The BEST Nintendo Handheld Facts on YouTube! (GB, GBA, DS, 3DS + more)

[Music] did you know at the 2009 game developers conference nintendo hardware designer masato kawahara showed off an unreleased successor to the game boy this device was a precursor to the game boy advance and was codenamed project atlantis the atlantis name was chosen because the system was planned to release during the 1996 olympics which was taking place in atlanta this system had comparable specs to the game boy advance and would have been an incredibly powerful handheld for the time british hardware designers arm holdings were contracted to create a power saving arm 710 cpu for atlantis this ship would have allegedly been so efficient that batteries could power atlantis for up to 30 hours however the armed cpu turned out to be inefficient for the device's needs which caused performance issues the device's internal components and form factor also led to its large size which was ultimately the project's downfall it was so huge that it couldn't fit inside the average pocket while nintendo were developing atlantis they allegedly made a game alongside the system titled mario's castle though nothing on this game exists publicly and it's unknown if the title was transformed into another game nintendo went back to square one on their game boy successor but this left them with a problem it would take several years to develop a replacement for atlantis and the game boy was already nearly a decade old both gamers and developers were expecting nintendo to release new hardware that was closer to the performance of rival handhelds nintendo decided to develop an updated gameboy with a faster processor and colour display that would satisfy these needs until a true gameboy successor came to market in august 1999 word leaked that nintendo was working on a new handheld system known as the advanced game boy and just one month after the rumor's first spread nintendo formally announced the game boy advance after going back to the drawing board development of the game boy advance took about two years it also took nintendo just over a year to decide which cpu the system would use a system's cpu needs to be powerful enough to process the amount of information being displayed on screen because of this nintendo explored several different screen sizes while deciding on the advances cpu according to designer masahiko ota the team even considered making the advances screen vertical instead of horizontal they also looked into making the device itself vertical like previous game boys nintendo wanted the system to be comparable to the super nintendo in terms of power for easy porting of games but with some additions their desire to essentially make a handheld snes can be seen in the advancer's early dev kits which had snes controllers wired onto their circuit boards nintendo also stated that cell phone connectivity would be a major focus for the new system they claimed that by connecting a cell phone to the game boy advance players would be able to download and play multiplayer games enter chat rooms and read email all on the advance itself in august 2000 nintendo released more information about the game boy advance including its design battery life and price nintendo of america board member peter main announced the system would have some kind of modem but no other information was given by that time developers had advanced development kits in their hands and there wasn't a shred of any internet or network support for the system [Music] the final look of the game boy advance was made by french designer gwenel nicholas and his studio curiosity inc this wasn't the only shape nintendo experimented with however even before the original advance was finalized nintendo tested a clam shell design similar to the game boy advance sp the hardware team temporarily abandoned the clamshell believing it to be too thick one thing the team refused to abandon was backwards compatibility nintendo literally checked every single game boy and game boy color game on the advance to make sure it was fully backwards compatible hardware designer ryuji umezu said we're checking all of the previous boy games for compatibility there are a lot of titles so that is pretty difficult we have nintendo employees along with part-time staff checking all of them the game boy advance was programmed to switch over to game boy color mode when it detected the contents of a game boy or color cartridge however nintendo research and engineering general manager satoru okada couldn't get this code to work okada then asked engineers to make a physical switch in the system's cartridge slot to change modes instead the game boy micro lacked this physical switch and therefore lost the ability to play game boy or game boy color games the game boy advance had instant and continued success so much so that nintendo released a redesigned system called the sp which was an abbreviation for special former nintendo president satoru awata wanted to include a sleep mode on the sp but it couldn't be implemented within their time frame having learned from his mistake iwata demanded a sleep mode be included in the nintendo ds from the start nintendo also experimented with a touchscreen panel adapter for the sp which would also be included as standard in the nintendo ds nintendo even tried using 3d lcd tech with the sp but they weren't happy with the results the resolution was too small to produce a pleasing 3d image and the processing power of the advance struggled to render stereoscopic images after the sp nintendo launched the game boy micro but this wasn't the last piece of game boy advanced hardware to be released the vistian dockable entertainment featuring game boy advance was released in 2006 and was a dvd player that could play advanced games the device was portable and meant for travelling in a car or other vehicle because of its specialized nature the vistian system couldn't be purchased at general retailers and was instead sold at car dealerships vistian was apparently interested in creating similar products using hardware from the ds and wii but neither of these projects came to fruition speaking of unusual game boy advanced hardware there's an advanced add-on that was specifically made to help young people with diabetes the gluco boy has two full video games and mini arcade stored on it whenever the user tests their blood levels with the gluco boy they earn points that can be used to unlock games or purchase in-game items and features the add-on was made after its creator paul wessel noticed his son wasn't testing his blood levels as often as he should be wessel decided that since his son loved playing his game boy advance he'd make something that incentivized the boy to check his blood levels more often similar to how the super game boy allowed game boy games to be played on a tv through their snes the wide boy 64 allowed gamers to play advanced games on their tv through a nintendo 64. these adapters were made for private use and allowed developers and publications to view games on a bigger screen the wideboi 64 was developed by intelligent systems who also created the fire emblem and paper mario series however the term wide boy is a generic name for adapters that allow game boy family games to be played through a console and have been made for several nintendo consoles in fact two other white boy adapters were made for the nintendo 64 specifically to play game boy and game boy color games much like the super game boy the white boy 64 has almost all of the