History of Nintendo DS

Console Development

Immediately after the release of the Game Boy Advance SP, Nintendo began developing a new console - the Game Boy Advance 2, codenamed Project Iris. If we talk about the classic Game Boy Advance consoles, they were made for playing 2D animation, while the new console was supposed to work with 3D. No other changes were planned.

But one event occurred that greatly influenced Project Iris. On May 14, 2003, Sony announced a new portable console - the PlayStation Portable.

E3 2004 Sony first shows PSP

A little later, Sony announced the technical specifications of the new device, and that's when the Nintendo bosses felt really bad. Essentially, Sony announced the same thing that Nintendo was developing, but 10 times better. What kind of competition could there be between consoles when the PSP had a 300 MHz processor and a 1.8 GB cartridge, while Project Iris had a 50 MHz processor and a 512 MB cartridge. At the same time, the main feature of both consoles was announced as the ability to play full-fledged 3D games.

In later interviews, Nintendo developers would say that they had a special console concept that did not compete with the PSP.

But that "special concept" appeared precisely because of the PSP, which Nintendo always kept quiet about.

By a strange coincidence, Nintendo engineers did not see anything terrible in releasing a weaker console. But Hiroshi Yamauchi (president of Nintendo) immediately understood that if nothing was changed, it would lead Nintendo to failure.

Even before the release of the console, he did not fully believe that everything would be fine. He said: "If the DS is successful, we will ascend to heaven, but if it fails, we will descend to hell. The next two years will decide the fate of Nintendo." Yamauchi understood that changes needed to be made to the console that would allow it to stand out brightly against the competition. And he came up with the idea of adding a second screen.

After that, he called Satoru Iwata and said that the new console needed a second screen, like in the Game & Watch.

It is surprising that the developers did not understand such simple things and resisted the idea of two screens. But in any case, they had no choice, so they proceeded to implement this idea.

So, after Yamauchi's call, Project Iris began to transform into Project Nitro. You can read more about Project Iris and see this console in the article: «Project Iris».

Project Nitro

Since the addition of the second screen, Project Iris was renamed to Project Nitro.

Many people did not quite understand the concept of two screens. For example, my acquaintances, who had never heard of the Nintendo DS, even wondered why a second screen was needed, since you can only look at one screen at a time?

Of course, they are right in some ways. Although in some cases, having two screens is slightly more convenient. For example, if you need to open the inventory in a game, it usually covers the entire screen. On the Nintendo DS, it opened on the second screen. You could also display a map or some additional information there.

But would two screens be that unusual feature that made people buy this console? I don't think so. As I wrote above, it was the combination of innovations that encouraged people to buy the Nintendo DS. And the developers themselves thought so, as none of them said that they were most proud of the two screens. Although one thing is certain - the two screens immediately catch the eye and make you want to get to know the console better.

Before we look at other innovations, it should be noted that Nintendo never had a clear vision of what the new console should be like. The development of the console was not preceded by a planning stage where the functions the console should have were clearly described. On the contrary, Nintendo engineers always developed or tested some technologies that were later added to it.

Kenichi Sugino and Shigeru Miyamoto unanimously stated in interviews that the Nintendo DS is the result of three such ideas that were initially developed independently: the touch screen, wireless functions, and a powerful graphics chip.

And if the powerful graphics chip is clear, it was implemented at the development stage of Project Iris, the touch screen and wireless functions were added at the last moment.

Touch Screen

Initially, Nintendo wanted to make an analog stick that would stick out of the console. But then they abandoned this idea due to the appearance of the touch screen.

It is unknown who first came up with the idea of integrating a touch screen into Project Nitro. It so happened that Nintendo had been nurturing this idea for a long time. Back in 1998, the development team wanted to implement this feature in the Game Boy Color. However, they eventually abandoned the idea because this development significantly darkened the console's screen.

