The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokémon and Beyond—The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World (51 page)

Having created Donkey Kong, Mario, Zelda, Yoshi, and Star Fox, Shigeru Miyamoto (pictured here with awards from the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences) is generally regarded as the most successful game designer in history.

Donkey Kong
was the game that enabled Nintendo to break into the U.S. arcade business.

Russian mathematician Alexey Pajitnov (seen here visiting his old apartment in Moscow) created
Tetris
, the best-selling video game of all time.

The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and the Super NES, the systems that solidified Nintendo’s place in video game history.

Game Boy…. Atari engineers laughed when they saw its crude, monochrome screen. Twelve years, 115 million units, and more than 450 million cartridges later, Game Boy reigns unrivalled as the most popular game system of all time.

The late Gumpei Yokoi, dean of Nintendo’s engineers, devised the toys that helped Nintendo expand from manufacturing playing cards, created the hardware for Nintendo’s first arcade games, and led the team that made Game Boy.

By the time former Mattel president Tom Kalinske was appointed president and CEO of Sega of America, Nintendo already controlled more than 90 percent of the video game industry. Kalinske chose to take Nintendo head-on.

Brilliant, temperamental, and an extreme perfectionist, Sega’s Yuji Naka created
Sonic The Hedgehog, NiGHTS, Burning Rangers
, and
Samba de Amigo.

The creation of
Sonic The Hedgehog
signaled a new direction and attitude for Sega. It also meant the end of Nintendo’s unchallenged dominance of the home game industry.

Sega’s top arcade hit-maker, Yu Suzuki, is known for his sophisticated taste in wine, cars, and technology.

Capcom’s Shinji Mikami, creator of the exceptionally gory
Resident Evil
games.

Crazy Taxi
creator, Hisao Oguchi.