Gunpei Yokoi: Difference between revisions

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Things were going great for Yokoi... until Nintendo pushed one of his creations out the door [[Obvious Beta|way too early]]. The [[Virtual Boy]] was also Yokoi's invention, and he [[Never Live It Down|never recovered]] from the [[Fallen Creator (Darth Wiki)|hit his reputation took]]. He was [[Kicked Upstairs]], as Nintendo couldn't fire someone of such stature but needed to do something after the Virtual Boy failed.

Unfortunately, Yokoi never lived to see the results of that. While slowing up near a traffic accident, another car plowed into hishim, killing him at the scene. There was some controversy surrounding his death (mostly pertaining to the fact that the driver of the car that hit Yokoi's car was a known member of the [[Yakuza]]), although most dismiss such discussion as a [[Conspiracy Theory]]. The funny thing is that there are some conflicting accounts of the man's death. Other sources report that it was Yokoi himself who had just been in a minor fender bender and was blindsided by the gangster's car when he got out to survey the damage. Also suspicious is the fact that in both versions, a man by the name of Etsuo Kiso, who worked for Nintendo, was somehow involved in the fatal accident. Regardless, the WonderSwan ended up failing in the marketplace after Yokoi's passing.

For a long time, the failure of the Virtual Boy dogged Yokoi's name amongst gamers who knew who he was, though his successes with portables has since started to redeem his name (not-so-coincidentally rising with the popularity of portable platforms). One of his last projects has subsequently been released as ''Gunpey'' for various systems, and Nintendo has gone back to praising the late Yokoi's contributions (while all but throwing the Virtual Boy into [[Canon Dis ContinuityDiscontinuity]]).