The video link is here: Gunpei Yokoi’s Life Story: The Man Who Made Nintendo. It’s a tad bit long (over an hour) BUT I can say that every second is crafted with a tremendous level of care and research. This is one of the best videos I’ve ever watched concerning Nintendo’s history, I cannot recommend it enough.

To open up a conversation… How impactful do you believe Gunpei Yokoi was on the trajectory of Nintendo? Do you believe the WonderSwan would’ve set Bandai Namco as a strong competitor in the handheld market had Yokoi been alive to see it through? Had Yokoi not passed away so early, how different would Nintendo’s trajectory have been? Nintendo to this day still borrow’s from Yokoi’s “blue ocean strategy”: chasing not after the most expensive and advanced hardware, but instead using old technology in a very new way. It was this kind of thinking which gave birth to the Ultrahand, Game & Watch, NES, GameBoy, and…well…Game Gear. Yokoi would also mentor figures such as Miyamoto, would serve pivotal roles in guiding development of titles such as Donkey Kong (arcade), Super Mario Bros, Pokémon (in fact, had it not been for Yokoi, there may have never even been a Pokémon due to how financially strapped GameFreak was during the early-90s), and was the central figurehead fighting for a economical competitive advantage in Nintendo’s handhelds (e.g. via scrapping as many unnecessary specs, such as color output on OG GameBoy), a strategy which one could argue has given Nintendo dominance over the handheld gaming market.

This one really got to me in the end. :(

Yokoi's philosophy of "lateral thinking with withered technology" has largely defined Nintendo's approach to hardware since 2004, including some of their biggest successes like Wii, DS, and Switch. 

Whether one agrees with his approach or not, it can't be denied that he created a lasting legacy that influences gaming to this day, nearly 30 years after his death.

He was a legend. Shame Nintendo lost focused with the GameCube and tried to be the most powerful console on the market. Look where that got them. Thankfully, 20 years later, they've course corrected (except for Wii U).