Withered Technology and Lateral Thinking
Withered Technology and Lateral Thinking
Withered Technology and Lateral Thinking
Some ideas arrive before their time; but the best ideas arrive at just the right time. And it’s not because that idea was incredibly innovative; spectacular; or flashy. Sometimes it arrives because someone discovered a different way to use; see; or apply something.
Behold withered technology! Technology that has been around long enough to become recognizable by everyone and a surprise to no one. It may no longer turn heads; but it’s something that is reliable; understood; and is often expected to work reliably and exactly as we intend it to.
But withered technology also has the added benefit of being cheap, accessible, and approachable: which makes it ripe for applied use in low-resource classrooms and for teaching, training, learning, and development.
This article will explore the concepts of withered technology and how it has been used in the past to spur innovations using “lateral thinking.” Its originator and practitioner (Gunpei Yokoi) will be covered and how his work in these two areas spurred the eventual rise and dominance of Nintendo as a commercial gaming powerhouse that was not always ahead of the pack (technologically speaking).
This article will discuss the advantages of using withered technology as well as the disadvantages to using cutting edge technology. The iconic project that best encapsulates withered technology and lateral thinking’s’ applications is the Game Boy. It will be covered in depth as well as how it integrated both individual and organizational philosophies surrounding applications of lateral thinking.
Finally, this article will close on applications of withered technology and lateral thinking in industries other than commercial gaming. This comes down to how ultimately the player experience is the main aspect that drives the success of products and applications of withered technology and lateral thinking. Not because these products are flashy; but because they work, fulfill our expectations, and help us achieve more.
What is Withered Technology?
Withered technology can be translated and interpreted as “weathered” or commodity technology. This is technology that is no longer novel; but rather, has become accepted as “mature” - implying that it’s stable, reliable, and accessible.
These characteristics also make it so that withered technology is also widely available and inexpensive as it is no longer cutting edge. Withered technology is ubiquitous because it is cheap, reliable, and widely recognized by consumers. We can see this in products like standardized AA batteries and aluminum cans; or with technology platforms like podcasts.
The fact that these technologies are “seasoned” and recognizable, also means that they are well positioned for rethinking through their recombination or re-contextualization based on their original and potential new uses.
This last point is worth emphasizing because Moore’s Law on innovation focuses on getting the most out of new technologies that replace older ones. This mostly focuses on iterative experimentation. Whereas utilizing withered technologies focuses on getting the most out of currently understood and widely available technologies. That despite being “unfashionable,” they “just work.” These characteristics allows inventors and creatives to focus on ideas and not on the infrastructure underlying their creations.
What is Lateral Thinking?
Lateral thinking is the design philosophy that is associated with withered technology. Since withered technology has already been established and is ubiquitous and reliable; lateral thinking stems from utilizing that technology in a new way.
At its core, lateral thinking is the opposite of iterative thinking. Iterative thinking is where one attempts to improve process and products linearly to increase performance. Lateral thinking, on the other hand, focuses on reinventing a category of products or services. It accomplishes this by utilizing the mature technology in creative ways – as this article will cover in detail.
The focus of this approach is in adhering to and embracing the technology’s constraints. Not specifically as limitations, but as factors that focus and augment one’s thinking not on what something was originally designed for; but rather what else it can be used for. This was addressed in some of Nintendo’s most iconic products that focused on the withered technology of a monochrome LCD screen, and distinctive aesthetics that influenced design choices and ultimately consumers’ uses.
Who was Gunpei Yokoi?
Gunpei Yokoi was the forerunner and the inventor that embodied the focus on withered technology, as well as finding new uses for that technology through lateral thinking. He understood that innovation could come through the creative reimagination of established technologies rather than constantly chasing cutting-edge innovation.
As a toy maker and video game designer, he adhered to the three facets of lateral thinking using withered technology. The first was to fully embrace mature - withered tech. Doing so limits production costs, encourages creativity through finding ingenious new uses, shortens development timelines, and reduces supply issues (due to the technology’s ubiquity).
