Game & Watch - Retro Gamer

Year Released: 1980

Original Price: $30

Buy It Now For: £5+ (depending on model)

Why The Game & Watch was great: The range offered true portability for the first time in the history of the videogame industry. The units were small, durable and the cell batteries lasted for ages before they needed to be replaced. Forced to work within the confines of the crude LCD technology, Nintendo succeeded in crafting some truly mesmerising gaming experiences, the vast majority of which stand up to scrutiny even by today’s standards.

When you look back on the history of videogames it’s not uncommon to discover amusing anecdotes regarding defining moments in the industry. For example, rumour has it that Namco’s Pac-Man was conceived when the game’s creator Toru Iwatani glanced at a pizza with one slice missing, and there’s an equally famous tale that suggests that Nintendo’s renowned Mario was named after the landlord of the company’s American offices,  who happened to bear an uncanny resemblance to the Italian plumber. Whether or not these stories are actually true is a moot point but it’s impossible to deny that they lend our hobby a sense of wonderment and it’s remarkable to think that these toweringly popular ideas can be born from such humble beginnings.

The genesis of Nintendo’s Game & Watch series is recounted in an equally whimsical tale. According to legend, Nintendo engineer Gunpei Yokoi came up with the concept after observing a bored Japanese salary man absent-mindedly fingering his pocket calculator while travelling to work. If the story is true then this seemingly innocuous encounter ultimately gave birth to portable videogaming as we know it today. Yokoi was tragically killed in a roadside incident in 1997 and although he would gain worldwide fame and adoration as the creator of the Game Boy, many view his earlier LCD legacy with the most fondness.

Yokoi started working at Nintendo in 1965, assuming the modest role of an assembly line engineer. The Nintendo of that era was a very different beast to the one that we know today; the main focus of its business was ‘Hanafuda’ playing cards. According to yet another of those irresistible yarns, Yokoi created an extendable arm in order to amuse himself during the long working hours and this device happened to catch the eye of company president Hiroshi Yamauchi, who was inspecting the factory at the time. Yamauchi was on the lookout for a product that could turn around Nintendo’s fortunes; the playing card market had slumped badly in the mid-Sixties and the president had tried all manner of different tactics  to turn a profit.

Yamauchi was instantly intrigued and tasked the young Yokoi with turning his extendable arm into a bestselling product. It was a risky move that was by no means guaranteed to succeed, but the re-christened ‘Ultrahand’ proved to be a runaway success, shifting more than 1.2 million units worldwide and would prove to be the first in a long line of popular toys to spring from the mind of Nintendo’s new star employee. These novel creations would eventually earn Yokoi his very own department within the company, known as Research and Development 1 Group.

Towards the end of the Seventies, Nintendo started to disregard toys in favour of videogames and it was during this time that Yokoi had his aforementioned chance meeting with the bored businessman and his calculator. It was ideal timing; LCD technology was cheap and videogames were big business. However, up to this point quality gaming was restricted to either the arcade or the home. Several companies had already produced portable games, but they were usually rudimentary LED-based units with uninspiring gameplay and were too bulky to be deemed truly mobile. Yokoi watched the efforts of companies like Mattel and Tomy with interest; he had his own ideas for the portable gaming industry.

It was during the development of the Game & Watch that Yokoi laid down principles of hardware design that would echo through Nintendo’s history right up to the present day, dubbing it ‘Lateral Thinking of Withered Technology’. Freelance journalist and all-round Yokoi admirer Lara Crigger explains: “Essentially, Lateral Thinking of Withered Technology boils down to using mature technology in novel or radical applications. At the time of the invention of the Game & Watch, LCD technology was everywhere. It was a well-understood process and because prices for individual components had dropped so much, integrating LCD into a product was relatively inexpensive. Some people at Nintendo wanted to use fancier technology in the Game & Watch, technology that would have reduced battery life and raised costs, but Yokoi insisted that affordability was key and that the player cared more about fun gameplay over flashy technology.” Yokoi would later apply this philosophy to the production of the Game Boy, and Nintendo has taken a similar stance with recent hits such as the DS and Wii.

