Game & Watch[a] is a series of handheld electronic games developed by Nintendo. Designed by Gunpei Yokoi, the first game, Ball was released in 1980 and the original production run of the devices continued until 1991. The name Game & Watch reflects their dual functionality: a single game paired with a digital clock on a segmented liquid-crystal display (LCD) screen. The Game & Watch series proved a monumental success, selling a total of 43.4 million units globally, marking Nintendo's first major worldwide success with a video game console.
The Game & Watch was the brainchild of designer Gunpei Yokoi, the head of Nintendo Research & Development 1 (R&D1), who was inspired during a trip on a Shinkansen high-speed train, where he noticed a bored businessman idly pressing buttons on a credit-card-sized pocket calculator.[3] This sparked the idea of a compact, discreet toy for adults to pass the time on public transport. At the time, Nintendo was struggling financially, and R&D1 consisted of just Yokoi and his assistant, Satoru Okada. The two looked at other handheld electronic games, including Mattel Auto Race, the Microvision, and Simon, but found these too large and reliant on low-resolution vacuum fluorescent or LED displays that rendered abstract graphics.[4][5] This led to the idea of using a segmented liquid-crystal display (LCD), like those in calculators, to create a smaller device with sharper, clearer graphics, though limited to a single game.[6][7]
This experience would inspire Yokoi's design philosophy of "lateral thinking with withered technology",[b] which emphasized creative uses of mature, cost-effective technology, the principal would continue to be embraced by Nintendo in the following decades.[8] At the time, fierce competition in the calculator market between Sharp and Casio had created a surplus of LCDs and semiconductors, creating an opportunity to repurpose these components for gaming.[7][8]
Yokoi pitched the idea to Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi while driving him to a business meeting after the company chauffeur called in sick. Yamauchi’s meeting happened to be with Sharp's CEO, and the two leaders discussed the concept. Within a week, Yokoi was invited to a meeting between Nintendo and Sharp, where approval was given to develop a calculator-sized gaming device.[3]
However, Yamauchi assigned the project to Nintendo Research & Development 2 (R&D2), which was established in 1978 to focus on electronic projects like the Color TV-Game, while R&D1 was to continue to focus on creating physical toys and games. However, R&D2 rejected the idea, claiming it was too difficult to implement. Undeterred, Yokoi and Okada continued developing the concept on their own. Yokoi created a mock-up of the first game, Ball, and demonstrated it to Okada by shining light through cut-out paper shapes. Okada then built a working prototype, buying a TK-80 computer, teaching himself to program for the Intel 8080, and designing the necessary electronics.[4]
When they presented the prototype to employees at Sharp, they also dismissed the project, saying it wasn’t feasible to scale it down to calculator size. However, Yokoi and Okada left the prototype with Sharp, asking them to play with it for a while, which convinced Sharp employees of the game’s potential and led them to develop a compatible display.[4] The final device was powered by a 4-bit CPU from Sharp's SM5xx family, paired with 1,792bytes of ROM, 65bytes of RAM across four banks for data storage, and an LCD screen driver circuit.[9][10]
The Game & Watch name reflected its dual functionality: it combined a single game with a digital clock.[11][12] The first game, Ball, had modest initial sales but enough success for Yamauchi to greenlight three more games: Flagman, Vermin, and Fire.[4] This eventually led to dozens of titles over the next decade.[13]
In North America, the games were initially launched through Mego Corporation as the Time-Out series which included Ball (renamed Toss-Up), Flagman, Vermin (renamed Exterminator), and Fire (retitled Fireman Fireman). This partnership ended within a year, and Nintendo of America began distributing the series under their original titles.[14]
Donkey Kong, showing its revolutionary D-pad and multi-screen clamshell design
Starting in 1981, Game & Watch devices incorporated an alarm function, enhancing their practicality as a watch.[15] By mid-1982, limitations of single-screen LCDs led to the creation of the Multi Screen Series, which effectively doubled the gameplay area. Oil Panic launched the series. Shortly thereafter, Nintendo's highly successful Donkey Kong arcade game was adapted for the Multi Screen format, requiring an alternative to the traditional joystick, which was impractical for handheld gaming. This challenge led to the invention of the now-iconic D-pad, a flat, four-way directional control that allowed for precise movement with minimal space requirements.[13][16][17] The D-pad design was later honored with a Technology & Engineering Emmy Award in 2008.[18][19] The clamshell design of the Multi Screen Series would later inspire the Game Boy Advance SP, Nintendo DS, and Nintendo 3DS.[20]