The second part focuses on asking fundamental questions about the product. More succinctly to ask “why” more; and to drop assumptions. An example of this in modern consumer goods is the packaging of “Liquid Death” as a beverage by containing its product (water) like a soda (in aluminum cans).
The third, and final facet, revolved around constantly mixing up and combining unrelated ideas until one result sparks innovation. The latter cannot be had without the former, and without going through much trial and error.
The result of Yokoi’s philosophy can be observed through what has become known as his signature product: Nintendo’s Game Boy. This was a platform that defined and reinvented the hand-held game market by focusing on established and mature technology. The Game Boy didn’t necessarily compete against its rivals; but provided an experience that was fun and rewarding despite it.
Advantages to Using Withered Technology
Withered technology is not about using the most advanced, state-of-the-art, contemporary, or modern technology available. But what it lacks in novelty, it makes up for in reliability, affordability, and mass production. It gives up technical sophistication for accessibility. Its ubiquity is also indicative of its reduced production costs that in turn, make it much more accessible to consumers.
Lateral thinking works together with withered technology by exploring alternatives uses. Using existing technology makes it so that its repurpose for novel applications reduces waste that could come about from its disposal. In addition, the technology’s widespread availability means that it’s most likely familiar to consumers and can accelerate a faster time to market due to its well understood nature.
All of this means that established technology frees creators to focus on innovation rather than the errors or unpredictability of state-of-the-art technology. This means that truly innovative and new uses for established technology will allow it to flourish and scale globally.
Overall, both withered technology and lateral thinking go hand in hand because it challenges innovators to emphasize the user experience, simplicity, and efficiency of designs due to established – but not necessarily high performing – technology.
Disadvantages of Using Cutting Edge Technology
Comparatively, focusing on cutting edge technology can be a very expensive endeavor. Relying on it may also result in a product that is full of bugs most commonly found in untested and risky technology. This means that overreliance on this state-of-the-art tech can lead to greater risks for a failed product; delays; and bloated budgets.
While cutting edge technology can truly embody new innovations in scientific applications, it can also complicate development of a product due to its novel nature. As a result, this may end up detracting from the user experience. This is often the case with new startups as they chase new technologies only to discover unpredictable issues or poor market fit.
An example of a consumer product that experienced this was Samsung’s Galaxy Fold, which using new and untested technology (foldable OLEDs), lead to hardware failures and overall high production costs.
Nintendo and Lateral Thinking
Yoki’s philosophy of lateral thinking and withered technology went hand in hand with the kind of development and corporate philosophy of Nintendo of which Yoki spent much of his career. This is because the company’s focus of “thinking with technology” spoke to the reliable industrial aspects of withered technology with the creative latitude afforded by lateral thinking.
This has been the case and direction for Nintendo for quite some time. The inexpensive nature of withered technology means that the publisher has never really competed with the raw power and cutting-edge offerings of its closest competitors. Rather, it has driven innovation without chasing novelty; and has instead focused on what can be done creatively with what is already well understood.
This philosophy was embodied with the company’s focus on thoughtful design and innovation in gameplay, the player experience, and the technology needed to achieve that without the high risks accompanying state-of-the-art technologies. This is represented by Nintendo using widely available commodity components in its products, that despite being common and affordable, still deliver high quality and engaging experiences for many loyal consumers.
Overall, Nintendo embodied this focus during the company’s earliest days with its Game & Watch series which leveraged the use of ubiquitous LCD screens. The lessons learned from here were applied to the first Nintendo Entertainment System (NES); the Game Boy; and then the first Wii. All of which represent the company’s persistent philosophy on focusing on affordable, scalable, and widely available consumer technology.
Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros represented thoughtful and engaging design which didn’t rely on the limited hardware specifications of the NES. Rather, it utilized what it had available in memorable and engaging ways that provided an engaging experience that stands to this day. It’s this focus on this “timeless” and “outdated” tech which lends itself to Nintendo’s enduring and memorable qualities as many of its games feel timeless and emotionally durable.
While the company still faces criticism for not using the latest technology, their overall company philosophy still emphasizes efficiency, compatibility, and overall accessibility of their products to users.