components of a game boy advance inside it besides the screen and buttons game boy advanced games also came to other consoles via emulation through the virtual console what's interesting about this is that the game boy advance emulation on the wii u wasn't even programmed by nintendo it was instead developed by the company m2 who are best known for their work on the eshop's 3d classics series as well as the sega ages series this isn't the only advanced related tech that wasn't developed by nintendo the technology in the system's game boy advance video cartridges was actually developed by 4kids technology these video cartridges were manufactured by majesco entertainment with the exception of the pokemon video cartridges which were made by nintendo using its established franchises nintendo made several tech demos to illustrate the game boy advances visuals including a zelda 2 and yoshi's story demo however other companies have used nintendo characters as placeholders in their own tech demos one of these demos is mario kart xxl by daenerys entertainment software the demo has mario driving around a course with some interesting visuals the purpose of the demo was to show how multiple background layers can be used to create the illusion of vertical depth the result is something like having two of the snes's mode 7 layers rendering at the same time [Music] did you know although the ds was very profitable for nintendo the system's games are one of the most pirated products in gaming history in 2010 japan's computer entertainment suppliers association published a list of japan's most pirated ds games cesa's findings showed that the 20 best-selling ds games were downloaded almost 20 million times collectively in japan pokemon platinum was illegally downloaded almost 2.1 million times a figure that nearly matched the game's 2.7 million regional sales most of this piracy can be attributed to flash cartridges such as the r4 which allowed users to play ds rom files using a micro sd card nintendo took measures to combat piracy on their platforms but with limited success in 2008 nintendo teamed up with 54 other video game companies to take legal action to halt sales of r4 units their lawsuit used japan's unfair competition prevention law and asked that all companies involved with the r4s to stop importing selling and advertising the devices unfortunately nintendo's actions had little effect and consumers continued to buy r4 devices online in 2009 nintendo publicly called out the governments of china south korea brazil mexico spain and paraguay a statement was made about each country and how piracy was negatively affecting nintendo in each region in hopes of the government's cracking down on pirates this too seemed to have little effect the system has a fairly interesting history the ds wasn't originally intended to be the success to the game boy line of handheld consoles at the time of its release nintendo was still supporting both the game boy advance and gamecube and the ds was planned to launch as a third pillar alongside these systems most likely this was due to the fact that the ds was a more experimental piece of hardware and nintendo didn't want to risk devaluing the game boy brand should the new system fail the ds also marked a major turning point for nintendo as a company while speaking about the upcoming release of the ds former nintendo president hiroshi yamauchi stated that nintendo's goal at that time was to help lift japan out of economic depression they plan to do this by re-energizing the game market though they were uncertain about the future of their own company yamauchi even went so far as to state that if the ds succeeds we will rise to heaven but if it fails we will sink to hell despite all concerns the nintendo ds proved to be a massive success as of 2018 it is officially the number one best-selling game system in the united states and the second best selling system in the world after sony's playstation 2. the ds went through several different code names while in development its earliest iteration was known as iris a name that predates the system's dual screens the official nintendo ds emulation software was called ensata named after the iris and sata flower commonly known as simply the japanese iris as former nintendo president satoru iwata described iris was just the code name of next generation hardware designed to succeed the game boy advance it's often speculated that the insata emulator was developed by intelligent systems however there is little evidence to prove this the code of insata only has copyrights relating to nintendo which implies it was developed in-house the source of this confusion may have been the fact that intelligent systems developed the hardware tools for the ds before the handheld was officially revealed leaks indicated that its final name kept going back and forth between the nintendo ds and nintendo nitro in an iwata asks interview it were to confirm that nitro was one of the code names used for the device as a holdover from when it was codenamed the nitro the serial numbers printed on ds game cards all begin with the letters ntr the final name for the system the nintendo ds actually has two meanings on the surface it stands for dual screen however according to nintendo it also stands for developer's system as it was meant to give game creators brand new tools which will lead to more innovative games in 2004 nintendo filed a trademark for game hardware under the name city boy suggesting that this might have been another name considered for the ds according to games journalist emily rogers the city boy name was meant to help market nintendo's handheld systems to a younger more modern demographic it was also chosen to compete against the growing mobile phone game industry the nintendo ds also has the unique distinction of being physically carried to the highest point on earth mountain climbers neil mueller and chris grubb brought their ds systems with them during their ascent of mount everest while most of the team's electronics were ruined during the climb their ds systems survived the entire ascent the devices managed to endure the bitter cold fierce winds and having curry spilled directly on them while the team sherpa guides played them in the kitchen [Music] a large part of the ds's international appeal was its lack of region locking as all ds systems can play any game from any region the only exception to this is the chinese version known as the iqds this version of the ds can still play games from any region but games released specifically for the iq ds are region locked and cannot be played on regular ds systems attempting to do so will simply trigger a message that says only for iq ds oddly this region locking only functions on the original ds as all versions of the dsi and 3ds can play iq ds games without issue only six games were released for the iqds super mario 64 ds new super mario bros yoshi touch and go warioware touched polarium and a version of nintendogs that came pre-installed on the upgraded iq dsi another region-specific quirk can be found while setting up the ds's wi-fi connection settings japanese ds systems have an option to connect to the internet using a portable wi-fi router because these routers are used almost exclusively in japan the option to use it was removed internationally however there is a workaround for users to access the option outside of japan in order to do so the user has to specifically calibrate the touch screen incorrectly by touching the bottom right corner of the