A Genius Mind Is Created
A young man who had just graduated from Doshinsha University with a degree in electronics started filling out applications for companies in Kyoto and was hired in 1965 by Hiroshi Yamauchi to maintain the heavy machinery on the assembly lines used to manufacture the Hanafuda cards. The young man’s name was Gunpei Yokoi and he would go on to become one of the most recognized figures in the video game business. Hiroshi heard that Gunpei enjoyed experimenting and building gadgets, so he began to think about entering the toy business. Finally, in 1969 Nintendo created the first of many games departments in Kyoto and it was named Games. This department ended up being the first R&D (research and development) team. Hiroshi asked Gunpei to invent a toy that Nintendo could sell during Christmas, and the next day, THE NEXT DAY, Gunpei walked into Hiroshi’s office with his creation, the Ultrahand. Not only that, but it wasn’t just blueprints he walked in with, it was an actual-size prototype that Gunpei had made himself. The Ultrahand was a big success and sold over 1 million copies worldwide by 1970. Pretty good for something that was quickly thought of overnight, eh?
From then on people knew that Gunpei could be trusted so he made many more successful gadgets. He continued to add more gadgets onto the Ultra series, including gadgets like the Ultra Machine to the Ultra Scope. He also came up with other things that weren’t related to the Ultra series, for example, a “love tester” that would suppose ably measure the amount of love between a couple. In the Japanese version the couple would hold hands and use the other hand to press a handle, the machine would measure a small current of electricity that ran through the two, it had nothing to do with love. In the American version, the couple did the same, but instead of holding hands, they had to kiss.
Gunpei Yokoi Begins Developing
Gunpei began to think about making a game with a light gun and small solar cells on targets to pick up the light from the light gun. He really wanted to see his idea work so he hired Masayuki Uemura from Sharp to help him make his idea come true using solar cell technology from Sharp. After much work, Gunpei and Masayuki had finally finished the Nintendo Beam Gun and it was made available to the market. It was being sold for about ¥4000-¥5000 (about $34-$42), and sold over 1 million copies. To keep up, Nintendo expanded their HQ to some of the buildings surrounding the present one. The newer buildings were better since they had higher security and they weren’t built to serve as a factory for manufacturing Hanafuda cards (which were still being made and sold even though Nintendo weren’t making much profit off of them anymore) like the older HQ building was, so the new expanded HQ was better for Nintendo in practically every aspect applicable.
Gunpei truly believed that the light gun techniques used in the Nintendo Beam Gun had great potential for other good toys. He discussed it with Hiroshi several times but they didn’t really have a plan that was set in stone. Yokoi thought about simulating the shooting of clay pigeons, which was very popular in Japan at the time. After some consideration, Hiroshi came up with a brilliant idea. Bowling had been a popular sport for a period of time in Japan during the 60′s, but now in the 70′s, most bowling alleys were deserted and unused. Hiroshi’s idea was to use these empty bowling alleys as shooting ranges for the light guns and simulated clay pigeons with solar-celled light detectors. This new game was called the Laser Clay Shooting System. The first of many Laser Clay Shooting Systems had its grand opening with the press and TV crews at the site. It became an instant hit! Eventually it grew onto people and became something normal to do after work to relax a bit or to just have some fun.
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