WEBVTT - sideways thinking: why is Nintendo so weird? 0:00:10.920 --> 0:00:14.640 The Nintendo switch to is finally out. Came out last week. 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:16.280 The moment has arrived. 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:18.119 My switch to is here. 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:21.439 It's been eight long years. 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:25.720 Well, folks, it is currently one six in the morning, 0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:29.360 and I just got home from the Best By midnight 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:31.200 launch for the Nintendo Switch Too. 0:00:31.520 --> 0:00:34.120 And here is a close up look at those new 0:00:34.240 --> 0:00:37.400 magnetic joy cons. It's bigger, it's more rigid, it feels 0:00:37.400 --> 0:00:39.640 more premium. The buttons are bigger. Speaking of bigger, the 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:41.440 doc got a little redesigned not earlier. 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:43.879 Did I manage to pick up the Nintendo switch too, 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:48.919 But I also got as many accessories as humanly possible, and. 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:51.680 I've got the freaking switch to. 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:52.839 Are you ready to dive in? 0:00:52.960 --> 0:00:55.000 Let me know the comment saw below how freaking cool 0:00:55.080 --> 0:00:55.480 this is. 0:00:57.120 --> 0:00:59.800 I do not have one yet, but I thought maybe 0:00:59.840 --> 0:01:01.240 now it was a good time to talk about the 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:05.720 people who made the switch to Nintendo, because they're kind 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:06.720 of a weird company. 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:11.759 So I was invited to a event in New York 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:17.440 for media to come play the switch to early. And 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:21.240 I walk in and as I'm approaching, there are just 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:26.720 two long lines of Nintendo employees like awaiting me and 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:30.120 like the seven people who are like walking through and 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:35.120 they all just start clapping and hooting and hollering like yeah, 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:39.479 you get to play Switch, dude, And I'm like ah, 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:40.880 and I walked through. 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:43.240 Wait, hold on, there's seven of you, and how many 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:43.480 of the. 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:48.600 Employees triple that? Like like like wives, way more than that. 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:51.280 Petrick Clippik and I used to work together Vice back 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:54.000 in the day. He now runs a podcast at Remap 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:56.960 Radio with some other VICE friends, and he also writes 0:01:57.000 --> 0:02:00.520 a substack called cross Play about playing video games with kids. 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:03.640 He got to play the Switch too early and later 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:05.320 on we'll get his thoughts about it. 0:02:05.600 --> 0:02:08.000 Work got weird was there was sort of like a 0:02:08.040 --> 0:02:11.800 media space and I would go over there kind of 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:13.520 collect my thoughts. What else do I need to go do? 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:16.600 I was like, all right, I'm gonna go back because 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:18.480 I didn't play this and and play that. And I 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:22.600 walk in again and those same people are there waiting, 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:27.040 like who's ready to play Switch too? And I'm like 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:30.280 I was, I was just I was just here, Like 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:32.600 I was just here, and then happen to be three 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:35.440 times over the course of the like six hours. So 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:37.320 it's a little it was a little culty, but it 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:38.120 was very funny. 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:43.720 So this episode isn't really about the as Patrick put it, 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:47.680 the slightly culty part of Nintendo's culture, which does exist. 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:53.040 But Nintendo is a unique video game company for another reason. 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:56.760 I think what's fascint about Nintendo is that they have 0:02:56.880 --> 0:03:00.560 survived as long as they have. You know, my Microsoft 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:04.960 is a relative newcomer. Sega came into the hardware business 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:08.000 and last the hardware business. The thing about Nintendo is 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:12.280 that their kind of conservative nature has allowed them to 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:16.480 survive big ups and big downs. Like they were making 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:21.440 games that cost less required fewer people in an industry 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:24.919 in which games are becoming more expensive to make, requiring 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:28.360 more people. I think it's a corporate culture that goes 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:31.919 back to the origins of the company at the executive level. 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:39.839 A lot of people compare Nintendo to Disney, and those 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:42.960 comparisons make a lot of sense. But when Patrick says 0:03:43.120 --> 0:03:46.960 conservative here, it doesn't just mean being family friendly or 0:03:47.040 --> 0:03:51.320 not taking risks. It can also mean thinking seriously about 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:54.320 what you've already got and what you can make with it. 