screen when asked to touch the middle while on the wi-fi setup menu this option can then be accessed by touching the very top left corner of the touchscreen this is still possible to do even in the 3ds's version of the menu the nintendo wi-fi connection instruction booklet included with the ds also contains an interesting secret one page of the booklet explains the steps to input a wep key in order to connect to a wireless router in the example picture the code used for the wep key is 867 5309 this is a reference to the 1981 pop song 867 5309 jenny by tommy two-tone this isn't the only easter egg for the ds system if the player starts up their ds on their birthday the boot up sound will have a slightly higher pitch [Music] and if they continue into the piktochat application and go to a room they will receive a happy birthday message although having multiple brightness levels was an advertised feature of the ds lite latest shipments of the original ds actually had support for multiple brightness levels as well however there was no way to actually take advantage of it outside of homebrew applications the ds and dslight eventually received a significant hardware overhaul in the form of the dsi which included new features such as cameras and sd card support the system's name was inspired by the nintendo wii with the single eye meant to convey individuality and emphasize the idea of players personalizing their own systems the sound editor was included as a last second edition at the insistence of shigeru miyamoto which actually contains an interesting easter egg while on the sound selection menu if the player highlights one of their recorded sounds and waits for about a minute the sound editor will start playing a rendition of the super mario brothers theme composed from the highlighted sound the dsi's cameras were a key component to the system's redesign satoru awata compared the device's microphone and touchscreen as its ears and sense of touch so the cameras were intended to give the system eyes the dsi included two cameras one on the front of the system and one on the back these cameras actually take pictures at a resolution two and a half times greater than the resolution of the dsi screen so the pictures could be zoomed in without losing detail originally the design team only intended to include one camera and make the top screen able to swivel around in order to take pictures both in front and behind the system however the swivel mechanic was deemed too expensive and impractical so the decision was made to include a camera on both sides another feature that had to be cut was a second game slot something that had been heavily requested by both fans and nintendo employees upon the first presentation of the dsi prototype however company executives expressed concern at the system's bulk and the second game slot had to be removed in order to make the dsi smaller did you know the nintendo 3ds wasn't the first system nintendo wanted to make 3d as well as the obvious virtual boy nintendo tried to implement 3d in several other consoles however none of these attempts progressed well enough for them to publicly announce the hardware a 3d screen accessory for the gamecube got very far into development the device even had a 3d version of luigi's mansion running on it but plans to produce the screen were put aside due to high costs nintendo secretly displayed this 3d screen at e3 2002 but left it in 2d mode and neglected to tell anyone that it was actually capable of 3d interestingly it displayed footage of luigi's mansion metroid prime and an early version of fantasy star online episode 3 perhaps suggesting that all three games had 3d iterations nintendo also tried using 3d lcd tech with the game boy advance sp but they weren't happy with the results former nintendo president satoru awana told venturebeat when we saw 3d images on the gameboy advance sp we saw the resolution wasn't good and the parallax barrier display available wasn't functioning well the graphical processing power of the gba also wasn't good enough a parallax barrier is a filter placed in front of a screen to achieve 3d without glasses with this kind of 3d a screen will show two different images from slightly different angles these images are broken up into vertical columns of pixels and then interlaced a parallax barrier blocks one set of columns from being viewed by the left eye and another set of columns from being viewed by the right eye and because of this each eye sees a separate image the brain then processes these two images in the same way it processes depth in the real world creating the illusion of 3d although simple and effective this technique also has its shortcomings all lcd displays have a fixed pixel resolution so when two images are interlaced on screen this way the horizontal resolution is effectively cut in half with 3d the game boy advances resolution of 240 by 160 pixels would have seemed more like 120 by 160 which is fewer pixels than the original gameboy one way around this would have been to double the resolution to 480x160 but this would mean rendering twice as many pixels and putting more strain on the hardware creating 3d images by layering 2d games also sharpens the edges of objects which would have made the game boy advance's low resolution sprites seem even more pixelated despite this owada seemed to be fond of the game boy advance prototype as he kept it in his personal drawer 3d was important to several members of nintendo's management including goon pajakoi shigeru miyamoto and iwata in fact the first project owada and miyamoto worked on together actually featured 3d it was a japan exclusive racing game starring mario and luigi called famicom grand prix 2 3d hot rally co-developed by nintendo and hala but utilized the commercially unsuccessful famicom 3d system in anawada asks interview miyamoto described the 3d feature as having universal appeal and believes this appeal is why nintendo tried so many times to make 3d work nintendo's main concern with 3d was the consumers they might not own a compatible tv or be willing to purchase expensive equipment to play 3d games and if nintendo were unable to bundle the necessary accessories for a 3d console at launch not everyone would buy the required hardware this would negate the point of designing games with 3d in mind and is what ultimately stopped them from producing 3d products miyamoto has stated that nintendo tried to work 3d into all of their hardware after the virtual boy up until the launch of the 3ds but this apparently wasn't the case for the original ds according to awada they never thought of doing 3d with the ds partially due to their previous failed experiments they were also focused on the dual screen and touch screen concepts and couldn't focus on or afford to implement anything else the natural power increase of the 3ds helped nintendo embrace 3d the device was powerful enough that they didn't have to deal with the issues that halted the 3d gameboy advance prototype similar to the unused gba prototype the 3ds uses a parallax barrier to present 3d nintendo tried to implement 3d with both of the 3ds screens but ran into problems with the touchscreen owata explained as we experimented we realized that finger marks and other smudges reduced the 3d's impact and so did the decreased transparency of the touchscreen itself in other words a touch screen and 3d screen do not get along very well screens were originally tested using a 3d render of mario and luigi but were later tested using a special 3d version