Post Games Nintendo Gets the History Book It Deserves (Keza MacDonald)
Jan 26, 2026
Keza MacDonald, veteran video game journalist and author of Super Nintendo, guides a lively tour through Nintendo’s surprising origins and forgotten stories. She traces Yamauchi’s ruthless reshaping, Yokoi’s tinkering and the Ultra Hand, and Miyamoto and Iwata’s partnership that reinvented play. Short, vivid history and industry turning points told with curiosity and grit.
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Yamauchi's Radical Corporate Cleanse
- Hiroshi Yamauchi took control as a young CEO and fired nearly all staff and relatives to secure unquestioned authority.
- Keza describes the purge as Shakespearean, likening it to a coup that reshaped Nintendo's leadership culture.
Ultra Hand: A Factory Tinker's Breakthrough
- Gunpei Yokoi was hired to fix card-printing machines and invented the Ultra Hand while tinkering on the factory line.
- The Ultra Hand sold a million units and launched Yokoi's move into R&D, catalyzing Nintendo's toy era.
Withered Tech Drives Creative Product Design
- Yokoi's 'lateral thinking with withered technology' means repurposing mature, cheap tech to create joyful products.
- This approach drove hits like the Game Boy and continues to shape Nintendo hardware and ideas like Labo.
