[h9n]

Great article. It expresses ideas similar to Game & Watch and GameBoy creator Gunpei Yokoi's philosophy of Lateral Thinking of Withered Technology.[0]

> Yokoi said, "The Nintendo way of adapting technology is not to look for the state of the art but to utilize mature technology that can be mass-produced cheaply."

> "Withered technology" in this context refers to a mature technology which is cheap and well understood. "Lateral thinking" refers to finding radical new ways of using such technology.

When designing the GameBoy, Yokoi realised that the older, simpler Z80 processor would just as well serve the purpose of making fun handheld games as the more contemporary options would (and one might argue that the limitations of the machine forced game developers to be more creative than they might have otherwise). Likewise with the monochromatic display.

The GameBoy was cheaper to manufacture and buy, more well-understood by developers, and crucially, much more power efficient than its several competitors. And it killed them.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpei_Yokoi#Lateral_Thinking_...