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:58.200 And Patrick's right that culture does go back to the 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:00.800 origins of the company, at least the company as we 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:05.120 know it. Specifically, it goes back to one guy, someone 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:08.760 that even most hardcore video game fans have never heard of. 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:13.560 His name is Goompe Yokoi, and I would argue that 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:27.480 he's the guy who made Nintendo. Nintendo, I'm Afraid from 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:33.279 Kaleidoscope and iHeart podcasts. This is kill Switch. 0:04:34.240 --> 0:05:05.520 I'm Dexter Thomas, I'm Char, I'm char. Good Bye. 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:09.400 Nintendo as a company goes back to eighteen eighty nine. 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:12.080 They were best known as a producer of playing cards, 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:16.839 specifically hanafuda, which are a kind of traditional Japanese card. 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:18.960 They're a little smaller than the western cards you might 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:21.760 be familiar with, and they have these images of flowers 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:24.120 or birds on the front. And people still play this 0:05:24.240 --> 0:05:27.640 game today. But Nintendo didn't become a household name until 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:31.280 they pivoted to video games. And there's one specific person 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:34.360 that we should probably credit for making Nintendo what it 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:37.360 is today. Now. When I say that, a lot of 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:41.120 people might think of Shagero Miyamoto, which is fair because 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:44.520 he's the guy who created Mario and Zelda. But the 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:47.680 guy that I'm talking about was there before Miyamoto even 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:53.080 joined the company. A young electrical engineer named Gumpe Yukoi. 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:56.920 He was kind of their original creative lead, if you will. 0:05:57.080 --> 0:05:59.239 The company kind of started their R and D division 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:00.599 for him. 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:05.000 To understand Yukoi's influence on Nintendo called the Jeremy Parrish. 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:08.760 He's been reporting on and researching game history for years now. 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:11.919 He's even got an entire YouTube channel dedicated to it, 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:14.839 and Ucoy's name comes up a lot there. 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:17.520 He joined the company I think back in the nineteen 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:21.119 sixties or so, when Nintendo was still trying to figure 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:23.039 out what it was. You know, that was the era 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:27.440 where they were licensing peanuts from the US Charlie Brown 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:30.080 and Snoopy and trying to create stuff around that. They 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:34.800 were selling Ramen like instant Ramen, basically like any trend 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:37.799 that they could find, they would jump on it, hoping 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:40.520 for some sort of hit. They had their own lego 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:45.160 knockoff called n Block, and the company really didn't have 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:49.120 a direction beyond we want to make money somehow. 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:54.960 Good direction? So why would they need an electrical engineer 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:58.520 like Ukoi. Let's back up, and I can tell you 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:01.839 the story that's in the closest thing to an autobiography 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:04.599 that Yukoi ever wrote, which is in an interview in 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:07.919 a book by a reporter named Makiino Takifumi. So the 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:11.000 kind of cards that Nintendo made weren't just for families 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:13.960 to gather around and pass the time. They were also 0:07:14.080 --> 0:07:17.880 good for gambling, and part of Nintendo's early customer base 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:21.880 was illegal gambling houses. And if you've ever been to Vegas, 0:07:22.000 --> 0:07:25.720 you know gamblers take the quality of the cards very seriously. 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:29.040 If there's a defect in the manufacturing, the players will 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:31.520 notice it a little mark on a card here, or 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:34.040 a divid in the surface there, and a player can 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:36.520 use that to figure out what card it is and 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:42.200 a cheat. And apparently Nintendo's cards weren't always perfect, and 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:47.520 occasionally some quote scary looking yakaza would show up directly 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:52.040 at Nintendo's office and well, they would voice their concerns 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:56.280 about the cards. So if the cards aren't being manufactured evenly, 0:07:56.640 --> 0:07:59.160 one solution is to use a machine to put them together. 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:02.960 But the machine that Nintendo had bought wasn't working well. 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:07.239 So when Gumpeykoi first got hired in Nintendo, the first 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:09.680 project they put him on was fixing the glue machine 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:10.360 for the cards. 