of mario kart wii nintendo also tried to innovate outside of 3d there was actually a 3ds prototype where the d-pad and circle pad could switch positions for a time nintendo considered putting this functionality into the final product allowing players to physically move the inputs around unlike the ds engineers made the 3ds as small as possible from the outset which is why the system never received a smaller revision such as the ds lite or dsi surprisingly the most difficult part of the 3ds to implement may have been the cameras although they aren't high end the cameras needed to be very precisely aligned if even one of the cameras was slightly off angle taking 3d pictures just wouldn't have worked properly the 3d depth slider on the side of the 3ds was first suggested by a nintendo engineer and then personally requested by miyamoto since people have varying levels of visual impairment and comfort having a fixed amount of 3d could cause eye strain for some players miyamoto also wanted a physical slider on the outside of the device so players could change 3d without opening a system menu he even suggested its importance would be equal to a volume control slider nintendo took every precaution necessary to protect its customers health they warned that children 6 years old and younger shouldn't use the device's 3d mode and even added a parental feature to restrict 3d despite nintendo clearly stating any possible health risks there was still backlash and many parents were concerned several experts weighed in on the issue with karen sparrow of the association of optometrists stating children need a clear sharp image in each eye in order for their vision to develop properly if a child spends excessive time using a device such as the 3ds it could effectively act as a negative exercise causing a lazy eye nintendo eventually created a version of the console without 3d the nintendo 2ds to fully address these concerns however experts from an entirely different organization believe the 3ds may have medical benefits michael dunas of the american optometric association said the 3ds could help identify depth perception issues in young children if a child has trouble perceiving the 3d they may need vision therapy and the issue is much easier to fix if caught at a young age interestingly nintendo didn't announce the 3ds at e3 or a similar press conference instead the company unceremoniously disclosed its existence at an investor meeting the timing of the announcement was curious as it drew attention away from nintendo's recently launched dsi xl several news outlets speculated that nintendo revealed the 3ds early to circumvent impending leaks before e3 however despite nintendo's efforts some features of the 3ds were leaked over a year before it was officially announced in february of 2010 an anonymous third-party developer told cvg that the ds's successor would have motion sensing technology similar to an iphone although new to handhelds this feature was actually considered for the original ds miyamoto told the new york times that he wanted to include some sort of tilt or gyroscopic technology in the ds but left the functionality out to focus on the dual screens the street pass capabilities of the 3ds were inspired by similar features in nintendogs and dragon quest 9 for the ds the 3ds has other more obscure inspirations in 2006 the shiguradin museum was founded by former nintendo president hiroshi yamauchi the museum presents an anthology of 100 classic japanese poems using modern technology and the museum can even be toured using the nintendo ds when shigiridin was being set up yamauchi wished that the exhibits could jump out the visitors and from his desire some experimentation was done using 3d displays yamauchi had a reputation of being somewhat of a visionary and even came up with the original idea of having two screens on the ds yamauji's desire for 3d exhibits would eventually come to fruition only not at chaguriden the nintendo 3ds guide luv is an app designed for visitors of the louvre museum in paris and has been available since april of 2012. it was originally intended only to be installed on rentable 3ds units at the louvre but a home version was also released on the eshop in 2013 and a physical version was made available at the louvre's gift shop interestingly this application is the only software on the nintendo 3ds that is region free with nintendo reasoning that since the arboric at the louvre didn't need an age and content rating it didn't need a region lock either though the 3ds has gone on to be a successful system selling nearly 60 million units worldwide the console initially struggled to sell in an attempt to attract more gamers to the handheld nintendo cut the price of the 3ds from 250 to just 170 in the us only six months after its release its failure hit the company so hard that awana took a 50 pay cut with other key members of staff taking 20 to 30 reductions in pay as well the company also introduced the nintendo 3ds ambassador program to compensate early adopters who bought the console at full price this offered them a set of free nes and game boy advance games from the virtual console the 3ds also has several secrets and easter eggs some of which are rather strange inside the 3ds there's a stereoscopic image of a rhinoceros skull this image was likely used for testing purposes and can be found in the system's debug mpo folder another 3d image can be found in the data for the street pass me plaza again likely used to test the 3d the 3ds eshop also contains the title theme for mario kart double dash the exact purpose of the music is unknown but it has some relation to testing street pass [Music] did you know much like how some game boy games have bonus content when played on a game boy color several color games unlock special features when played on a game boy advance four examples of this are shantae wendy every which way and both the legend of zelda oracle of ages and seasons when played on a gba shantae has new items and abilities wendy every which way has three new levels and the oracle's games unlock a special advance shop where players can buy exclusive items these last two games even comment on the obscurity of the bonus content with the store's owner stockwell telling the player i'm amazed you found us the success of the gameboy line meant it penetrated pop culture and reached new audiences in 1991 the system found its way to nba star lionel simmons who developed tendinitis in his right arm due to excessive amounts of game boy play simmons had to miss two basketball games while he was in recovery from hardcore gaming the game boy was popular with more than just athletes it was also popular with astronauts the game boy was even the first gaming console played in outer space the system loaded with a copy of tetris was played by russian cosmonaut alexander cerebrov he sent the device back to earth with a note saying during flight in rare minutes of leisure i enjoyed playing game boy the console game and note were sold in a charity auction for one thousand two hundred and twenty dollars in may 2011. overall sarah brav's game boy spent 196 days in space orbiting the earth over three thousand times nintendo's game boy released in 1989 and was designed by industry veteran gunpei yokoi yukoi began developing the system in 1986 but the console's origins date all the way back to 1979. that year on a train ride home yokoi saw a businessman playing with a pocket calculator randomly pressing buttons to pass the time it was in that moment yokoi