The Game Boy and Withered Technology
While the Game & Watch was one of the first successful aspects of lateral thinking with withered technology at Nintendo; the Game Boy cemented this approach with widespread mass appeal. This was because the Game Boy’s overall cultural and market success was achieved not from its lack of cutting-edge technological features; but from the overall positive cognitive and physical interaction that players had with the device. Because of its rugged and study design, it represented Nintendo’s brand as a compact and durable consumer item that embodied interaction from its users.
The fact that the platform was not powerful but affordable, robust, and easy to use made it a reliable mainstay for the company as well as a loveable product for gamers. It embodied this by choosing to use a monochrome screen instead of a color one. The lower powered monochrome screen increased battery life and reduced the overall cost to the consumer to use the product.
Additionally, the platform was bundled with Tetris instead of a Mario title during its initial US release as Tetris appealed to a broader; non-traditional audience; and thankfully didn’t need to rely on a color screen to convey the game’s core loop and basic mechanics. Tetris’ inclusion targeted, and set the expectation for consumers, as a portable and casual product that embodied a “pickup-and-play” mentality.
These features (not shortcomings) of the Game Boy made handheld gaming mainstream; durable; accessible and served as the overall catalyst for the growth of the handheld gaming market. This was a positive result in the end as the Game Boy ended up outlasting its competitors like the Sega Game Gear and Atari Lynx which had color displays; and better performance specifications; but overall offered a competitive experience at a greater price.
Individual Philosophies on Lateral Thinking
While withered technologies can be prioritized and lateral thinking can be observed from a retroactive perspective, it’s also useful to think about how lateral thinking can be approached from a contemporary one. One way to do this is through individual (designer) approaches to thinking laterally.
One of the most becoming ways of approaching this philosophy as an individual contributor is with the focus on a “t-shaped” generalist – or generalist specialist. This is someone who is connected to many different (sometimes connected) disciplines and enables cross collaboration across different domains; but still maintains deep expertise in a single area.
This is best represented by a “T” shape in which there is broad knowledge of different areas; but deep knowledge of one particular connected area. This is beneficial because non-specialist thinkers can often see potential in often overlooked areas and technologies when examined from different perspectives. This usually occurs when these individuals “float” to different teams in different disciplines; thus, bridging the gap between specialists and (hopefully) spurring innovation.
This is especially helpful in addressing the needs to solve ill defined “wicked problems” that cannot be addressed in narrow expertise alone; and are fertile fields in which to use lateral thinking. Educators can rely on individual aspects of lateral thinking by examining their particular area of expertise; content; and the needs of their learners and comparing it against their experiences in other fields to determine what ideas from one domain may be applied to another.
An example of an individual who can do this is the generalist who can “fieldcraft” to create and adapt different existing knowledge, tools and skills to different challenges. This is the result of the exposure and knowledge that this individual would have of different areas and how they can be reimagined for new purposes. Which is perhaps why an individual approach to lateral thinking seems easier to describe than to embody. The process is more akin to perfecting a recipe. Part of it is reliant on science; part on art; but it really necessitates a lot of experimentation to get it just right.
Thus, individual approaches to lateral thinking often embody the core element, problem, challenge, feature, or design consideration. For games, this was often focused on at Nintendo as something that needs to be designed as “fun” even with prototype elements and placeholder art. No amount of marketing or advanced technology can improve a boring game.
And this is why individual approaches to lateral thinking are situated mostly as situational and cannibalistic. An individual using lateral thinking is opportunistic: repurposing components from failed products; or other endeavors to determine and discover a new purpose and outcome. Often this comes about through reserve engineering to first determine how something works in order to discover what else it can do.
The individual lateral thinker is also okay with designing with “what remains.” Often scraps from a heap, but sometimes with leftover ideas and failed starts. It’s product design that focuses on what the economies of traditional design have left behind: existing goods and raw materials that serve as a platform for new ideas.
Perhaps this best describes the “maker philosophy,” and highlights human adaptability as lateral thinking can also be nonlinear thinking that relies on improvisation and empowerment using tools and materials familiar; but discarded. This is an approach that may not surprise others with the components included; but can surprise many in demonstrating how its arrangement or focus is novel.