Yokoi faced a tricky conundrum when it came to deciding upon the best interface for his new product. He quickly decided that a conventional joystick would impede on the Game & Watch’s portability, so he began looking for solutions that would take up less space. Many of the early machines simply possessed a couple of buttons with which to control the game, usually corresponding to simple actions such as moving left and right or jumping, but 1982’s Donkey Kong Jr changed all that. Although it was actually four buttons arranged in a cross shape, with each one corresponding to up, down, left and right, it would later evolve into what we now know as the direction pad, or ‘D-pad’ for short. This was a development of truly seismic proportions, as Crigger acknowledges: “The entire portable games industry wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the invention of the D-pad. It was that first, necessary invention that made all portable gaming devices possible. It comes down to basic ergonomics; the D-pad eliminates the need for a joystick, thus streamlining the controller interface and facilitating portability. A controller with a D-pad simply takes up less physical space.” Compared to other methods of control available at the time, this new interface presented undeniable advantages. “The D-pad is a more intuitive method of controlling gameplay, compared to the alternatives,” continues Crigger. “Look at a joystick: to manipulate it, you have to use the sides of your thumbs and fingers – or in some cases, your palm or whole hand. That takes more manual effort than just pushing buttons with a thumb tip.”

There was also an element of convergence with this new range of handhelds. Although it seems like a trifling addition in today’s technologically advanced world, the inclusion of a digital clock in each game (therefore giving rise to the name ‘Game & Watch’) was a major selling point back in the early-Eighties. Although LCD watches were commonly available they were outside the reach of most children, so the Game & Watch was a useful device as well as a source of entertainment. A handy alarm feature was also available – possibly to wake up the owner after a particularly heavy night of LCD-gaming.

Arguably the most vital piece of the hardware puzzle was the choice of power source that would bring these tiny games to life. Yokoi opted for ‘button cell’ batteries, previously seen in digital watches and calculators. Not only were these cheap to replace, they were also small and therefore fitted snugly within the machines without breaking the sleek, straight lines of the casing or adding any additional weight that might hinder portability. Yokoi’s desire to ensure his products would be inexpensive to run and not require a constant supply of fresh batteries played a vital part in ensuring the success of the range – a fact he was sure to remember when he came to create the Game Boy almost a decade later.

But there was much more to the appeal of the Game & Watch range than just mere interface design and long-lasting power. Because LCD technology granted the developers a very limited amount of on-screen real estate in which to place their action-packed gaming experiences, the games themselves tended to be extremely focused. “There was little room for design screw-ups,” says Crigger. “If the game mechanic wasn’t simple enough, or addictive enough, then the game failed. It couldn’t hide behind flashy FMVs or intricate storylines. It was just player and mechanic, and that’s it.” The experiences offered by the Game & Watch may seem primitive by today’s standards, but that very same simplicity was a major factor in the ultimate success of the lineage and it’s a testament to the concept that the games are still eminently playable even today. “They’re appealing for the very same reason that Tetris will never really die: simplicity is addictive,” comments Crigger. “People love activities that are easy to learn, but hard to master.”

The first Game & Watch title was the simplistic Ball. Released in 1980 this endearingly basic game showed only faint glimmers of the kind of depth later Game & Watch titles would possess; the screen was completely blank, the gameplay was unsophisticated and the LCD characters somewhat crude – clearly a case of the developer finding its feet with new technology. Sales weren’t astonishing but the game seemed to strike a chord with consumers and this was enough to persuade Nintendo that it was worth creating further titles. Ball marked the first release of the ‘Silver’ series of Game & Watch titles, so called because of the colour of the metallic faceplate. The next step was the ‘Gold’ series, which was fundamentally the same machine but with a different faceplate and a smattering of static colour on screen to make the games seem a little more vibrant. This range spawned a mere three titles before it was superseded by the ‘Wide Screen’ variant in mid-1981. As the name suggests, the display was a whopping 30 per cent larger than the one seen in the Silver and Gold range. Nintendo’s range of popular handhelds were certainly going places, but would it last?