Many people believe that Gunpei Yokoi left Nintendo due to the Virtual Boy's failure, as that project was his baby. Well believe it or not, we actually know the reason why he left the company. Yokoi shared his thoughts in an interview with Japanese magazine Bungeishunju, which is his last interview before he unfortunately passed away due to a car crash accident.
After over thirty years, I left Nintendo. After graduating from university, I was at Nintendo the entire time working on playthings, but at the 55-year-old juncture, I thought about working at a job that would allow me even more freedom with my ideas.
The day before I retired [from Nintendo], The Nikkei did a big feature on me. In reality, I did not resign to ‘take responsibility for the Virtual Boy’s failure.’ Since before that, I was thinking that when I turned 55, I wanted to become independent.
To put it another way, I came up with a lifetime of ideas and continued making playthings. To continue tweaking Nintendo’s corporate philosophy of ‘niche-type playthings’—that’s the only reason I resigned.
from GoNintendo
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