If you were to do some kind of audio Rorschach test on me and you said “video game controller” the first thing to pop into my mind wouldn’t be a curvy SNES controller or the potential PS3 batarang disaster-in-waiting, it would be a man. More specifically a name, Gunpei Yokoi, which my 10 year old mind pronounced as “Gunpy Yoky”. Gunpei, as I later found out, was the inventor of the d-pad. It seems strange to think that the d-pad needed inventing. It seems like a discovery, the fire of video games. But no, Gunpei thought it up.
Gunpei was also the “name I recognized” from video game credits. I think credits in video games, especially games in the 90’s, are the most watched credits in history. It only makes sense given how long it takes to get to that moment. A movie only takes 90 minutes or so to get through, a video game can take 50 hours so when you get to those oh-so-sweet credits you want to savor them. And because of that I wonder if many other kids had the same pastime as me. Watching the scrolling text and watching for mythical Japanese names to scroll across we recognized.
And savor them I did. Everyone game I beat as a kid I would dutifully sit through the credit sequence waiting for names I recognized. Miyamoto was a favorite of course, and I think I might of recognized Iwata back then. But the name that really stood out was Mr. Yokoi. I’m still not sure why to be honest, I think it was just the remarked regularity of it’s appearance in titles, but in either case here’s to you Gunpy-san.