Yesterday I watched the video below with my 9 year old son. The video talks about how important Gunpei Yokoi was for Nintendo and that without him Nintendo as we know it today would not have existed or would be an unknown company that produces playing cards. During the video my 9 year old son suddenly said to me without him (referring to Gunpei Yokoi) there would not be a Sonic game. I first shrugged it off by saying there would still be a Sonic game, but thinking about it he is right! Sonic was created as a rival to Mario. Without Gunpei Yokoi inventing the Ultra Hand, Game & Watch and ultimately the Game Boy, Nintendo would probably still be making playing cards or be out of business. So there would not be Game & Watch, NES and Game Boy or a Mario game. There would also not be an arcade cabinet with Donkey Kong. So in short, Sonic would mosty likely not have existed either. Maybe Alex Kidd would not have existed because that game was made before Sonic to rival Mario. I think this was really insightful for a 9 year old!
Kinda reminds me of how I was obsessed with video game history when I was that young. If you haven't already introduced him to ROM hacking, I highly suggest that you do. I got into ROM hacking rather young on my own (and I got my mom to hire a high school student to tutor me on Visual Basic 6.0), started messing about with tools like Super Mario Bros Discomobulator, etc, learning hex editing, etc. Not only is it a great creative outlet, but it also really does build some lifelong computer skills to build and improve upon. Better yet, the tools and resources available today are so much better than what I and everyone else had to work with like Esrael's Sonic Editor (the 1.x version, mind you) etc. in 2004, now we have well documented disassemblies, good tools, cleanly organized file structures, etc. By the way, you sound like the coolest dad ever.
Alex Kidd in miracle world was began as a Dragon Ball licensed game, it had nothing to do with Mario.
What a cute story. Thanks for sharing Influence takes all shapes and forms, and Yokoi definitely had a butterfly effect on the entire industry. Please continue encouraging your son to explore game history. There's a whole universe of knowledge out there just waiting to be discovered.
I intend to do so. I told him the story how Sonic was created as a rival to Mario and how Nintendo betrayed Sony and PlayStation was created. I know, but after the Dragon Ball license deal fell through the developers started thinking about Mario and how they could differentiate from it. Alex Kidd In Miracle World Was Supposed To Be A Dragon Ball Game | Time Extension Sega were planning on making a Dragon Ball game... I guess this happened long enough ago that it's okay for me to talk about this! The project began as a Dragon Ball title, not as a direct competitor to Super Mario Bros. But when we were told we could not use the Dragon Ball licence any more, we were forced to come up with our own ideas instead. For example, when it was Dragon Ball, Goku fought with his Power Pole, but we changed that to a punch attack. It was only after we came up with the plan to restart the project as Alex Kidd in Miracle World that we starting thinking about Mario, and looking for ways in which to differentiate the title from it.