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:14.480 Supposedly, legend has it that he was kind of assigned 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:18.040 to the night shift managing the factory and the assembly lines, 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:20.920 and it was a pretty boring task, so he would 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:25.440 just tinker and create things. And he created like an 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:29.280 accordion style device that you could open up and it 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:32.360 would contract, and then it had clamps on the end, 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:35.360 and if you closed it, you know, close the grips again, 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:38.320 then it would extend and close the grips on the 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:45.200 other end. And supposedly the company's president, Hiroshiyamauchi, who was always, 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:47.480 you know, always out looking for good ideas, saw this 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:50.439 thing that Yokoi had put together just to kill time, 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:53.640 and said, this is something that has play value. This 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:56.680 is something we could sell to people. So they created 0:08:56.679 --> 0:08:59.800 the Ultra Hand and that was Nintendo's first hit toy 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:04.800 in the nineteen sixties. So, you know, Yokoi created this 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:09.920 hit and Nintendo basically said you're our guy, now do 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:15.000 this kind of thing again, and he did. 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:17.400 So gumpe Akoi kept cranking out these hit toy products, 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:21.640 but the toys he made were kind of weird. 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:25.560 One of the toys is a race car called Lefty RX. 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:29.440 And the reason it's called Lefty RX is because it's 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:33.080 a remote control car. That's the RX that can only 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:34.959 turn left. It cannot turn. 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:37.360 Right, only left, only left. 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:39.959 It goes in a straight line and you can turn left. 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:44.280 And that sounds like the worst toy imaginable. But the 0:09:44.320 --> 0:09:47.079 thing is, when it was created in the nineteen seventies, 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:52.080 remote control cars were very very expensive, and having that 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:54.960 full chassis on a remote control car that can go 0:09:55.000 --> 0:09:58.800 in both directions, can reverse, and also having a remote 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:02.880 control that has steering wheel and all the necessary buttons 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:06.960 and everything, it made those very expensive. And Yokoi's idea 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:10.000 with left DRX was what if we stripped out all 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:13.680 but the most basic functions to create an affordable remote 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:16.599 control car that any kid can own. So, all of 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:20.360 a sudden, with the left RX, you didn't have to 0:10:20.360 --> 0:10:22.880 be one of the rich kids to have a cool 0:10:22.960 --> 0:10:25.240 remote control car. You could have a slightly less cool 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:28.040 remote control car, but it was yours and it would 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:30.640 still race. It's just you know, you had to put 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:32.600 it on a race track. And it made sense because 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:35.760 you know, you look at enough one track, basic oval track, 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:37.160 it's just going to be your car is going to 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:37.880 be turning left. 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:38.439 Yeah. 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:40.880 So that's all they I mean, not all they do, 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:43.800 you know, offence of the NASCAR fans out there. But yeah, 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:46.439 essentially it is a sport in which you go straight 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:47.679 and turn left. 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:53.280 Yes, so Yokoi tapped into that. It was vastly less expensive, 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:55.360 you know, like a quarter of the cost of a 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:59.120 remote control racing car that had the full set of features. 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:03.600 Koy sort of democratized this technology, but at the same 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:07.199 time created something that was very profitable for Nintendo. So 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:09.760 it's not like he was, you know, some great man 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:11.920 of the people or something. He was a businessman. He 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:14.960 was making money for his employer, but doing it in 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:18.840 a way that opened up the field for the biggest 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:24.880 audience possible. And you know, using limited technology, using something 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:27.680 that seems underwhelming on the face of it, but still 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:29.720 ultimately it's functional and fun. 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:33.000 And this speaks to a philosophy that gumpe Ukoy had 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:36.760 which is still courts to Nintendo today. His phrase was 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:41.320 kut atajijitsu no siejeskal, which if you translate it literally 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:46.559 is something like lateral thinking with withered technology, or another 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:49.280 way to put it might be something like taking mature 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:51.760 technology and thinking sideways. 