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A Sad Anniversary Today
NihonTiger90 \| 12:42 AM on 10.05.2007	11 comments

Time sure seems to pass by fast. When I happened upon this little factoid in my surfing today, I actually took a moment out to pause and think about what an impact it had.

That factoid is that ten years ago today, on October 4, 1997, legendary game designer Gunpei Yokoi was killed as he stopped to help at the scene of an accident. Yokoi is perhaps better known for his successes like Metroid, as well as some of his failures like the Virtual Boy. Regardless, it's important to remember Yokoi's contributions.

Here's but a short list of everything he's contributed to gaming:

- The Game Boy
- Metroid
- The Virtual Boy
- Game & Watch
- Kid Icarus
- R.O.B.
- Intelligent Systems (indirectly - they were originally part of Gunpei's R&D1 squad), who created Fire Emblem, Paper Mario and Famicom/Advance Wars
- The fact that Nintendo is even in gaming. Yamauchi came to Gunpei to come up with a hit toy, and he succeeded. Gunpei was moved to product developer, and from there, the rest is history.

If you'd basically like that in video form, click here. I know some of you are visual learners.

Yokoi's contributions shouldn't be forgotten. He's one of the most important people in gaming history, up there with the Bushnells and the Miyamotos of the world. In fact, his ideas still live on in the very DS and Wii you play today - using withered technologies in new ways that not only produces a cheap but fun form of gaming for the consumer, but one that is easy to produce.

We miss you, Gunpei.

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11 comments | showing # 1 to 11

deiga-the-semivaliant

Holy shit. I had no idea the guy was killed in an accident.

Man, now I feel bad for all those times I bad-mouthed the VirtualBoy. :x

pedrovay2003

Oh wow, I didn't know about this either... R.I.P., Gunpei.

LostCrichton

Damn...of course it happens to fall on my birthday. R.I.P. Gunpei, I'll honor you with a drink and a toast each year.

Spykron

aah the virtual boy. cant blame the man for having sweet dreams.

RskimB

Didnt know he was dead, R.I.P.

A New Challenger

I remember readign about this in Nintendo Power. It was in Pulse, someone actually had to send a letter in to get NP to even mention it. Of course the magazine was still pretty kid-safe back then, so I guess an extensive retrospective on someone who died would have felt out of place. Still, I wish they'd given him a bit more recognition.

Topher Cantler

Also Wonderswan. <3

gomeja

@A New Challenger

I think you're talking about the same exact letter I read. That was when I first learned how his death.

gomeja

Dammit, about not how.

Cowzilla3

Truly a brilliant man and sad what happened to him both in his life and his death.

Professor Pew

Respect knuckles.

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about me

Oh, hi there. Didn�t see you enter. Anyways, welcome to my humble little blog. For those of you not familiar with who I am, the name�s Brian. I�m 23 years old and hail from Lorain, Ohio, just outside of Cleveland. I work at the local newspaper here as a copy editor, putting my four long years of college to actual use. Kind of. I think.

For those of you who might recognize me from elsewhere, I work as Assistant Gaming Editor over at Blogcritics Gaming and as Features Editor over at Tomopop. It's a lot of work, but it's worth it because I get to do a lot of cool shit with a lot of cool people.

I've been gaming since the relatively young age of around 3 and I've played plenty of games, both good and bad. I'm continuously expanding my gaming collection, which has become more of an archive in recent years as I'm focusing on collecting older, less well-known titles. You'd honestly be surprised on what people are missing out on in bargain bins...

Other than gaming, I love anime, manga, sports, movies, TV, and a whole lot more. I also happen to have something of a legendary love for Cammy, to the point that I am the site's unofficial official Cammy fanboy. And yes, I do play as her in Street Fighter and do so quite well, too.

Also, I am Chad Concelmo's B.F.F., my prize for coming in first in The Great Retro Quiz .18 - ActRaiser. Accept no substitutes. Not even Aerox.

Contact Info:

AIM: NihonTiger90
MSN: hurricane317 at hotmail.com
Skype: NihonTiger90
Twitter: brianszabelski
GMail: brianszabelski at gmail.com
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Mad props to Ghost for this amazing card!

Great Retro Quiz! Results

Punch-Out! featuring Mike Tyson

Star Fox (winner)
ActRaiser (winner)
Dolphins!!
Metroid
Ninja Gaiden
Street Fighter II
Super Mario Kart

Castlevania
Contra
Donkey Kong Country
Smash Bros.
Zelda II

Nihon's Gallery of Hotness:

(Yes, that�s one of Dtoid�s own, Hollie (a.k.a. phoenix-blood). I met her at PAX and she is awesome.)

(Ooooh, I think I found a new favorite :3)

Psst, more here.