Second section:
An Unmodified Calculator CPU
Iwata: So, you were all involved with the job of making the first Game & Watch, "Ball," which launched in 1980.
Kano: Yes.
Iwata:Without changing the subject too much, HAL Laboratories was also founded in 1980.
Yamamoto: That makes exactly thirty years ago, then.
Iwata: Right. We have to face that the year is 2010, which means it was thirty years ago.
Yamamoto: We were all in our twenties back then.
Iwata: I was still in university. (laughs)
Izushi: Oh, yeah! (laughs)
Iwata: Yes. As a matter of fact, 1978, the year Mr. Yamamoto joined the company, was the year I entered university, and the year "Space Invaders" was such a huge hit.
Yamamoto. Is that right?
Iwata: And the year Mr. Izushi joined the company, 1975, is the year I entered high school. 1972, the year Mr. Kano joined, was the year of the Sapporo Olympics. I was in grade school at the time, living in Sapporo.
Kano: Oh! That's really something. (laughs)
Iwata: As I sit here among the ranks of such great men as yourselves, I feel that some mysterious force must have compelled you to join together and make a product called "Game & Watch."
By the way, this is something I heard second-hand, but apparently the birth of the idea that became the Game & Watch came when Mr. Yokoi (Gunpei Yokoi) was riding the bullet train and, by chance, saw a man playing around with his calculator. Did you ever hear anything from Mr. Yokoi about how he came up with the idea for Game & Watch?
Kano: No, unfortunately I don't know that many details about it. When I was transferred from the Creative Section to the Development Section, development of the first Game & Watch title, "Ball," was already underway. At that point, Mr. Yokoi and Mr. Okada (Satoshi Okada) had already built the prototype...
Iwata: You joined halfway through, so you aren't acquainted with all the details?
Kano. No. But I have heard Mr Yokoi took his inspiration from pocket calculators.
Izushi: Don't forget that the chip used in the Game & Watch was the same chip used in those pocket calculators. Originally, each number on the display of a calculator had seven segments...
Iwata: The numbers from 0 to 9 were displayed using a structure segmented into seven pieces.
Izushi: That's right. Therefore, a calculator capable of calculating to eight places had eight rows of seven segments, for a total of 56 segments. Also, there were a few extra segments for mathematical symbols like the minus sign (-). The chip we used to make "Ball" could control a total of 72 segments.
Iwata: So in short, rather than use those 72 segments, which could each be turned on and off, to display numbers, you used them to display pictures, and used those to create a game.
Izushi: That's exactly right.
Kano: Don't forget that Ball's screen has a counter in the upper right corner used to display the score or the time. That by itself used four columns of seven segments, or 28 segments.
Iwata: So out of a total of 72 segments, that left you 44.
Kano. Yes. The images of the character and the balls were created out of those remaining segments.
Iwata: I see. I've also heard that the idea to use the four-column point counter to also display the time came late in development.
Kano. As I joined development part way through, I don't know the details of how the clock function was added, but considering that digital clocks usually have a colon in between the hours and the minutes, which the Game & Watch is missing, I can believe that the clock was an afterthought.
Izushi: A quartz crystal is an easy thing to add late in development, too.
Kano: Remember that adding a colon would have used up one of the segments. I'm sure they wanted to save that segment.
Iwata. It would have been a shame to use it up on something not game-related.
Kano: Yes, what a waste! (laughs) To address that, the second game, "Flagman," could only display the digit "1" in the thousands column, and only by the sixth game, "Manhole," was there a display for "AM" and "PM."
Iwata: Why could it only display the digit "1"?
Kano: Well, for example, to display "10:00 PM," you need display "AM" and "PM," as well as four rows, which use 28 segments.
Iwata: Right.
Kano: If you make it so the thousands column can only display the digit "1"...
Iwata: I see. "AM," PM," and "1" together make three segments, but to display a full digit, you need seven segments, so that way you can save four segments. (laughs)
Kano. It's a significant savings. We wanted to even just four extra segments for gameplay, if we could get them. It did mean that the highest possible score was 1999, though.
Iwata: Aha ha ha! (laughs)
Izushi: With tricks like that we could reduce the number of segments used, and use them elsewhere.
Kano: Not even a single segment was wasted.
Izushi: And to fit within those restrictions, we had to think up all kinds of ideas. It was very fun to think of ways of making games with just a few available building blocks.
Kano: Exactly, that was the most interesting part.
Izushi: Yes, when you work within those kinds of constraints, you come up with all kinds of ideas.
Kano: Yeah, the ideas just spring up.
Iwata: When you're making something new and there are no limits, I can't really say it's completely a good thing. Sometimes when there are clearly defined limits, ideas come more easily.
By the way, over a period of six years, there were 59 Game & Watch titles released, including those sold abroad. How did you come up with ideas for all of them?
Izushi: Regardless of whether they were hardware engineers, planners, or designers, everyone contributed ideas. Since so many of the games were based on everyday things, anyone could contribute good ideas.
Yamamoto: Everyone brainstormed ideas together and wrote them on a whiteboard...
Izushi: A whiteboard?
Izushi: Was it a blackboard? (laughs)
Iwata: I don't think they had whiteboards back then. (laughs)
All (laugh)
Yamamoto: Speaking of which... (pulling out an old notebook) This is a notebook from one of those brainstorming sessions.
Iwata: Amazing! This is a precious document... This is "Chef," isn't it?
Izushi: You're making fun of me! This is just an old, tattered notebook.
Yamamoto: I can do without such treasures. (laughs)
Iwata: Isn't this your notebook, Mr. Yamamoto?
Yamamoto: It is. I wrote down the ideas we had during those brainstorming sessions. Everyone gave their opinion at those meetings. In the end, though, after everyone had spoken, it was Mr. Yokoi that made the final decisions. (laughs)
Kano: Everyone would give their opinions, we would get wrapped up in minor details, and our ideas would gradually get too complicated. At that point, Mr. Yokoi would look at what we had, point out the elements that were unnecessary, find the nucleus of what made an idea fun, and figure out how to present that core idea as an attractive, sellable product. He threw out many ideas that way.
Izushi: I hate to admit it, but that's the truth of how it was. (laughs)
