Today Did You Know Gaming investigates the long-running conspiracy theory surrounding Gunpei Yokoi’s death using contemporary Japanese newspaper reports, accounts of the police investigation, Yokoi’s biographies and the history of WonderSwan, Virtual Boy and Game Boy to separate the rumors from the facts.
Special thanks to Jacob Newcomb for translating and getting records from Japanese libraries.
Writing/Research by dr lava
Voice Over by @HPRshredder
Sources/Further Reading:
Hokkoku Shinbun (Ishikawa Prefecture newspaper, Oct 5 1997 edition)
Yomiuri Shinbun (national Japan newspaper, Oct 6 1997 edition)
New York Times (Oct 9 1997 edition)
Game Criticism magazine (Japanese, Jan 1998 issue)
Jugemu magazine (Japanese, May 1995 issue)
Gunpei Yokoi Game Museum (1996 biography, essentially co-authored by Yokoi and Takefumi Makino. About half the book is Yokoi’s own words as quotes, and the other half are what Yokoi told Makino in 1996 interviews so this book could be made, and Makino essentially paragraphed everything into a chronological narrative. So the book basically a hybrid of a biography and autobiography. English doesn’t have a word for that, so we usually refer to this book as "Yokoi’s autobiography" to differentiate it from the other Makino biography,)
Father of Games: Gunpei Yokoi – The Man Who Created Nintendo’s DNA (2010 Yokoi biography authored by Takefumi Makino, using pieces of interviews that went unused in their 1996 book. This book is basically Makino redoing Yokoi’s biography, with 14 years of hindsight)
Gunpei Yokoi: Vie Et Philosophie Du Dieu Des Jouets Nintendo (Yokoi’s 2010 French biography, authored by Florent Gorges)
The History of Nintendo Volume 4: The Incredible History of the Game Boy (2019 French book authored by Florent Gorges, available in English)
https://bunshun.jp/articles/-/6659
https://onitama.tv/gamemachine/pdf/19971201p.pdf
https://www.4gamer.net/games/999/G999905/20180901010/
https://www.nintendoworldreport.com/translation/24008/why-did-gunpei-yokoi-quit-nintendo
#nintendo #gunpeiyokoi #gamingvideo
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