and a Hammer Bro make an appearance in this version with both helping out Mario juggle the balls. Another interesting callback to Ball comes with the GameBoy Camera. With the GameBoy Camera, players could take a picture of their own face and superimpose it on the character from Ball and then play the game.

Back when Gunpei Yokoi proposed the idea for the Game & Watch to Hiroshi Yamauchi, Yokoi was told that he needed to come up with multiple titles as Nintendo wouldn’t do just one. Ball was the first game Gunpei Yokoi envisioned, but he needed more, so he quickly threw together a whack-a-mole style game called “Vermin”. Despite the rushed design, Vermin became one of the best sellers for the initial batch of titles.

Yokoi looked to anime and Japanese folklore for inspiration for the game’s designs. “Turtle Bridge” was partly inspired by “The Hare of Inaba”, a story about how a rabbit tricked sharks in order to cross a body of water. Yamauchi would put intense pressure on Gunpei Yokoi in order to come up with ideas. In the Gunpei Yokoi’s Game Museum book, Yokoi reflects on this pressure, saying:

“Creating those new ‘backgrounds’ was itself very challenging, and the president would just casually walk over and say, ‘It’s that time again Yokoi! Make me another three [Game & Watch] games!’ I found the casualness of those requests exasperating, and privately, I thought, ‘Come on, it’s not that easy! Consider the guy who has to actually think all this up!’”

The Mario series, in particular, saw several releases on the Game & Watch. “Mario Bros.” was a Game & Watch multi-screen title released in 1983. The multi-screen design would later play a part in inspiring the DS line of handhelds, but with the difference being that the Game & Watch would open horizontally like a book instead of vertically. In the game, players control Mario and Luigi as they package cakes. If the player loses, Mario is scolded by his boss. Mario Bros. for the Game & Watch would be re-released several times in the Game & Watch Gallery titles with Bowser and Wario even making an appearance while the two brothers do the heavy lifting.

Some of Nintendo’s most important series also had entries on the Game & Watch, such as Donkey Kong, Balloon Fight, and The Legend of Zelda. In Game & Watch Zelda, players control Link as you fight eight dragons through eight dungeons. He gains pieces of the Triforce of Wisdom in order to save Princess Zelda and the world. Like many Zelda titles, if Link’s hearts are full, he’ll shoot a beam from his sword. Donkey Kong Circus was a 1984 title that actually serves as an unofficial prequel to the arcade Donkey Kong. In this title, Mario forces DK to juggle objects while balancing on a barrel. The game has colorful graphics and features Mario in a very similar style to the arcade game’s art.

The Game & Watch series re-released and reused a lot of concepts throughout its run. Donkey Kong Circus (which, itself, was a remake of Ball) was also a reskin of an earlier title called “Mickey Mouse”. Mickey Mouse and Donkey Kong Circus are so similar that Nintendo even swapped the product numbers during production. Mickey Mouse’s product number is “DC95” while Donkey Kong Circus is “MK96”, with the “MK” possibly referring to Mickey. Both titles are part of the Panorama Screen sub-series for the Game & Watch, but that wasn’t the mouse’s only appearance on the handheld. Disney would see two other Mickey Mouse titles for the Game & Watch. Mickey Mouse was released within the Widescreen sub-series, and Mickey and Donald were different versions of two other Game & Watch games titled “Egg” and “Fire” respectively.

Since the Game & Watch series ran for quite some time, it had a number of interesting sub-series. The Nintendo Vs. series (which were arcade versions of Famicom titles with two-player support) might have inspired the Micro Vs. line of games for the Game & Watch. Three titles were released for this series: Punch-Out, Donkey Kong 3, and Donkey Kong Hockey. With Donkey Kong Hockey, the players control Mario and Donkey as they square off in hockey. This Game & Watch title would be the first ever Mario sports title, predating the NES Open Tournament Golf by three years. It’s also interesting to note that Mario wasn’t even the main star of the title, instead being relegated to the Player 2 spot. The Crystal Screen series were later iterations of Game & Watch, featuring a transparent screen. Climber is an interesting title that was never released in Japan, and would release in the United States one year after Ice Climber debuted, and it’s possible the series was meant to be a spiritual sequel to Ice Climber.

After the Game & Watch’s success, there were a number of knockoffs and imitations. While shopping one day, Gunpei Yokoi heard the beeps from Vermin in a Taiwanese knockoff. When he purchased the unit and pried it open, he discovered that the knockoff Soccer design just replaced the Vermin screen, with the internal system being exactly the same. However, Yokoi wasn’t angry, just very surprised. Yokoi said:

“Thus when I see a knock-off of something I’ve made, it’s proof that my work has made a big impact, and that makes me very happy.”

Yokoi drew the original Game & Watch characters, but eventually entrusted the design process to a staff member who had skill in drawing manga.

The Game & Watch character would be immortalized in the Super Smash Bros. series from Melee onwards. Director Masahiro Sakurai would utilize a number of different Game & Watch titles within the character’s moveset. When designing the character for Melee, Sakurai initially wanted to make his movements move frame by frame, but it was too jarring. Instead of actually being a 2D sprite with lo-fi animation, Mr. Game & Watch is a 3D character that’s squished down on its Z-axis. When developing Mr. Game & Watch for Melee, Sakurai had borrowed the original systems from the Asakusabashi branch of Nintendo for research. For the stage, Sakurai wanted techno sounding music, which Hirokazu Ando (a musician at HAL) provided.

One reference that was added to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate ended up getting cut before the game’s release. This is because the forward smash attack initially included a culturally-insensitive reference to a title called “Fire Attack”. In Fire Attack, players would control a cowboy who must hit Native Americans with a hammer in order to prevent them from lighting the cowboy’s fort on fire. When the game was included in Game & Watch Gallery 4, the Native Americans were updated to be less in line with racist stereotypes. Nintendo changed the move before Smash Ultimate was released.

Did you also know that there was a chance of Wind Waker getting a sequel on the GBA? Or that Twilight Princess almost got a Majora’s Mask style sequel? For more Zelda facts, check out the video on screen.