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:56.199 The idea is that you take something that is not 0:11:56.280 --> 0:12:00.920 cutting edge tech that is not necessarily intuitive like the 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:04.679 new hot thing. It's been around for a while, and 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:09.000 that kind of works to its advantage. Find new applications 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:13.719 for this old technology, this old gadget or gimmick or 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:19.200 CPU or whatever, and create fun out of that, to 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:25.319 create something that one kind of gives kids and consumers 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:27.680 a fresh take on something that might be sort of 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:31.200 familiar and that they take for granted. But also because 0:12:31.240 --> 0:12:37.120 this technology is old and well established, it's usually created 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:41.520 at scale, and so it's readily available as a component. 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:44.680 So you know, you can basically put together off the 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:48.880 shelf parts and very inexpensively come up with something that 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:53.840 can be created in mass manufacturing and distributed and be 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:59.320 very profitable. So it's one part kind of pure mad 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:04.160 cap and vence and one part business practicality. And eventually, 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:08.000 once Nintendo kind of went all in on video games, 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:11.560 they brought him in and said, please apply that creativity 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:15.240 to video games. And so you saw things like game 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:17.439 and Watch, and you saw things like game. 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:21.080 Boy, and this concept is still being referenced by Nintendo. 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:24.000 When one of the developers for the switch to was 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:26.720 asked about how the new JOYCN could be used as mice. 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:31.120 This is what he had to say, implementing mouse control 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:35.240 that's widely used nowadays in the Joycon controllers, isn't that costly? 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:38.640 And I think that's exactly what Lateral thinking of whither 0:13:38.800 --> 0:13:44.160 technology is all about. Nintendo is still citing this philosophy 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:48.400 decades after Goompey entered the company, but we still haven't 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:52.520 talked about the games. How did goompe Eucoi's philosophy lead 0:13:52.600 --> 0:13:56.680 to Nintendo's biggest early video game hits? That's after the 0:13:56.720 --> 0:14:09.800 break felt the nineteen seventies, Goompey, a coy came up 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:12.839 with tons of toys for Nintendo, and they were all 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:15.720 pretty quirky. There was a puzzle game, There was an 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:19.400 extendable periscope. He made this thing called the Love Tester, 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:23.240 which supposedly measure your compatibility with a romantic partner, but 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:25.440 really just boys would buy it so they could get 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:28.680 girls to hold their hands. Goope had even started making 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:32.480 games for arcades. But the thing that really brought Nintendo 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:35.720 into some serious cash was this right here. 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:49.880 Game, what game? What game? What game? 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:55.960 If you play Smash Brothers, you might have recognized the 0:14:56.040 --> 0:14:59.480 name there game and watch the game and Watch came 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:03.960 out in Night and this was Nintendo and goompe Ucoy's 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:07.960 first real video game hit, so right. 0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:10.760 From the gate when those debuted in nineteen eighty with Ball, 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:13.480 a very simple juggling game where you have a guy 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:17.920 with you know, arms, and you just have to like 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:20.920 keep balls in the air. That's sold I want to 0:15:20.960 --> 0:15:24.240 say half a million a million units. It became a 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:25.040 worldwide hit. 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:28.360 Ball is as simple as it sounds, and it was 0:15:28.400 --> 0:15:30.400 the game that first came out with Game and Watch. 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:33.600 And again, if you play Smash Brothers, that's the character 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:36.040 you play as. And you could buy different Game and 0:15:36.080 --> 0:15:39.560 Watch games and they were all equally simple. There was Ball, 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:42.400 there was a game where you dodge falling objects. There 0:15:42.440 --> 0:15:45.120 was a really simple version of Whack a Mole. But 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:48.960 Game and Watch wasn't just a gaming console. It was 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:50.680 also a literal watch. 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:53.880 When it was in sort of a neutral mode, it 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:57.520 would switch over to like a display clock. You could 0:15:57.520 --> 0:16:00.200 set an alarm on it. The time piece element was 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:02.560 sort of built in from the start because the idea 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:07.720 behind Game and Watch was taking the fundamental technology the 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:11.400 powered the brand new LCD wristwatches that were kind of 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:16.520 making their rounds from Cassio and other companies and taking 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:20.960 that screen technology and approaching it a different way to 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:23.040 create entertainment out of it. 