During this time period, Nintendo had transitioned to producing toys in the Japanese market.
The problem with this move was that the market in Japan was still very small and Nintendo had invested too much into the industry to lose (the toy companies Bandai and Tomy had already dominated the majority of whatever market the Japanese toy industry had).
One day in 1966, Yamauchi was observing the hanafuda card factory and noticed an extending arm device created by their in-house engineer, Gunpei Yokoi for his own amusement.
Yamauchi had realized the possibilities of this being a great children's toy and had ordered Yokoi to develop it as a proper product for the Christmas rush of shoppers.
Released as the "Ultra Hand", it had became one of Nintendo's earliest toy blockbusters, selling over 1 million units.
Because of the potential that Yamauchi had seen in Yokoi, he took him off the assembly line maintenance role and promoted him to product development.
Due to Yokoi's electrical engineering background, he was able to create products for the company that would have more novelty value in them because they can do more than one thing.
In the later years after his promotion, he would go on to play an integral role in the design, coding and construction of some of Nintendo's most popular video game products, like the Nintendo Game and Watch.
The Nintendo Ultra Hand
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