Report on Nintendo DS, Part 1: Genesis

Hiroshi Yamauchi's Legacy: A Great Mission and Final Work

When Hiroshi Yamauchi stepped down as president of Nintendo in May 2002 after more than 50 years of service, he left his successor with a huge problem. Because Yamauchi and other top executives of the company were convinced that the video game market of the time would collapse if things continued as they were: games were becoming bigger, more elaborate, more complex, and more expensive, but the number of active players continued to decline. Therefore, Nintendo set itself the task of countering this trend and expanding the video game market.

This mission, which could not be called modest, fell to Satoru Iwata, who took over the company. Of course, the former programmer did not have to bear this burden alone. Iwata restructured the company, which had previously been managed solely by the president, so that responsibility was now shared among several managers. In addition, Yamauchi still served as an advisor.

Yamauchi had repeatedly demonstrated foresight and left one last directive for his former colleagues. "At the time I stepped down, I thought it was time to create a portable system with two screens," Yamauchi told journalist Osamu Inoue in one of his rare interviews after his resignation. "The problem was how to develop and refine this idea. I decided to leave it to the new guys." The businessman was not overly concerned about the fate of his corporation: "Fortunately, Nintendo had room to maneuver. We had a lot of savings and no debt, so the company couldn't collapse over such a small matter." Nevertheless, he had high demands for Iwata and Co.: "If they didn't do it, they would simply be useless to Nintendo."

The Murky Origins and the Mystery of Iris

So, did the history of the Nintendo DS begin in 2002 when the visionary Yamauchi gave his final instructions as the head of the company? Unfortunately, it's not that simple, as the origins of the GBA successor are somewhat murky. After all, at the time, there was no such format as "Questions for Iwata" that could address the origins of the DS, and scattered remarks in a few interviews with the people behind the DS only paint a vague overall picture.

According to Satoru Okada, head of the then Nintendo Research & Engineering Development (RED) portable console development department, his team started several new projects after completing work on the Game Boy Advance, released in 2001. One of them led to the Game Boy Advance SP, and the other to the Nintendo DS.

The later DS was created under the codename "Nitro." But Nintendo already had plans to create a successor to the GBA—called "Iris." Almost nothing is known about "Project Iris." When this name was mentioned by one of Nintendo's developers in a 2009 interview, Iwata succinctly explained: "Iris is the codename for a next-generation device we planned to make as the successor to the Game Boy Advance before developing the Nintendo DS." What exactly "Iris" was is completely unknown. It was not identical to the later DS, but there is a certain connection, as Iwata said, "Iris" was the "cornerstone for the Nintendo DS." What features the "Iris" console was supposed to have when it was in development, why it was canceled, and why, apart from this interview, nothing is known about it publicly—all these questions remain unanswered.

Around 200 People Built Nintendo DS Without a Master Plan

But let's return to "Project Nitro." The development of the Nintendo DS took two years; the time between the release of the GBA and the start of "Nitro" development was spent on projects like the GBA SP or "Iris." From the very beginning, it was clear that the next-generation portable console would have backward compatibility with the GBA and improved 3D graphics. For the first time in Nintendo's history, hardware engineers worked very closely with game developers, so, in addition to star designer Shigeru Miyamoto, other important people from Nintendo's game studios were involved in the development of the Nintendo DS. Due to this collaboration between different departments, it is unknown how many employees were involved in the development of the Nintendo DS. Satoru Okada roughly estimated that about 200 Nintendo employees were involved in the project.

It was not like a master plan was developed first and then directly implemented in practice. Kenichi Sugino, one of those responsible for the development of Nintendo's portable consoles, described the process as follows: "Instead of finishing one hardware system and then moving on to the next, we are constantly working on new ideas and technologies. Therefore, it is a process that is not fixed, in which not the entire console is created, but rather its individual concepts. That is why new ideas constantly appear in Nintendo's hardware department—but they only come to market when the team sees reasonable opportunities for their use."

Sugino and 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. So, the two screens and the folding hinge did not seem to be perceived as serious innovations—after all, Nintendo had already released portable devices with such features, namely some Game & Watch devices from the 1980s and the Game Boy Advance SP.

Why the Wireless Function and Touch Screen?

Network functions exist in the Game Boy Advance and GameCube, but they require additional hardware. The new console was supposed to be different: wireless connectivity between two DS systems was to be implemented right out of the box. To achieve this goal, Masato Kuwahara and his team were assigned to the Nintendo DS engineering team, consisting of 100 people. After all, he was the one who developed the wireless adapter for the GBA. Since this adapter was only released in 2004, Kuwahara was one of the last to join the DS team. The integration of wireless functions took so much time and effort that Satoru Okada ultimately took the most pride in this.