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:26.160 So how did Ukoy come up with this thing? This 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:28.760 is where we start getting into the era where Ukoy 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:32.200 was starting to become something of a legend. So there 0:16:32.240 --> 0:16:35.600 are a few stories about this. The most popular one 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:38.200 is that he got the idea from seeing businessmen on 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:42.120 the train absent mindedly playing with their calculators, and he 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:45.080 decided to make a product out of this. Maybe there 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:49.000 is some truth to that, and it is a nice story, but. 0:16:51.120 --> 0:16:55.560 I think that's probably somewhat apocryphal. Most likely what happened 0:16:55.960 --> 0:17:00.320 was before Game and Watch came out. Milton Bradley created 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:04.480 a game system portable game system called Microvision that was 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:09.320 in nineteen seventy nine, and Nintendo's designers and developers have 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:13.119 referenced Microvision when talking about the Game Boy, and that 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:15.760 you know, game Boy was ten years after Microvision came out. 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:21.560 But that system was big and unwieldy and kind of 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:23.760 a weird piece of tech. It had like a bowling 0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:27.000 game that barely resembles bowling. It had a casino game 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:31.400 that barely resembles a slot machine, So that definitely caught 0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:34.800 a Nintendo's eye, and I think what happened was, you know, 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:37.560 they said, we've got to do something like this, and 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:40.800 they looked at, you know, the technology that they saw 0:17:40.840 --> 0:17:45.760 in LCD wristwatches and said, oh, okay, like we could 0:17:45.760 --> 0:17:48.600 do something along those lines. We could take that technology 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:54.719 and approach the idea of video game displays differently than 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:57.800 the standard pixel grit. What they did was they just 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:02.800 silk screened onto an old screen and created little characters, 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:06.440 very detailed characters and images that are pre built into 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:09.800 the screen light up. It was built around I believe 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:14.359 sharp LCD technology and they were mass manufacturing millions and 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:17.040 millions of these screens. So they took something that was 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:21.160 a prevailing trend at the time but used in one way, 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:24.600 and said what if we use this a different way? 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:27.359 And it was a huge hit, made them tons of money. 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:30.639 These were hits in Japan, but also in the US, 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:32.720 but also in Europe and also in the Middle East 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:37.000 and you know, parts of East Asia and Africa, like anywhere, 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:43.600 you know, anywhere people bought consumer products and enjoyed entertainment. 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:44.960 They could buy a game. 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:48.080 And watch It makes sense because these were such simple 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:51.800 games that they didn't need translation or even a manual. 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:54.480 Just pick it up and you immediately know how to play. 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:58.119 Just recently, the Video Game History Foundation found what is 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:02.440 probably Nintendo's first EVA commercial in the USA in nineteen eighty. 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:05.520 They weren't big enough to distribute their products internationally by 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:08.520 themselves yet, so some other company did it and called 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:11.760 it time Out. But other than that label, this is 0:19:11.800 --> 0:19:13.280 definitely the game and watch. 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:18.200 Jah Ying gave you falling notches, take time out. Tennis 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:21.960 gave you tennis elbow, take time out. Then you electronic 0:19:22.040 --> 0:19:25.919 spot this timeout games called toss Up. It plays an 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:29.960 easy game and a hard game. It recauds your highest 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:33.240 score and even tells time plus. 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:39.080 Yeah again like using low power, inexpensive, easily accessible technology, 0:19:39.520 --> 0:19:42.719 and a really clever way to create great play value 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:43.240 and fun. 