On July 31, 1980, Japanese company Nintendo introduced Game & Watch: Fire — one of the most famous handheld electronic games of its time. It became one of the symbols of the birth of handheld gaming and laid the foundation for the company's future success, which later culminated in the iconic Game Boy.
In the late 1970s, Nintendo was actively seeking new growth directions following its success in the Japanese arcade market. Company engineer Gunpei Yokoi noticed a man on a bullet train pressing buttons on an ordinary calculator out of boredom. This observation inspired him to create a compact gaming device that could be carried anywhere.
Thus, the Game & Watch series was born — handheld consoles featuring LCD screens, each containing a standalone game and a built-in digital clock.
In Game & Watch: Fire, players controlled two rescuers who had to catch people leaping from a burning building and bounce them into an ambulance. Simple yet highly engaging gameplay turned Fire into a true hit.
For its time, the game stood out with its fast pace, gradual difficulty ramp-up, and the opportunity to constantly break personal records. These simple, engaging mechanics became the trademark of the entire Game & Watch lineup.
The Game & Watch series' greatest contribution to the industry's development was not solely tied to the popularity of the games themselves. In 1982, for the Game & Watch: Donkey Kong model, Gunpei Yokoi created a compact directional pad — the D-pad.
This solution eliminated the need for bulky joysticks and became a standard for nearly all future generations of home and handheld consoles. Today, the D-pad can be found on virtually every modern gamepad — from Nintendo and PlayStation to Xbox.
The success of Game & Watch convinced Nintendo that the handheld format had massive potential. The experience gained from creating this series directly influenced the development of the Game Boy, which launched in 1989 and forever transformed the handheld gaming market.
The Game Boy inherited the core concept of Game & Watch — the ability to play anywhere — but complemented it with interchangeable cartridges, significantly more powerful hardware, and a vast library of games.
46 years have passed since the release of Game & Watch: Fire, but its significance in video game history is hard to overstate. It was this series that helped Nintendo secure its place among industry leaders, kicked off the evolution of handheld consoles, and gifted the world the D-pad — one of the most important innovations in gaming history.
Today, Game & Watch remains not just a collector's item, but a reminder that even the simplest ideas can spark an industry-wide revolution.
As a reminder: Logitech G and Sven became official partners of Games of the Future 2026.