Thus, true creativity with lateral thinking comes from existing tools, resources, and processes; and not necessarily investing in new ones.
Organizational Philosophies on Lateral Thinking
Conversely, organizations can also learn, adapt, and focus on a lateral thinking approach for innovation and product development. The key here is the focus on benefits of using established technology over new ones.
There are of course economic reasons (as previously stated) for doing so as they are easier to scale; have established production pipelines; and are well understood. However, there is the added organizational benefit of the resilience of the organization that can think laterally in its ability to handle unclear situations effectively.
These focuses are most likely already embodied in organizational processes that lean on “agile” and “lean” methodologies as the former focuses on adaptive cycles of learning through experimentation and the latter on sustainable outcomes that are validated through efficient resource use. While educational institutions are not always defined as “lean” or “agile,” they can still benefit from an organizational focus on lateral thinking for determining how to best use present resources in new and innovative ways.
Additionally, organizational approaches to lateral thinking are mainly embraced by startups that find and prioritize innovation through recombination and not reinvention. This was perhaps best embodied during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic as lateral thinking mindsets helped organizations pivot to making much needed products such as face shields and ventilators through the aspect of “frugal innovation,” embodied by lateral thinking.
But perhaps the most important aspect for organizations to consider when using lateral thinking for design and development is to first determine the most important aspect of their work. For games, it’s realizing its core purpose, and then determining if that same purpose can be fulfilled using mature and inexpensive technologies in new ways. For teaching and learning it’s the fulfillment of learning outcomes and objectives and how that can be better accomplished using existing resources.
Applications of Withered Technology
Many of the examples of withered technology in this article have been games and the work of Gunpei Yoki and Nintendo. But innovation using this approach to technology isn’t limited to only games.
Other examples include the creation of the 3M “Post-It-Note” that came about from combining already understood technology (adhesives) with the need to create easily accessible and “sticky” bookmarks. Another example stems from Mary Kay Ash that repurposed the application of leather softener into cosmetics.
Other technological examples embodied by other companies include Apple in its pattern of adapting proven technologies into later production life cycles such as the use of OLED panels and wireless charging into its devices. This can also be seen in the way the company has broken conventions like with the iPod Shuffle as a product which ditched a screen as a user interface entirely; thus, defying consumer expectations.
Other examples used applied lateral thinking by using different production methods such as the assembly line in Henry Ford’s car plants and even the origin and prevalence of Bitcoin as means for examining different ways to do things and leveraging different uses of current technologies.
Withered technology and lateral thinking aren’t just limited to product development; but can also extend into creative works. Such was the case with the production of films like Bram Stoker’s Dracula and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy which emphasized the use of practical effects alongside some CGI elements. The focus of which was to produce premium films using well understood aspects of stage craft and relying less on computer generated imagery which may end up reducing the quality of the film.
All of this goes back to Yoki’s philosophy of leveraging what you have to create something new and potentially better. This originated with the Game & Watch which was conceived as a new use for surplus LCD screens from calculator development. That then lead to the development of the D-Pad controller which minimized spatial impact of joysticks into a smaller form factor; and then to the combination of the two with the Game Boy.
The end result of this innovation? The creation and focus on the handheld game market that started with the Game Boy and continued on through multiple iterations ending with the modern Switch. The Switch represents this philosophy as it utilizes modest hardware to create innovative experiences despite it.
Applications of Lateral Thinking
As a result of focusing on withered technology, lateral thinking can occur from the past examples as well as re-contextualizing familiar tools and not necessarily investing in the need for new ones. One of the ways that this is emphasized in development is to combine product categories with other (seemingly) unrelated ideas. An example would be to mix soda (the beverage) with music in the creation of a bottle that can also become a musical instrument.
This comes about because ultimately constraints inspire creativity and ingenuity in design. This article has discussed at length the impact that this has had on the game and toy market as well as other innovations and concepts had by other companies.