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:47.800 And this is where the directional pad came from. Also right, yes, 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:51.400 the Donkey Kong game and Watch. When they sat down 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:55.919 to adapt Donkey Kong into game and watch forum, they 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:59.879 created the crosspad. The crosspad, also known as the direction 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:03.119 or the d pad, basically think of the part of 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:05.960 the controller that you use to make Mario walk left 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:09.040 or right crosspads are so ubiquitous now that it might 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:11.720 seem like they've been around forever, But back in the 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:15.400 seventies and even into the eighties, arcade games or home 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:19.160 console games would use joysticks or left or right buttons, 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:23.199 or switches or even circular dials to move. Pretty often, 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:26.000 playing a new game also meant having to learn a 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:29.040 brand new interface just to make your character move left 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:32.560 or right. It was Nintendo's Game and Watch that first 0:20:32.600 --> 0:20:34.360 introduced the crosspad. 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:38.440 That was this moment that changed everything for video games. 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:40.840 The crosspad came from Game and Watch and became an 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:45.120 integral part of not only their system, but so many 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:46.879 other systems we have. 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:50.399 Basically every single system after that is used some version 0:20:50.520 --> 0:20:55.440 from I mean Super Nintendo, you know, PlayStation, all the segasystems, 0:20:55.720 --> 0:20:58.840 all the Microsoft systems to Xbox, everything has used some 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:03.320 version of that an original directional crosspad. Video games were 0:21:03.359 --> 0:21:06.719 starting to make serious money for Nintendo. Donkey Kong hit 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:09.840 arcades in nineteen eighty one and that was a massive hit, 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:12.639 And in nineteen eighty three they put out their first 0:21:12.640 --> 0:21:16.280 home console. In Japan, it was called the Famicom. Here 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:19.080 in the States it was the Nintendo Entertainment System, and 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:21.840 we got it in late eighty five early nineteen eighty six. 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:25.760 But this whole time they were still making and selling 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:28.960 game and watch units. Other companies were starting to copy 0:21:29.000 --> 0:21:33.520 their designs, which Yukoi himself didn't really mind, but of course, 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:37.679 the president of Nintendo needed another hit product. By this point, 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:39.560 Yukoi was the head of his own R and D 0:21:39.680 --> 0:21:43.159 department with a team of engineers working under him, and 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:46.800 in nineteen eighty nine, this department created a new handheld 0:21:46.800 --> 0:21:50.960 gaming device, the game Boy, and this is probably the 0:21:51.000 --> 0:21:55.320 most famous expression of goompey Ocoy's philosophy of sideways thinking 0:21:56.080 --> 0:21:58.760 using old technology for a new purpose. 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:01.840 At the heart of the game Boy, you have a 0:22:01.960 --> 0:22:05.600 Z eighty processor, and those have been around since the seventies. 0:22:05.800 --> 0:22:11.360 A lot of the early computers used those early game consoles, 0:22:11.400 --> 0:22:15.000 like the Calico Vision SAG SG one thousand. But by 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:17.000 the time Game Boy came out, you know, the SG 0:22:17.040 --> 0:22:19.880 one thousand line Master system was on its way out 0:22:20.440 --> 0:22:24.720 like that, that technology was being deprecated, and Nintendo went 0:22:24.760 --> 0:22:29.119 with that because there were hundreds of millions of Z 0:22:29.240 --> 0:22:32.560 eighty's in the world, like they were cheapest chips. And 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:35.919 it was functional. It was capable, not super powerful, not 0:22:35.960 --> 0:22:38.879 cutting edge in any way, but it did the job. 0:22:39.280 --> 0:22:42.400 It was a proven piece of technology for video games, 0:22:42.960 --> 0:22:45.080 so it was very easy to make games for game Boy. 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:47.239 But you know, the thing that people always go back 0:22:47.280 --> 0:22:50.120 to with game Boy is that the screen was garbage. Yes, 0:22:50.280 --> 0:22:51.880 it really seems like they went out of their way 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:54.240 to find the worst screens possible, but they were cheap, 0:22:54.800 --> 0:22:58.560 they were very inexpensive, and so game Boy worked out 0:22:58.600 --> 0:23:00.920 for them very popular. 0:23:03.160 --> 0:23:06.440 Just to back up here, at the time, game Boy 0:23:06.880 --> 0:23:11.800 on paper probably sounded like an incredibly bad idea. I mean, 0:23:11.920 --> 0:23:14.440 it's easy to look back now in hindsight and say, well, 0:23:14.520 --> 0:23:17.320 hey man, that was back in nineteen eighty nine. Cut 0:23:17.320 --> 0:23:19.520 them some slack. It was gonna be a little bit primitive. 0:23:19.880 --> 0:23:23.800 But no, this thing was garbage even by nineteen eighty 0:23:23.920 --> 0:23:27.000 nine standards. And when it was first being released, there 0:23:27.000 --> 0:23:31.040 were reviewers who reviewed it very harshly, saying that the 0:23:31.080 --> 0:23:34.000 hardware was primitive and the screen looked bad, and they 0:23:34.040 --> 0:23:37.400 were correct. But then the thing actually hits the market 0:23:37.840 --> 0:23:42.600 and it turns out hardware specs don't actually matter. It's 0:23:42.640 --> 0:23:44.399 all about the games and how you put it together. 0:23:45.480 --> 0:23:49.320 The obvious early highlight would be Tetris. This game was 0:23:49.359 --> 0:23:53.000 pushing three million units sold within months, and it was 0:23:53.040 --> 0:23:55.359 also one of the first things to help solidify video 0:23:55.400 --> 0:23:58.080 games is not just for little kids, but something that 0:23:58.119 --> 0:24:00.800 adults could also pick up and play. I could list 0:24:00.880 --> 0:24:03.640 other hits or high lights like Kirby or the game 0:24:03.680 --> 0:24:08.119 Boy Camera or Pokemon definitely, But maybe the most impressive 0:24:08.160 --> 0:24:11.040 thing here is that the game Boy came out again 0:24:11.080 --> 0:24:14.639 in nineteen eighty nine, and Nintendo put out their final 0:24:14.680 --> 0:24:18.520 game Boy game in nineteen ninety nine. But that's only 0:24:18.560 --> 0:24:20.960