Gunpei Yokoi gave a lot to the company he worked for. He made sure his ideas were market worthy and latest in the technology arena. As luck would have it, one of his products for the company bombed at the market and he left the company on a disagreeable note. Yokoi worked for Nintendo, the gaming giant and probably it was he, who spearheaded the company’s rise to success. He gave Game Boy, LCD Game & Watch range, and many other successful products but the ill fated Virtual-Boy left him estranged from the company he stayed loyal to. That is when he worked on portable hardware for gaming and got associated with Bandai, resulting in WonderSwan. Before WonderSwan could materialize, he died in a tragic accident, and took with him, many ideas to the grave.
WonderSwan was home to many wonderful ideas and Bandai was the company behind it. It gave the longest battery life that money could buy and also remained thinner and lighter than Game Boy. WonderSwan did not make it elsewhere because of the large amount of Japanese text, making it useless for those who can’t read Japanese. Now, WonderSwan consoles are collector pieces that are not sold anymore. However, you can find them on eBay for as little as 15 pounds and there is a catch, software are exorbitantly priced and hard to find.
Via: PocketGamer