saw the utility of a handheld video game at the time nintendo almost exclusively made toys and had only experimented in the video game market with their color tv game system but yokoya designed several successful toys for nintendo and his ideas held a lot of weight at the company in 1980 nintendo released ball the first title in yokoi's game and watch series and nintendo's very first handheld video game it used a custom printed lcd screen designed to show pre-defined characters and objects pre-defined art circumvented the need for dynamic displays using pixels this saved on the amount of processing power the game needed and allowed for the handheld to be made using inexpensive components other handheld electronic games from that era were mostly card games or sports games so the game watch series was viewed as a creative new approach with broader appeal over the course of 11 years 59 different game and watch titles were produced selling over 43 million units worldwide the multi-screen series of the game and watch games even inspired the creation of the nintendo ds the 1982 port of donkey kong for game watch was the first video game to feature the cross-shaped directional pad or d-pad control scheme the d-pad earned a technology and engineering emmy award and was later patented by nintendo and used in the nes and game boy the game boy was internally called the dmg or dot matrix game even though more advanced technology was available the game boys hardware was chosen to be cost efficient and use as little power as possible just like the game and watch the lcd screen of the game boy was given a blank green background because in testing green contrasted better with the lcd overlay in different levels of light yokoya is called his design philosophy lateral thinking of weathered technology withered technology refers to technology that is older cheaper and well understood and lateral thinking refers to using that old technology in new and innovative ways the price point and battery life of the game boy gave nintendo an edge over more powerful handheld systems like the atari lynx and the sega game gear both of which came out around the same time as the game boy sega in particular seemed to resent the success of the game boy and opened one of their game gear commercials by showing a game boy and stating if you were color blind and had an iq of less than 12 then you wouldn't mind which portable you had during the gulf war one american soldier's game boy withstood an explosion during a bombing raid the system suffered cosmetic damage but was still operational it was even displayed at the nintendo store in new york city for several years the game boy also crossed cultural boundaries despite government bans after world war ii south korea placed an embargo on japanese products so in 1990 instead of nintendo selling the device korean company hyundai did renaming it the mini convoy hyundai sold several japanese consoles under alternative names during this time including the genesis nes master system game gear and super nintendo the first backlit game boy wasn't the game boy advance sp but the game boy light the game boy light was released in japan in 1998 and was never sold in any other region nintendo had been working on a new game boy before the light was even announced as early as 1995 it was code named project atlantis and was based on a 32-bit processor magazines at the time suggested it was capable of running super nintendo standard games and rumored that it'd be released in 1997 by the time 1997 came around though the console was nowhere to be seen instead nintendo released the game boy color in 1998 as a stop gap so developers could spend more time working on project atlantis which became the game boy advance even though the game boy color was only a modest upgrade over the previous game boy it did add more than just color the cpu was twice as fast and it had four times the memory of the game boy another interesting fact is that in the gameboy color logo each letter of the word color represents one of the five colors the system originally launched in throughout the life of the gameboy color nintendo experimented with ideas that would become basic features in later hardware releases the color was the first gaming handheld to offer wireless communication the system had an infrared communications port at the top which used the same technology found in a tv remote though it was more primitive than modern wireless connectivity it was still capable of trading information in games like pokemon and harry potter the game boy color was also the first nintendo handheld to have a motion controlled game kirby's tilt and tumble was controlled almost entirely by a series of accelerometers that were built into the cartridge which was a first for video games the original game boy line including the game boy color sold 118.69 million units worldwide and with this success came many innovative and unique peripherals for the game boy line of handhelds there was also a sewing machine that had compatibility with the game boy the singer isec sewing machine connected to the game via link cable and allowed users to design patterns with a special game cartridge another obscure accessory for the game boy was the icard cartridge it was a radio transmitter that would use the game boy to display real-time information about times scores schedules and results for the american le mans series races in 1998 nintendo released the game boy camera and game boy printer the game boy camera held the world record of being the smallest digital camera of its time singer-songwriter neil young released the album silver and gold in the year 2000 the album's cover photo was taken with a game boy camera the game boy camera also had a few easter eggs if the player presses b during the credit sequence a short video of shigeru miyamoto dancing will play the game boy printer also has an easter egg if the device is turned on while the user holds the feed button an image of mario with the word hello will be printed on the paper nintendo also sold a special zelda edition of the game boy camera through the nintendo power magazine the cartridge was gold rather than black and many of the graphics and clip art from the original were replaced with zelda graphics another special edition of the game boy camera was never released it was based around the characters and images from the japanese magazine korokoro comics even though it was never released much of the unique content from this version still exists in the rom of the original japanese game boy camera also on the japanese version there's a print icon that shows a syringe this is because many older printers use syringes to refill their inkjets however syringes are often associated with drug use in the west so the icon was replaced with a game boy printer icon in the international versions another game boy accessory was the super game boy super game boy was an adapter for the super nintendo to play game boy games on the tv what's interesting about the device is that the super nintendo didn't have the ability to emulate game boy games instead the super game boy itself contained most of the same hardware that was in an actual game boy minus the screen and buttons another game boy peripheral of sorts was the game link cable the link cable impacted the world even beyond video games as it was the basis for apple's firewire connectors two more bizarre game boy peripherals are the pocket sonar and the petty sedate the game boy pocket sonar was made by bandai for the original