The Game & Watch series was a monumental success. Yokoi had initially aimed to sell 100,000 units, but Nintendo ultimately sold 43.4 million units worldwide—12.87 million in Japan and 30.53 million overseas.[21] The device also significantly improved Nintendo’s financial standing. Before its release in 1980, the company reportedly had debts of 7 to 8 billion yen. However, by 1981, largely due to the Game & Watch's success, Nintendo had paid off its debts and put about 4 billion yen in the bank.[5] It marked the company's first major worldwide success with a Nintendo video game product.[22]
Over the initial eleven year life span of the Game & Watch line, 60 different games were produced for sale.[23] These games came in eleven different series, each with a different form-factor:[8]
Silver (1980) – the first version of the Game & Watch
Gold (1981) – added alarm clock function, static color backgrounds, and a built-in wire loop stand
Wide Screen (1981–1982) – introduced a 30% larger LCD panel in a slightly wider form factor
Vertical Multi Screen (1982–1989) – Two LCD panels in a vertical folding clamshell unit
Horizontal Multi Screen (1983) – Two LCD panels in a right-to-left opening clamshell unit
New Wide Screen (1982–1991) – an updated version of the Wide Screen series; used colorful metal faceplates for each game
Tabletop (1983) – made to compete with Coleco; ambient light transmitted through the translucent top illuminated a color vacuum fluorescent display that reflected onto an integrated mirror for display
Panorama (1983–1984) - Similar design to the Tabletop units, but folded into a compact size via an articulated hinge
Super Color (1984) – Used a long portrait-oriented LCD panel with color overlays to color the display elements
Micro Vs. System (1984) – Used a very wide horizontal LCD panel; allowed 2-player games via two external wired control pads
Crystal Screen (1986) – Used a unique large see-through LCD panel with no reflective background; all three games later re-released as New Wide Screen titles
Titles included characters from other Nintendo franchises including The Legend of Zelda and Mario Bros. Nintendo also licensed third-party characters including Mickey Mouse.
Among the 60 games was one "prize" game, a version of Super Mario Bros. that came in a yellow plastic case modeled after the Disk-kun character Nintendo used to advertise their Famicom Disk System.[24] These games were never sold, but instead given away to 10,000 winners of Nintendo's F-1 Grand Prix tournament.[23]
The Game & Watch series sold 14 million units worldwide during its first year of release by 1981.[25] The Game & Watch version of Donkey Kong released in 1982 sold 8 million units.[2]Mario the Juggler was last installment in the Game & Watch series released in 1991, it is an homage to the first game, Ball.[26][8]
Game A and Game B
Most of the titles have a "GAME A" and a "GAME B" button. Game B is generally a faster, more difficult version of Game A, although exceptions do exist:
In Squish, Game B is radically different from Game A—the player must touch aliens to eliminate them as opposed to avoiding moving walls.[27]
In Flagman, Game B is a mode where the player has to press the right button within a certain amount of time, not memorize patterns.
In Judge, Boxing, Donkey Kong 3, and Donkey Kong Hockey, Game B is a two-player version of Game A.[28]
In Climber,[29]Balloon Fight,[30] and Super Mario Bros.,[31][32] there is no Game B button.
In most cases, both Game A and Game B would increase in speed and/or difficulty as the player progressed, with Game B starting at the level that Game A would reach at 200 points.
The Game & Watch series helped to popularize handheld video games, inspiring imitators like Tiger Electronics and Elektronika, which released the IM-02 series in the Soviet Union.[33]
Nintendo revived the series between 1995 and 2010 with the Game & Watch Gallery series for Game Boy systems, featuring original ports and modernized Mario-themed versions. Starting in 1998, smaller LCD versions of ten Game & Watch titles were re-released as the Nintendo Mini Classics. In 2001, Nintendo bundled Manhole-e with the Nintendo e-Reader, though a planned line of e-Reader Game & Watch cards never materialized.[34]
To celebrate Game & Watch’s 30th anniversary in 2010, Nintendo re-released Ball as a Club Nintendo reward, adding a mute switch.[38] It was available to members in Japan,[39] North America,[40] and Europe.[41] The Game & Watch legacy was also acknowledged in the 2012 game Nintendo Land for Wii U, with a mini-game called Octopus Dance based on the classic Octopus title.[42]
1 2 Yokoi, Gunpei (November 1996). "ゲームボーイを開発した伝説の技術者・横井軍平「私はなぜ任天堂を辞めたか」"[Gunpei Yokoi, the legendary engineer who developed the Game Boy: "Why I left Nintendo"]. Bungeishunju (in Japanese). Retrieved 20 March 2025.
↑ "昔(1970年代）のテレビゲームは何台売れた？"[How many old (1970s) video games sold?]. Classic Videogame Station Odyssey (in Japanese). Archived from the original on 9 January 2014. Retrieved 16 April 2021.
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