Satoru Okada's Controversial Interview with RetroGamer Magazine
It's no secret that I love the Gameboy. And because of that, I obviously have a fondness towards Gunpei Yokoi - the man credited to the invention of the D-Pad, the Game & Watch, Gameboy and many other things... including the Virtual Boy. Well, we can't always win.
However, Satoru Okada has surfaced for an interview with RetroGamer Magazine that potentially takes the sheen off Yokoi's glowing resume.
“The Game Boy you know today had nothing to do with the one Yokoi had in mind.
He saw the GameBoy as a direct follow-on from the Game & Watch, which meant a rather cheap toy, without any real business model and no long-term ambition.”
In the five page feature article in RetroGamer Issue 163, Okada is painted as a trouble maker and a rebel who often had shouting matches with his superiors at Nintendo. He also lambasts Gunpei Yokoi for having little to no electronic knowledge and everything we think we know about his contribution to the invention of the Game Boy is greatly exaggerated.
“I wanted the Game Boy to have more ambition, closer to what R&D2 had managed to do with the Famicom: a machine built to last, with hardware that was good enough to play a variety of quality titles.
I was the assistant of director of R&D1 and we had many arguments over this. In the end, he gave in and angrily told me: “Okay, do what you want!” I then asked him: “Fine! But are giving me full responsibility?” and since he said “Yes”, I made the Game Boy project my own. Yokoi just gave his seal of approval.
”
It's a little strange that this has come to light now but with Okada's retirement a couple of years ago he may have been sitting on this story for a while. Is he telling the truth though? Well, despite painting himself as rebel genius - which is usually the watermark of a bullspit story - he is also self deprecating in his recollection of the DS development.
He may have claimed that the GameBoy was his baby, as was a big chunk of the Game & Watch series (he claims Yokoi would design the games and was in charge of electronics and coding) but when developing the next GameBoy (following on from the SP) the plan was changed when SOny unveiled its PSP. Okada hated the idea of a dual screen console and was willing to stand up to his superiors and argue against its development.
“President Iwata [knew] I was bold enough to oppose Yamauchi-san. Nobody else was bold enough to do it.
Who knows what would have happened, Yamauichi might have given up and said” ‘That’s enough Okada! Do what you want, I give up!’ It had already happened in the past. And the, I would have to admit that the DS would have never seen the light! So Iwata was right to turn me down and Yamauchi’s idea turned out to be excellent!””
