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It’s winter CES, 1995. I haven’t been in the business for all that long, but the powers that be at Nintendo have decided to do what they can to help establish my career. Howard Lincoln, who I think was still a senior vice president at Nintendo, makes a point of saying hello to me very publicly. Perrin Kaplan, the head of Nintendo’s communications, goes out of her way to get me any interview I wanted. I’ve said it before and I will say it again, my career began when Perrin Kaplan decided to help get me started by giving almost unlimited access to executives at Nintendo of America.
So I’m hoping to interview Tim Stamper—the creator of Donkey Kong Country. His game his electrified the video game world and given the Super NES a whole new life. As I wait to meet Stamper, I see Japanese executives walking around and I recognize the names on their badges. I see Genyo Takeda (Nintendo’s lead console designer), Shigeru Miyamoto (the legend), and Gunpei Yokoi (the dean of Nintendo engineers and creator of Game Boy). I do not recognize these names because I am so hooked into games, I recognize them because I have recently finished reading Game Over by David Sheff.
Not knowing how forward I am behaving, I ask Perrin if I can interview any of these men. Takeda says no. Miyamoto gives me an hour. (See article No. 3) Yokoi says he would be happy to meet with me. Nintendo is preparing to launch Virtual Boy, the project that would eventually end his career with Nintendo, and he feels all topics are up for grabs. We met for an hour that day and an hour the next. Two hours with Gunpei Yokoi… that’s something on which you can build a career.
Yokoi and I remained friendly for years. He lived in Japan and spoke little English. I lived in Seattle and spoke no Japanese, but we got together at every CES, Shoshinkai, and E3.
Four research and development teams power Nintendo's expanding line of products. The newest of the teams, the Entertainment Analysis and Development Team (EAD), is most closely associated with game design. Led by the man that created Zelda and Donkey Kong, the legendary Sigeru Miyamoto, this team has given Nintendo its identity by setting the family-oriented humorous tone that has become the company's signature.Research and Development Team 3, led by Genyo Takeda, has mostly operated in the background as far as the public is concerned. Though they developed an excellent 8-bit game called Star Tropics, until recently, the team's biggest contributions to Nintendo have been technical achievements such as improved use of RAM (Random Access Memory) and the battery back-up system used in game cartridges. Team 3's latest project is the development of the Ultra 64 Entertainment System, Nintendo's entry in the high-end system market.
In many ways, Research and Development Team 2 has functioned as the invention arm of Nintendo. Led by Masayuki Uemura, Team 2 developed the original Famicom system. (Famicom stands for Family Computer, the name given to the original Nintendo Entertainment System in Japan.) When Nintendo decided to manufacture a 16-bit entertainment system, Team 2 created it.
Despite their illustrious accomplishments, Gumpei Yokoi, the leader of Research and Development Team 1, is revered as the Dean of Nintendo's engineers. Yokoi has made too many contributions to Nintendo to list. As the company's first electronics inventor, Yokoi played a major role in Nintendo's conversion from manufacturing Hanafuda playing cards to entering the age of computers. He designed toys, early arcade machines, and the famous Nintendo game watch. Most of the other team leaders worked with Yokoi before starting their own development teams.
Yokoi has made software contributions as well. His team developed Dr. Mario. But Research and Development Team 1's most famous inventions are the Game Boy and the Virtual Boy portable game systems.
Gumpei Yokoi exemplifies traditional Japanese values. He is fiercely loyal to Nintendo and unwilling to exaggerate his role in the company. He has only granted interviews to American reporters on two occasions, not because he dislikes the press, but because he sees himself as a background participant on the Nintendo team rather than a spokesperson.
Gumpei Yokoi granted Electronic Games the rare opportunity of an interview during the Consumer Electronics Show last January. He attended the show to see the American unveiling of Virtual Boy, and he discussed the new system and it's creation. The Purpose Behind Virtual Boy According to Gumpei Yokoi, Virtual Boy was designed as an alternative to video games. "I saw that the market was so saturated with video games that it became nearly impossible to create anything new. There were a lot of creative ideas for games for the NES and for Game Boy. But there are not so many new ideas for games for the Super Nintendo. I think game companies ran out of new ideas. I wanted to create a new kind of game that was not a video game so that designers could come up with new ideas."
Since Yokoi had no interest in simply recreating the video game experience, he had to do more than design a faster processor. He wanted his system to offer a totally immersive experience, something that made you feel like you had entered an entirely different world. With so many standard video game systems on the market, Yokoi felt that consumers wanted a different choice. "I think people want something new. Because this is different than other games, it can be even more successful than Game Boy."
Inventing an entirely new experience required creating new technology. "From the beginning of development we brought in university professors and doctors. We worked as a team, so I can say that this is a very complete product in theory."