However, this approach can also be addressed creatively to writing by prioritizing constraints like word count or length to further focus and force precision. It can also be leveraged in the writing process to revive overlooked or forgotten ideas rather than constantly chasing trendy topics. Overall, this comes back to the question of innovation and the ability to do more with less and achieve complexity from simplicity. To focus on resourceful application of what is already abundant and available.
You can think about this as “…teaching an old dog new tricks.” If something is known for doing this or that, then what would it look like it was forced to do something new? If beverages are only meant to quench our thirst; then why drink anything but water? Asking these questions helps put you on a path towards lateral thinking.
This doesn’t mean that all endeavors following this methodology will end in success. In most cases, they will fail; but failure is still valuable. Failure provides insight into what doesn’t work, requires the individual to reframe problems, and drives deeper understanding into finding more creative solutions.
Player Experience with Withered Technology
Overall, we’ve examined the role that withered technology and lateral thinking has had in gaming. The industry giant that has really focused on this has been Nintendo. This is because, compared to its relative size to other competitors, it has been able to stay nimble and creative enough to utilize this well-established technology to deliver an endearing experience to its players.
Much of this is due in part to their organizational interpretation of their product development as closer to toys than electronics. This has led to them developing products that focus on fun play and engaging experiences. Their games are often an extension of their playful systems that emphasize open ended engagement and longevity of play rather than overall cinematic storytelling.
And the result of which is a really positive and indicative user experience that includes embodied branding and sensory engagement. This extends all the way back from the original Game & Watch to the iteration of the Game Boy and then the Switch. All products which utilize withered technology and lateral thinking to innovatively emphasize the user experience in service of consumer psychology.
Nintendo focus on this aspect through embodied cognition in play. Players engage in the game, rather than imagining themselves within it They act inside of the game; and through the game: experientially. Much like the focus of games-based learning in achieving learning outcomes through play. Embodied cognition of these developed products makes it so that players don’t simply use these products; they personify them.
Despite not being the first of Nintendo’s products, the Game Boy embodies this aspect most concretely as it acts as a cognitive prosthesis; demonstrating how technology and users co-create an experience together: much like the focus on constructivism through games-based learning. This combination didn’t occur haphazardly as the readily available LCD screens; 8-bit CPUs; and cartridges made the platform a portable, affordable, and durable one for many gamers: young and old alike.
Perhaps, in the end, the greatest takeaway that developers, designers, and educators can gain from withered technology and lateral thinking is that our users, players and consumers don’t care about backend sophistication. They care about the results. They care about their experience being a positive and fulfilling one. And this can be more easily accomplished by leveraging mature and well understood technology that frees creators to focus on what really differentiates play: the experience.
In the end, available and mature tech combined with a positive user experience often beats out raw specs in real-world impact. It’s not exactly how flashy something looks; but rather how flashy and embodied it feels for players and learners.
Takeaways
This article defined withered technology and its relationship with lateral thinking. It focused on its most well-known practitioner (Gunepi Yokoi) who leveraged these concepts to much acclaim during his time with Nintendo.
The advantages to using mature “withered technology” were discussed as well as the disadvantages of using cutting edge technology. This balance was examined in line with Nintendo’s development and historical product offerings. One of which best embodied the success and focus of withered technology and lateral thinking: the Game Boy.
Lateral thinking can take on several different forms, and this article explored how individual philosophies shape their development and implementation as well as how organizations can focus their resources on this line of development. This allows them to be competitive laterally rather than iteratively when utilizing mature technologies.
This article closed on the different applications of withered technology in fields other than game development. Overall, the focus and impact of both withered technology and lateral thinking was on the experience for the player and the user. And how that focus was not on sophistication, but rather on a positive and engaging experience.
This article covered using withered technology and lateral thinking. To learn more about gamification, check out the free course on Gamification Explained.
Dave Eng, EdD
Principal
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Cite this Article
Eng, D. (2026, January13). Withered Technology and Games-Based Learning. Retrieved MONTH DATE, YEAR, from https://www.universityxp.com/blog/2026/1/12/withered-technology-and-lateral-thinking
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