Where the idea of the touch screen came from is also unclear. The fact is that Nintendo had been nurturing this idea for a long time. In 1998, the development team was already working on a touch adapter for the Game Boy Color, but it darkened the console's screen so much that it never made it to market. But, of course, Nintendo did not abandon this idea. At first, Okada did not think it was feasible, but in the team planning the implementation of Yamauchi's idea of two screens, the idea matured: if one of the two screens were touch-sensitive, it would open up completely innovative gaming possibilities and highly intuitive control options. In other words, it was exactly the innovation Iwata was looking for.

Miyamoto Demonstrated the Future DS with a PDA and a Strip of Tape

The final decision to integrate the touch screen into the Nintendo DS was made surprisingly late. According to Osamu Inoue, this happened in the spring of 2003 during a conversation between Iwata and Miyamoto at an Italian restaurant in Kyoto. Miyamoto first demonstrated the idea of the touch screen to the president in the summer of 2003, dividing his PDA (at the time, personal digital assistants were widely used, for example, for managing meetings) into two halves with a strip of adhesive tape, creating a mock-up of the future console with two screens.

Miyamoto demonstrated to his boss and friend a simple program in which the company's mascot Mario was displayed on the lower half of the screen. As soon as he was touched on the touch screen, the plumber in the red suit jumped to the upper half of the screen. This homemade prototype became the basis for the design of the later Nintendo DS model. Only in the summer of 2003 did the team really begin integrating the touch screen into the console.

As it turned out, according to Miyamoto, although the DS was developed for two years, the first prototype with a functioning touch screen appeared only six months before the work was completed. Thus, the main feature of the console was not an integral part of the project until quite late—this is consistent with what Sugino reported about the DS development process.

How the Famous DS Design Came to Be

At Okada's suggestion, a microphone was also built into the new console. The developers did not consider this a good idea, but the department head convinced them with the argument that microphones were now small and cheap enough to be built into the console without much effort. This allowed for another innovative input option: control through sounds and speech. Two screens, a touch screen, a folding hinge, a microphone, and built-in wireless support—the Nintendo DS gradually evolved and became a true marvel of technology at the time.

Of course, all this set strict limits for hardware developers. It was necessary to account for the stylus cutouts and even the large slot for GBA cartridges. Unlike the first model of the Game Boy Advance, the device now came standard with a battery, which naturally affected the design of the case. Despite all this, the console also had to be as compact and ergonomic as possible.

By the way, initially, the developers also planned an analog joystick—i.e., not a sliding pad, but a protruding stick—but later abandoned it for obvious reasons. Thus, in the final version of the DS, in addition to the four buttons and two side buttons, as well as the Start and Select buttons, there is a classic digital control pad. But the touch screen allowed for completely different control schemes, making the DS an extremely versatile device.

Miyamoto and Iwata Push the Designers to the Limit

Iwata also made life difficult for the hardware testers. He was particularly concerned about the durability of the console. "If a child puts the console in a bicycle basket and suddenly brakes, the console could fly out—and it won't land on a carpet," Inoue quotes him. At Iwata's request, the DS case and sensitive internal mechanisms had to be so durable that the console would not break even if it fell ten times in a row from a height of one and a half meters onto concrete. These requirements reflected Nintendo's original concept as a toy manufacturer. "The hardware development team howled," Iwata recalls, "but then started thinking about how to solve this problem." In the end, several different prototypes were dropped a hundred times—and the model that lasted the longest was chosen as the most suitable.

Nintendo DS Received Two Processors and Four Megabytes of Memory

The dimensions of the latest version of the Nintendo DS are 14.9 cm × 8.5 cm × 2.9 cm, and the weight is 275 g. The two screens with a diagonal of 7.7 cm have a resolution of 256×192 pixels. This is only slightly larger than the Game Boy Advance, but the DS has two such screens. On the other hand, the console became more powerful: two processors with clock speeds of 67 MHz and 33 MHz respectively and four megabytes of RAM—this is a significant increase compared to the 16.8 MHz processor and 256 kilobytes of RAM in the GBA. This allows the device to play GBA games, however, support for old Game Boy cartridges was discontinued. The battery life is about ten hours, so the DS is roughly on par with its predecessor in this regard. In addition, when the PDA is folded, the screens turn off, so battery consumption in sleep mode is almost negligible.

In summary, it can be said that the Nintendo DS was not the result of a developed plan but rather the consolidation of several independent ideas. The starting point was the concept of two screens, and the touch screen was integrated as a key feature much later. This approach resembles more of a "hacky" development than the work of a research department of a major technology company. But history shows that it all worked out in Nintendo's favor.