Yokoi's team started by adopting one basic tenant--in order for this new system to project an immersive world, it had to incorporate true three-dimensional graphics. "Our original concept was to create a new world with 3-D games. We needed more depth in our pictures."
The team also decided that many standard features were expendable. "Color graphics give people the impression that a game is high-tech. But just because a game has a beautiful display does not mean that the game is fun to play."
Yokoi's research and development team found that LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) screens did not provide the depth needed for full 3-D effects. When they tested prototypical LCD goggles, users often saw double images rather than 3-D displays. The team also found that they could not produce a marketable product for under $500. Since everyone agreed that consumers would not spend much money for the product, they decided to focus on monochrome technology.
Once they narrowed their plans to single-color technology, Yokoi and his research and development team turned to Reflection Technology, a Massachusetts firm with a strong reputation in precision optical equipment. "We originally approached Mr. Yokoi in 1991," says Allen Becker, president of Reflection Technology. "We had been shipping a single-eye application for industrial use, and we thought our product could be adapted to work well in the game industry."
Reflection Technology's single-eye application uses two mirrors to reflect red LED displays (Light Emitting Diode) to each eye individually. Though Yokoi's development team sacrificed color by switching to LED technology, they gained superior resolution. One of the reasons Nintendo has not released screen shots of Virtual Boy games is that they cannot reproduce the crisp three-dimensional images.
"I wish to explain why Virtual Boy uses a red LED display," says Yokoi when reminded that even Super Game Boy cartridges have more than one color. "LED comes in red, yellow, blue, and green. Red uses less battery power. It is easier to recognize red images. That is why red is used for traffic lights."
Having found the right display technology, Yokoi's team began work on the goggles that would house the game. Yokoi decided that the new system would not include head tracking. One of the hallmarks of true virtual reality is that the display follows the user's visual perspective. If the user looks right, the visual display follows the user's head motion, showing the view to the right.
"Head tracking systems already existed when we started work on Virtual Boy," says Yokoi. "I did not like head tracking because I experienced motion sickness."
While users normally strap virtual reality goggles to their heads, Yokoi's team decided that their game system would sit on a tabletop stand. "Having heavy goggles strapped to your head is very unnatural," says Yokoi. "Placing the goggles on a stand makes the experience better for children and adults."
It also clears Nintendo of the liability for users injured while walking in their goggles. Users may trip or get tangled in cords while wearing head-mounted goggles. With Virtual Boy's table-mounted design, the user is required to stay in one place.
The final obstacle in creating Virtual Boy was adjusting the system so that all users would have a 3-D experience. Working with Reflection Technology, Yokoi's team of optical specialists developed two sets of focus controls. One set, the Inter-Ocular Control, controlled the Hyperbole Effect or the vertical curvature of the screen. The second set of controls aligns the mirrors housed within the goggles to the space between the user's eyes.
These controls enable users to customize the Virtual Boy goggles easily. A dot appears in each corner of the Virtual Boy display. Users simply adjust the controls until all four dots are clearly visible.
"At first we made the goggles smaller so that people who wear glasses had to take them off in order to use Virtual Boy," says Yokoi. "The adjustment would have been too broad, so we decided to make the goggles bigger so that people could wear their glasses while they used Virtual Boy."
Having designed Virtual Boy's sophisticated optical hardware, the team outfitted the goggles with stereo sound. The system will have few peripherals. Nintendo has plans to release an AC adapter, communications cables and a carrying case. The company is also looking into releasing a rechargeable battery pack.
Yokoi says the communications cable is mostly for American markets. "Japanese players tend to play alone. American game players like to get together."
Nintendo also plans to release a shoulder mount for Virtual Boy. "Game Boy was successful because it was really handy to use. If Virtual Boy became handy, I would be pleased. The shoulder mount accessory will make it easier to use." Yokoi was unable to explain how the company will avoid liability issues with that product.Virtual Boy's Future as a Platform.
Approximately 50 Japanese companies have signed up to develop games for Virtual Boy. Yokoi sees his new game system as best suited for action games. The first games demonstrated on Virtual Boy were a boxing simulation and a computerized pinball table.
"We are currently developing tennis and sports games for Virtual Boy," says Yokoi. "In the future, we will have role play games, puzzle games and simulations too." As the creator of Dr. Mario, Yokoi has a passion for puzzle games. He is not fond of fighting games but concedes that Virtual Boy's three-dimensional graphics may lend themselves to fighting games as well. "Our licensees may create fighting games for Virtual Boy. Nintendo has only a boxing game so far."Side BarWhen asked how Virtual Boy got its name, Yokoi replied that the name reflected the "virtual world" created by the 3-D graphics. "We did not call it Virtual Boy because of virtual reality," he says, "but because it puts you in a complete world."