Who is more important to Nintendo? Gunpei Yokoi or Shigeru Miyamoto?

[GhaudePhaede010]

tarheel91 said:

GhaudePhaede010 said:

tarheel91 said:

Kantor said:
They both are/were very important to Nintendo, and to the game industry as a whole. It really depends how you look at it.

More important to the rise of Nintendo? Undoubtedly Gunpei Yokoi.

Undoubtedly

But, more important to the continued quality of Nintendo? The reason it still has so many fans after all of these years?

Gunpei. His designs, and philosophy of using older hardware in innovative fashions are the basis of both Wii and DS. Without doubt, this man is still shaping Nintendo all these years after his death.

 

 

Undoubtedly?  I think people don't realize how involved Miyamoto was in Nintendo's rise to success.  He was responsible for several of the arcade hits that put Nintendo in the financial position to enter the console market (most notably Donkey Kong).  Then, he created the games that made the NES worth buying.  What caused the video game crash in North America was not hardware.  There were plenty of quality systems to choose from (perhaps too many).  The real issue was software.  Everyone was looking to cash in on the video game craze, and created tons of games that make the Wii's shovelware look like pieces of art.  The terrible games completely dominated the few solid games in the year leading up to the crash, and long story short (I have a dozen pages on this if you want to read more) the video game industry lost the confidence of both consumers and retailers.

 

Thus, what was really the critical part of reviving the video game market was not some super awesome piece of hardware, but rather, great software.  And who was responsible for that?  Miyamoto, of course.

So, so. It took clever hardware, good pricing, smart marketing, good software, and more smart marketing. You are correct about not needing super hardware, but there is no doubt Gunpei made a huge impact on Nintendo's decisions with how to design, gut, and market their hardware.

I'm not in any way trying to belittle Yokoi's accomplishment, as I see him equally important to Nintendo's rise.  However, to claim he was far and away the largest contributor to the company's early success is ridiculous.

No, it is not. Miyamoto did not create the philosophy that Nintendo stands by to this day. A business model that would stand for any company in the world. This man knew what he was doing from more than just a hardware standpoint. He sold a Game Boy to me, and millions of others over the far more powerful hardware of the time. We all bought the NES over more powerful hardware. And DS and Wii (one under his design as well as his philosophy) are going to break all sales records set before them. Both follow his methods and philosophy. Miyamoto makes great games, helped mold amazing characters, and has done wonderful things, but without him, Wii and Wii Sports would still have happened. The DS (and its design) would still have happened. Wii and DS would still be amazingly successful and that is because the company had Gunpei's philosophy to follow.

When you consider their similar contributions early on along with Miyamoto's continued support of the company, Miyamoto clearly establishes himself as more important.

No, even more than ten years after Gunpei's death, there is no disputing this fact:

If you own a Wii and/or DS, you bought Gunpei's product. Period.

That is impact Miyamoto would kill for. To be around today, and still making good business is one thing. But to be dead for more than a decade and still have a whole company following the path you laid down is making a man immortal. And that is why Gunpei is far more important.

 

You're so off it's kind of sad.  Clever marketing and clever hardware?  Yeah the kind responsible for the AVS that preceded the NES and failed miserably?  The NES was very simple in regards to hardware.  What it did was allow easy access to games, and it just so happened that those games were great.  Nintendo's philosophy has always been to design hardware around software.  That was Miyamoto's belief from the get go as well.  I'm not trying to argue that Yokoi didn't share that belief with him, but to act like Yokoi was some all knowing sensei who taught Miyamoto everything from game development to his philosophy on game design is ridiculous.  Again, it was the GAMES that made the NES successful.  GAMES were what scarred consumers before the crash, and thus GAMES were what consumers lacked confidence in.  Yokoi DID NOT DESIGN THE NES.  Get that through your head.  Masayuki Uemura did that as the head of R&D 2.  Yokoi wasn't even a part of that group.  While I'm sure he made some contributions, it certainly wasn't anything major.

I don't understand why people seem to think Yokoi created a new branch of design philosophy.  That isn't true.  It had been around long before video games even existed.  Miyamoto shared his views, and that's why they worked so well together.  Both undoubtedly gained something from working together.  Both made incredible contributions to Nintendo.  The difference, though, is that Miyamoto has continued to make contributions to Nintendo while Yokoi can't.  The Wii is far more a product of Miyamoto's creativeness combined with a design philosophy that the entire company has cultivated since it's creation than of Yokoi.

I am so off, but we agree on so much... I decided not to respond to this post. I guess it just comes down to personal opinion and nothing more.

More power to you. However, I will say this, I never said Yokoi designed thee NES or taught Miyamoto anything. I said his philosophy influenced the design of the console and shaped the companies business model. Other than that, I refuse to have this argument. And not because I am wrong, but because I love you. I hope you understand.