game boy and used sonar to locate underwater fish it was the first sonar based gaming accessory and retailed in japan for 14 800 yen about 115 us dollars at the time it even had a built-in fishing mini game the petty sedate on the other hand would connect to a game boy device and dole out nitrous oxide to the children playing its general purpose was to reduce stress when children needed to be sedated one unreleased game boy accessory was shown by dsi designer masato kuahara at the 2009 game developers conference it was a touch panel that went over the screen of the game boy color it was abandoned because it apparently didn't work well without a backlight the touch panel was attempted again with the game boy advance sp and operated more favorably because of its backlit screen kuahara stated the touch panel was not well received by nintendo management but that shiguru miyamoto liked the general concept masato kuahara said he likes to think his design helped influence the creation of the nintendo ds did you know before nintendo became the video game powerhouse they are today they produced toys and playing cards even legendary video game designer shigeru miyamoto's first project at the company was making package designs for a disney themed board game but this business model would be drastically altered after the creation of the game and watch series nintendo's first successful entry into the handheld video game market after the 1964 tokyo olympics nintendo's tried and true business model was in dire trouble they struggled to stay afloat with then-president hiroshi yamauchi experimenting with a variety of business ventures such as taxis and love hotels while these ventures weren't successful nintendo saw some potential in the toy market especially since they had some experience in the industry with themed playing cards gunpei yokoi who at the time was an engineer at nintendo brought one of their earliest successes the ultrahand an extendable arm that grabbed things from a distance the ultra hand would go on to sell 1.2 million units and yokoi was eventually promoted within nintendo to lead research and development one group one day while gunpei okoye was traveling on the bullet train from tokyo to kyoto he noticed a passenger near him using a calculator as a toy to pass time that's when yukoi began to wonder if a portable gaming device would have a market his epiphany led to the creation of the game and watch series nintendo's first portable gaming system yokoi's pitch to hiroshi yamauchi for the game and watch was a series of lucky coincidences yamauchi's personal driver was sick one day and yokoi was asked to drive yamauchi's cadillac yokoi loved foreign cars and was one of the few people at the company who could drive it during the drive yokoi pitched his idea for game and watched a yamahuchi who didn't seem particularly enthusiastic days later executives from sharp came to nintendo and yamauchi enthusiastically brought yukoi on to develop the idea nintendo ended up partnering with sharp known at the time for their work on calculators in order to make the game and watch for the series gunpei yokoi wanted to create something that was small and could easily fit in people's hands and pockets discreetly this is because yokoi felt that businessmen would be embarrassed to pull out a big gaming machine in public this led the team to focus on a small rectangular design that could be inconspicuously held in their hands however this origin story might not be entirely accurate and is actually up for debate in an interview with retro gamer satoru okada who worked with gonpeokoi closely stated that the mb microvision directly inspired nintendo's game and watch series okada and yokoi enjoyed playing games on it but they didn't understand why it was so big even with different games on the mb micro vision the graphics and gameplay were basically the same due to its 16 by 16 pixel display the two imagined a smaller device with better graphics and eventually settled on a calculator-like screen for the device since the events surrounding the game and watch's creation occurred over 40 years ago and gunpei okoye is unfortunately no longer with us it's unlikely that we'll ever know the true origins of the series the game ball was the first title in the game and watch series and went on sale on april 28 1980 selling around a quarter of a million units in ball players control a nondescript person who juggles balls ball has been re-released and remixed several times over the years most recently with the game in watch mario one of the more surprising inclusions was with the japanese exclusive ds title called rakubiki jaitan ds which was an electronic dictionary developed by nintendo by typing in ball or game and watch in the dictionary players can access the game ball within the software itself as well as the game manhole while playing the games will even display the current time on your system and nod to the game's original functionality that wasn't present in some of the re-releases on the game boy players can also use the control pad or the touchscreen to control both of these games one of the last official game and watch titles was actually a 1991 game titled mario the juggler it was the only game and watch released in the 1990s and features a vibrant colorful screen lukitu and a hammer bro make an appearance in this version with both helping out mario juggle the balls another interesting call back to ball comes with the game boy camera with the game boy camera players could take a picture of their own face and superimpose it on the character from ball then play the game back when gunpei okoye proposed the idea for the game and watch to hiroshi yamauchi yokoi was told that he needed to come up with multiple titles as nintendo wouldn't do just one ball was the first game gunpei yokoi envisioned but he needed more so he quickly threw together a whack-a-mole style game called vermin despite the rush design vermin became one of the best sellers for the initial batch of titles yokoi looked to anime and japanese folklore for inspiration for the game's designs turtle bridge was partly inspired by the hair of inaba a story about how a rabbit tricked sharks in order to cross a body of water yamauchi would put intense pressure on gunpei yokoi in order to come up with ideas in the gunpeiukoi's game museum book yokoi reflects on this pressure saying creating those new backgrounds was itself very challenging and the president would just casually walk over and say it's that time again yokoi make me another three game and watch games i found the casualness of those requests exasperating and privately i thought come on it's not that easy consider the guy who actually has to think all this up the mario series in particular saw several releases on the game and watch mario brothers was a game watch multi-screen title released in 1983. the multi-screen design would later play a part in inspiring the ds line of handhelds but with the difference being that the game and watch would open horizontally like a book instead of vertically in the game players control mario and luigi as they package cakes if the player loses mario is scolded by his boss mario brothers for the game and watch would be re-released several times in the game and watch gallery titles with bowser and wario even making an appearance while the two brothers do the heavy lifting some of nintendo's most important series also had entries in the game and watch such as donkey kong balloon fight and the legend of zelda in game