Nintendo: The Company and its Founders - Sharyland ISD

NEW TECHNOLOGY
playing cards and Beam Guns. The company had
emerged as a contender in Japan’s world of consumer
electronics.
YAMAUCHI’S REVOLUTION
Nintendo was doing good business with its Beam
Guns and TV Games, but Yamauchi was not satisfied
simply with financial success in the brand-new era
of electronic gaming. He wanted something that
would revolutionize the industry. He continuously
urged his engineers to keep up the hard work of
creating something completely different. “Throw
away all your old ideas in order to come up with
something new,” he said. “We must look in different
directions.” 2
Yokoi later noted that one key to Nintendo’s
success was its ability to take advantage of established
technologies, such as the miniaturized circuits for
pocket calculators. Following Yamauchi’s wishes,
Yokoi went to work creating something “entirely
new” but with existing and older technologies that
could be mass-produced inexpensively. 3
He achieved his and Yamauchi’s goal in 1980
with a product they called the Game and Watch,
which was no bigger than a pocket calculator. It
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