Imagine a Michelin-starred chef ignoring truffles and caviar to serve canned beans and day-old rice, and it turns out to be the best meal of your life. That is the philosophy behind the Nintendo Game Boy. This deep dive draws on a comprehensive history of the handheld to profile Gunpei Yokoi, head of Nintendo's R&D1, and his principle of lateral thinking with withered technology, which favored cheap, mature, reliable components over cutting-edge specs.

We trace the corporate pressure of the mid 1980s as Game and Watch sales faded and the rival R&D2 division launched the Famicom, President Yamauchi's mandate for a successor priced under 10,000 yen, and the clash between Yokoi and assistant director Satoru Okada over cartridges. We follow the sabotage of the Ricoh chip deal, the Sharp hybrid processor that accidentally produced the li ...