and watch zelda players control link as he fights eight dragons through eight dungeons he gains pieces of the triforce of wisdom in order to save princess zelda and the world like many zelda titles if link's hearts are full he'll shoot a beam from his sword donkey kong circus was a 1984 title that actually serves as an unofficial prequel to the arcade donkey kong in this title mario forces dk to juggle objects while balancing on a barrel the game has colorful graphics and features mario in a very similar style to the arcade games art the game and watch series re-released and reused a lot of concepts throughout its run donkey kong circus which itself was a remake of ball was also a reskin of an earlier title called mickey mouse mickey mouse and donkey kong circus are so similar that nintendo even swapped the product numbers during production mickey mouse's product number is dc 95 while donkey kong circus is mk96 with the mk possibly referring to mickey both titles are part of the panorama screen sub series for the game and watch but that wasn't the mouse's only appearance on the handheld disney would see two other mickey mouse titles for the game and watch mickey mouse was released within the widescreen sub-series and mickey and donald were different versions of two other game watch games titled egg and fire respectively since the game and watch series ran for quite some time it had a number of interesting sub-series the nintendo vs series which were arcade versions of famicom titles with two player support might have inspired the micro vs line of games for the game and watch three titles were released for this series punch out donkey kong 3 and donkey kong hockey with donkey kong hockey the players control mario and donkey as they square off in hockey this game and watch title would be the first ever mario sports title predating the nes open tournament golf by three years it's also interesting to note that mario wasn't even the main star of the title instead being relegated to the player 2 spot the crystal screen series were later iterations of game watch featuring a transparent screen climber is an interesting title that was never released in japan and would release in the united states one year after ice climber debuted and it's possible the series was meant to be a spiritual sequel to ice climber after the game and watch a success there were a number of knockoffs and imitations while shopping one day gunpei okoye heard the beeps from vermin in a taiwanese knockoff when he purchased the unit and pried it open he discovered that the knockoff soccer design just replaced the vermin screen with the internal system being exactly the same however yokoi wasn't angry just very surprised yokoy said thus when i see a knockoff of something i made it's proof that my work has made a big impact and that makes me very happy yokoi drew the original game and watch characters but eventually entrusted the design process to a staff member who had skill in drawing manga the game and watch character would be immortalized in the super smash brothers series from melee onwards director masahiro sakurai would utilize a number of different game and watch titles within the character's move set when designing the character for melee sakurai initially wanted to make his movements move frame by frame but it was too jarring instead of actually being a 2d sprite with low-fi animation mr game watch is a 3d character that squished down on its z-axis when developing mr game and watch for melee sakurai borrowed the original systems from the asakusabashi branch of nintendo for research for the stage sakurai wanted techno sounding music which hirokazu ondo a musician at hal provided one reference that was added to super smash brothers ultimate ended up getting cut before the game's release this is because the forward smash attack initially included a culturally insensitive reference to a title called fire attack in fire attack players would control a cowboy who must hit native americans with a hammer in order to prevent them from lighting the cowboys fort on fire when the game was included in game and watch gallery 4 the native americans were updated to be less in line with racist stereotypes nintendo changed the move before smash ultimate was released did you know while the virtual boy is often considered the brainchild of legendary japanese designer gunpei yokoi the technology was first created by an american engineer in 1985 alan becker noticed the poor quality of laptop screens and decided to create a small portable high resolution display he decided to try using an array of light emitting diodes or leds the small band of leds would change patterns so quickly that they would be seen as a complete image however instead of moving the leds themselves becker would reflect them off an oscillating mirror becker named this device the scanned linear array which was capable of producing a bright clear image for a low price the virtual boy's signature red color scheme came from the materials becker had access to at the time as he lacked the funds to create his own prototype from scratch he used a cheap red led array meant for displays on large printers becker went on to found reflection technology incorporated in 1986 and developed a miniaturized version of this technology named the private eye when viewed from 18 inches away the privatize one-inch display was capable of simulating a 12-inch display while many companies were interested in the technology none of them managed to find an application useful enough to pass the experimentation phase by the early 90s the tech industry was dominated by the idea of virtual reality even nasa had its own research lab dedicated to it reflection technology corded the game and toy industries attempting to capitalize on the craze they pitched the private eye to hasbro mattel and sega but each company rejected them it wasn't until 1991 that reflection finally found a buyer for that technology nintendo who then dominated the games industry at the time gunpei yokoi felt out of place in gaming as he thought the medium was too focused on flashy graphics and catering to a hardcore audience he intended to retire from nintendo the following year and establish his own company where he had more direct creative control but then the private eye showed up during reflections demonstration of the tech then nintendo president hiroshi yamauchi fell asleep while this seemed dismissive it was actually a green light he was sending the message that his employees could proceed without his supervision and nintendo acquired exclusive worldwide video game licensing rights to the technology in 1992 using the tech the virtual boy was developed by nintendo research and development 1 and went under the working title vr gunpei yokoi was enthusiastic about the head tracking technology which would make the console's graphics move with the user's head movements in fact vr32 was initially meant to be a pair of wearable goggles however nintendo's engineers were concerned about having a chip that produced high frequency radio emissions so close to a user's head as the effects of emf radiation on the human body were not well understood at the time the chip also produced a lot of noise to protect the user from these issues a metal plate was installed around the cpu unfortunately this made the goggles too heavy to move around the team also had concerns about motion sickness and risk of injury and so nintendo scrapped the idea of head tracking but that wasn't the end of the console's potential