page_title: Nintendo Research & Development 1
section_title: 1979-1988: Game & Watch
hierarchical_section_title: Nintendo Research & Development 1 / History / 1979-1988: Game & Watch
caption_attribution_description: Português: O 1° videogame da Ninteno, o portátil Game&#160;% Watch العربية: اللعبة الداعمة لنظام جيم أند واتش.
context_page_description: Nintendo Research & Development No. 1 Department, commonly abbreviated as Nintendo R&D1, was Nintendo's oldest video game development team. It was known as Nintendo Research & Development Department before splitting in 1978. Its creation coincided with Nintendo's entry into the video game industry, and the original R&D1 was headed by Gunpei Yokoi. The developer has created several notable Nintendo series such as Metroid, Mario Bros., and Donkey Kong.
  R&D1 developed the hugely successful Game Boy line, which was released in 1989. They developed some of the line's most popular games, such as Super Mario Land, and created the character of Wario.
  Team Shikamaru was a small club within Nintendo R&D1 that was composed of Makoto Kano, Yoshio Sakamoto, and Toru Osawa. The group was responsible for designing characters and coming up with scripts for several games including Metroid, Kid Icarus, Famicom Tantei Club: Kieta Kōkeisha, Trade & Battle: Card Hero, and several others.
  After Yokoi's resignation in 1997, the group was led by Takehiro Izushi. In 2005, Satoru Iwata restructured the Nintendo R&D1 team.
context_section_description: According to an urban legend, in the late 1970s, Yokoi saw a bored Japanese salaryman playing with a calculator on the Shinkansen high-speed train. This was seemingly the inspiration behind the creation of the Game & Watch series, a line of handheld electronic games, with each system featuring a single game to be played on an LCD screen in addition to a clock, an alarm, or both. Regardless, it was confirmed that Yokoi was inspired by calculators to develop the line, even using calculator integrated circuits in the systems and button cells to power them. Although Nintendo competitors Mattel and Tomy had already produced portable games, they were mostly bulky systems with low-resolution LED displays and uninspiring gameplay. Yokoi exploited the cheapness of LCDs, producing cheap and light systems, starting in 1980. He would later call this principle Lateral Thinking of Withered Technology: using seasoned technology in radical ways; a principle that echoed throughout Nintendo until the present day.
  In 1980, Game & Watch: Ball was the first release of the Game & Watch Silver series, called after its metallic face-plate. Sales weren't reportedly "astonishing", but they were enough to persuade Nintendo to continue developing new titles. The series saw a total of 5 systems, all released during that year. In 1981, Game & Watch: Manhole debuted the Gold series, which was fundamentally the same system with a golden face-plate. It saw only 3 titles which were also released during the same year. In mid-1981, Game & Watch: Parachute was released, debuting the Wide Screen series, sporting a 30% larger display. The series saw a total of 10 titles released until early 1982.
  The limitations of the LCD display prompted Yokoi and his team to introduce the Multi Screen series with the release of Game & Watch: Oil Panic in mid 1982, adding another screen to potentially double the amount of gameplay each title could offer. The next title of the series was Game & Watch: Donkey Kong a port of the hugely successful Donkey Kong arcade game. Unable to use a joystick like the original game, as it would reduce the system's portability, Yokoi began researching for solutions. Early Game & Watch systems had a button for each action such as moving left and right or jumping. However, for the new system the team introduced the "cross" directional pad (D-pad): a flat, four-way directional control with one button on each point. The design was patented and later earned a Technology & Engineering Emmy Award in 2008. From then on, all major video game consoles since have had a D-pad of some shape on their controllers, until the Nintendo Switch in 2017.
caption: Game & Watch: Ball, the first game console in the successful handheld series
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