But then someone came up with an interesting idea: since the console was planned to have two screens anyway, why not make the lower screen touch-sensitive. It should have been much more convenient than using a touch device with one screen. After all, when you use a stylus, you cover most of the screen with your hand, but here there was a second screen that remained completely open. There was also a second bonus: the touch screen opened up completely new gaming possibilities in the world of consoles, plus it was an intuitively understandable control option.

According to Osamu Inoue, the idea of the touch screen finally matured in the spring of 2003 during a conversation between Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto, which took place in an Italian restaurant. Then Shigeru showed his idea, which he had implemented earlier. He divided the screen of a PDA (personal digital assistant, which were popular at the time) into two parts with tape and wrote a small program. On the lower part of the screen was a small Mario, and if you pressed him, he would jump to the upper part of the screen.

Shigeru Miyamoto was able to convince Satoru Iwata, who was still hesitant about the touch screen, and the idea went into development.

Network Functions

By a strange coincidence, Nintendo did not consider the internet as something serious. But they still continued to work on network functions.

Satoru Iwata, speaking at the Tokyo Game Show 2003 with a lecture titled "20 Years of Famicom: The Present and Future of the Gaming Industry," announced the release of a new game, Pokemon Leaf Green / Fire Red. At the same time, they were supposed to be equipped with a special wireless adapter that would allow playing over the network without wires.

By the way, Masato Kuwahara showed the first prototype of such a wireless device, which he literally assembled on his knees. It was a huge pile of wires, which he called "noodles."

This device also had an undocumented feature. According to Nintendo's idea, with this adapter, you could not only play between consoles but also access the internet. The function itself was ready, but nothing was implemented for it.

Having such a development in hand, it would have been strange if Nintendo had not come up with the idea of adding such capabilities to the Nintendo DS. Moreover, they wanted everything to be built into the console without any adapters.

Masato Kuwahara was appointed responsible for the integration, but considering that the Wireless Adapter, which he led the development of, appeared only at the beginning of 2004, work on the network functions for the new console started even later. But in the end, they managed to prepare everything.

In addition to the main changes, there were also minor ones. For example, the sound changed from monophonic to stereophonic.

Satoru Okada insisted on inserting a microphone into the console. Moreover, the microphone was considered as a separate control source, not for recording something. They also added a sleep mode to the console.

Console Release

Starting with the release of the Game Boy Advance SP, rumors spread on the internet that Nintendo was working on a Game Boy Advance 2 console. And, in fact, this was completely true, as Nintendo was developing Project Iris. But in early January 2004, Nintendo denied these rumors.

On January 21, 2004, Nintendo issued a press release in which they announced that they would release a new console with two screens and even indicated the preliminary name - Nintendo DS.

On May 12, 2004, at the E3 exhibition, Nintendo showed the new console.

But the most interesting thing here is that Nintendo demonstrated a prototype that was ultimately heavily modified.

The old design had a straight upper part.

Pay attention to the hinges; initially, they were positioned differently.

Even the rear buttons (L and R) looked different.

But on July 28, 2004, Nintendo issued a press release where they officially confirmed the name of the console (Nintendo DS) and showed the final design.

As you can see, the console's design changed dramatically.

Sales Start

On December 2, 2004, sales started in Japan. Before the sales start, Nintendo managers personally visited stores to check how the displays looked.

Nintendo prepared almost 500,000 consoles for the sales start.

Lines at the stores began to form on the evening of December 1, and by 6 a.m. on December 2, they had grown to enormous proportions.

Epilogue

It's interesting how Nintendo received such a kick from Sony that their momentum lasted for 13 years of console releases. The foundations laid in the Nintendo DS, in one form or another, existed until the release of the New Nintendo 2DS XL (2017).

Total sales of 154 million consoles showed that Nintendo was moving in the right direction. But at the same time, comparing the sales of the Nintendo DS (18 million sales) and the Nintendo DS Lite (93 million sales), it becomes obvious that there were many complaints about the Nintendo DS. That is why the Nintendo DS Lite, in which all the shortcomings of the Nintendo DS were corrected, sold in such record numbers.