health risks reflection encouraged nintendo to hire dr ellie pelley of the scapens eye research institute to determine whether the console was harmful to the eyes pelle found that the console was harmless with one exception if a child around the ages of 5 and 7 were to play a system with both displays misaligned they could develop lazy eye nintendo used rigid materials to ensure this wouldn't happen while the problem was solved new product liability laws forced nintendo's hand and they included warnings on the packaging the children under 7 should not play the virtual boy they also installed a software timer reminding users to take a break from the console every 15 minutes while these warnings were precautionary and included for legal reasons they gave the impression the virtual boy was detrimental to people's health sensational headlines swept japan as the console launched further problems came from within nintendo sony's playstation and the sega saturn were due out in 1994 but the nintendo 64 wouldn't be ready for launch until 1996. most of nintendo's money and attention was devoted to the nintendo 64. as such the virtual boy was pressured to release as soon as possible to bridge the gap in income not only that but yamauchi instructed yakoi to de-emphasize mario and the virtual boy so his 3d debut in super mario 64 would be all the more impactful r d1 attempted to make their own games while also relying on their frequent collaborators intelligent systems to create original software for the console but both teams lacked the time and resources to create games that really took advantage of the system's unique hardware ultimately the console only had 22 games over the course of its lifespan faith in the product plummeted and even yokoi expressed doubts about the system nintendo faced stiff competition with sony and sega both launching their 32-bit consoles that year nintendo had spent a considerable amount of time and money on vr 32 even buying a manufacturing plant in china for it along with these large expenses public response to the virtual boy was tepid fans and critics had been expecting a next generation powerhouse and the red and black visuals and toy-like appearance of the console turned many away while the console was more powerful than the super nes and mega drive it was also at an extreme disadvantage as it had to display two screens at once this made it difficult for nintendo to demonstrate its true power the system's 3d capabilities were also less than impressive 3d accelerators were a new technology at the time and couldn't be included in a portable console because they used too much space and power even with this energy conscious design the machine still took 6 double-a batteries to run despite these problems yamauchi remained confident boldly proclaiming they would sell 3 million units in japan alone ultimately the console sold less than 800 000 units worldwide while nintendo boasted of being sold out in america this was only because they shipped an extremely limited number of units some stores received as few as two systems prices dropped rapidly yet low sales persisted preventing the chance of a european release there were a number of contributing factors to the public's disinterest a lack of software a reputation to cause eye strain back strain and headaches a lack of portability and the anti-social nature of the hardware itself the name virtual boy drew unfavorable comparisons with the wildly successful game boy miyamoto would later say that nintendo gave mixed signals to consumers by developing two consoles simultaneously both marketed on their 3d capabilities the nintendo 64 used revolutionary 3d technology whereas the virtual boy was iterative using established technology but with a 3d display some developers did praise the console however steve wota who worked on ocean's water world considered it a great piece of technology and felt it could have reached its full potential given a couple of years miyamoto felt it wasn't that the virtual boy was a failure but that it was marketed in a poor light in an iwata asks interview he said when you think of it as a game console selling 100 000 units is just a start but if you think of it as a fun toy it's a big success if you break just 50 000 viewed like that it was i think quite an appealing toy when you think of it as a gaming platform it becomes a failure rumors suggested yokoi became an outcast within nintendo following the console's launch and that he resigned as a result but he intended to leave the company even before the virtual boy began development yokoi took responsibility for the failure of the console by designing nintendo's next successful portable venture the game boy pocket before leaving in august 1996. his profound impact on the gaming industry was not damaged by the virtual boy and upon his departure nintendo lost shares so rapidly the tokyo stock exchange had to cease operations the late nintendo president satoru iwata said that after the virtual boy's failure it would have been understandable for nintendo to shy away from 3d technology however the company continued to pursue the concept encouraged by yamauchi and miyamoto's enthusiasm for it a working prototype of the 3ds's technology was functioning as early as the game boy advance sp additionally the gamecube had 3d compatibility built into the system but it required an expensive lcd that would far exceed the price of the console itself iwata felt at the time of the 3ds's release that nintendo had achieved the fruition of its many attempts of a 3d capable console the virtual boy has been referenced in a lot of nintendo games following its release the console appears in the background of the trophy room in super smash bros melee if the player sets the language to japanese in the ntse version it can be spotted in the background of francis's room in super paper mario as well as 9 volts stage in warioware inc mega micro games a virtual boy can also be obtained in animal crossing new leaf pokemon gold silver and crystal pokemon stadium 2 and me plaza it can even be found in tamadachi life and was prominently featured in the game's nintendo direct the console is also referenced outside of nintendo games a modified virtual boy is used in the manga ai gatamaranai an ad for the console can be seen in the background of the simpsons game additionally a vb mode can be unlocked in the game boy advance version of mortal kombat deadly alliance activating this mode will turn the whole screen red the virtual boy's failure appears to have influenced nintendo's approach to vr even to this day in an interview with bloomberg in 2016 then president of nintendo america reggie fisamay claimed nintendo wanted to ensure virtual reality represents strong value to the consumer before pursuing it again he said a mainstream mass-market application of vr technology was perhaps further away than some anticipated nintendo was willing to go ahead with vr but only after players could use the technology for hours on end without problems however they appear to still be experimenting a tentative step towards vr came from nintendo labo compatible modes were built into super mario odyssey and the legend of zelda breath of the wild and more recently super smash bros ultimate you

Channel: DYKG Clips

Views: 235,285

Keywords: game boy, game boy advance, gba, nintendo ds, nds, ds, nintendo 3ds, 3ds, virtual boy, game and watch, game & watch, nintendo

Id: 0IacO0eISLI

Length: 57min 41sec (3461 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 13 2020