Gunpei Yokoi, sometimes transliterated as Gumpei Yokoi, was a Japanese toy maker and video game designer. As a long-time Nintendo employee, he was best known as creator of the Game & Watch handheld system, inventor of the cross-shaped Control Pad, the original designer of the Game Boy, and producer of a few long-running and critically acclaimed video game franchises such as Metroid and Kid Icarus.
The Zapper is an electronic light gun accessory launched within the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in North America on October 18, 1985. It is a cosmetic redesign by Nintendo of America's head designer Lance Barr, based on Gunpei Yokoi's Video Shooting Series light gun (光線銃シリーズガン), which had been released in Japan for the Famicom on February 18, 1984. The Zapper requires compatible NES games, such as Duck Hunt, Wild Gunman, and Hogan's Alley. Its internal optical sensor allows the player to aim at a television set and accurately shoot at in-game targets.
R.O.B. is a toy robot accessory for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). It was key to the NES's launch in October 1985, as a redesign of the Family Computer Robot which had been launched in July 1985 in Japan for Famicom. Its short lifespan yielded only two games in the Robot Series: Gyromite and Stack-Up.
The Triforce is a fictional artifact and icon of Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda video game franchise. It first appeared in the original The Legend of Zelda video game (1986) and has appeared in every subsequent game in the series. It consists of three equilateral triangles that are joined to form a large equilateral triangle. In the fictional history of the series, it represents the essence of the Golden Goddesses named Din, Nayru and Farore who create Hyrule. Imbued with divine power, it is capable of granting any wish to anyone who possesses it.
The Nintendo Tumbler Puzzle, also known as the Ten Billion Barrel in English and originally tenbirion (テンビリオン) in Japanese, is a mathematical and mechanical puzzle. It is one of many mechanical toys invented by Gunpei Yokoi at Nintendo. It was released in 1980 under U.S. patent 4,376,537. The patent expired in March 1995 due to non-payment of a maintenance fee.
Nintendo Research & Development No. 1 Department was a division of Nintendo, and is its oldest development team. Its creation coincided with Nintendo's entry into the video game industry, and the original R&D1 was headed by Gunpei Yokoi. The developer has created several notable Nintendo series such as Metroid, Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong.
WarioWare: Smooth Moves is a party video game developed by Nintendo and Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo the Wii. It was released in Japan in December 2006, and in Europe, North America, and Australia in January 2007. It is the fifth game in the WarioWare series of games, and the only game in the series to be physically released for the Wii. Like its predecessors, WarioWare: Smooth Moves is built around a collection of microgames that last about five seconds each, and which require that the player hold the Wii Remote in specific positions. The game offers the microgames to the player in rapid succession, by first instructing the player to hold the Wii Remote in a specific manner, and then showing them the microgame. The microgames are divided into several stages, each of which loosely connects the microgames with the help of a story. Additionally, this was the first spin-off Mario game to be released for the console.
The history of Nintendo is from 1889 to the present, starting as a playing-card company to eventually becoming a multinational video game conglomerate. It has always remained headquartered in Kyoto, Japan.
The Wii Zapper is a gun shell peripheral for the Wii Remote. The name is a reference to and successor of the NES Zapper light gun for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It is mainly used to enhance controls for shooter games, including light gun shooters, first-person shooters, and third-person shooters.
The Japanese multinational consumer electronics company Nintendo has developed seven home video game consoles and multiple portable consoles for use with external media, as well as dedicated consoles and other hardware for their consoles. As of September 30, 2021, in addition to Nintendo Switch, Nintendo has sold over 863.07 million hardware units.
SPOGS Racing was a racing video game published by D2C Games and developed by American studio Pronto Games for the Wii. It was released as a WiiWare title in North America on July 7, 2008, and in Europe on July 18, 2008.
The Love Tester is a novelty toy made by Nintendo in 1969. Designed "for young ladies and men", the device tries to determine how much two people love each other. To operate the device, both users grab one of the connected spherical metal sensors with one hand and hold each other's hands with the other; the meter on the device displays their "love score" on a scale between 1 and 100.
The Ultra Machine is a batting toy distributed by Nintendo and designed by Gunpei Yokoi in 1967.
The Game & Watch is a line of handheld electronic games created by Nintendo. Released from 1980 to 1991, these devices were the brainchild of designer Gunpei Yokoi. Their name reflects their dual functionality: a single game paired with a digital clock on an LCD screen. Starting in 1981, models also included an alarm. In North America, the games were originally released through Mego Corporation as the Time-Out series; this line, consisting of Ball, Vermin, and Fire, was discontinued later that year, with Nintendo of America subsequently distributing the series themselves under their original titles.
Mario Kart 8 is a 2014 kart racing game developed and published by Nintendo for the Wii U. It retains the gameplay of previous games in the Mario Kart series, with players controlling a Mario franchise character in races around tracks. Tracks are themed around locales from the Super Mario platform series and are populated with power-ups that help players gain advantages in races. Different difficulties are selectable prior to a race; harder difficulties make gameplay faster. In the new anti-gravity sequences, players drive on walls and ceilings. Mario Kart 8 contains a variety of single-player and local and online multiplayer games modes, including Grand Prix racing and arena-based battle modes.
Amiibo is a toys-to-life platform by Nintendo, which was launched in November 2014. It consists of a wireless communications and storage protocol for connecting figurines to the Wii U, Nintendo 3DS, and Nintendo Switch video game consoles. These figurines are similar in form and functionality to that of the Skylanders, Disney Infinity and Lego Dimensions series of toys-to-life platforms. The Amiibo platform was preannounced to potentially accommodate any form of toy, specifically including general plans for future card games. Amiibo use near field communication (NFC) to interact with supported video game software, potentially allowing data to be transferred in and out of games and across multiple platforms.
Splatoon is a 2015 third-person shooter video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Wii U. The game centers around Inklings—anthropomorphic cephalopodic lifeforms that can transform between humanoid and cephalopod forms and frequently engage in turf wars with each other and use a variety of weapons that produce and shoot colored ink while in humanoid form, or swim and hide in surfaces covered in their own colored ink while in their cephalopodic forms. Splatoon features several different game modes, including four-on-four online multiplayer and a single player campaign.
Splatoon is a third-person shooter video game franchise created by Hisashi Nogami and Shintaro Sato, and developed and owned by Nintendo. Set in the far future on a post-apocalyptic Earth inhabited by anthropomorphic marine animals, the series centers around terrestrial cephalopods known as Inklings and Octolings – based on squids and octopuses respectively – which can transform between humanoid and cephalopod forms at will. They frequently engage in turf war battles with each other and use a variety of weapons that produce and shoot colored ink while in humanoid form, or swim through and hide in solid surfaces covered in their own colored ink while in their cephalopodic forms.
The Nintendo Switch Pro Controller is a video game controller developed by Nintendo and produced by various manufacturers for use with the Nintendo Switch console. It serves as an alternative to the Joy-Con controllers.
