Nintendo Zерттеу және Әзірлеме 1-бөлімі: Тарихы мен жетістіктері

Japanese video game developer

Nintendo Research & Development No. 1 Department (任天堂開発第一部, Nintendō Kaihatsu Daiichi Bu) (commonly abbreviated as Nintendo R&D1 and formerly known as Nintendo Research & Development Department (任天堂開発部, Nintendō Kaihatsu Bu) before splitting in 1978) was a division of Nintendo, and is its oldest development team. Its creation coincided with Nintendo's entry into the video game industry, and the original R&D1 was headed by Gunpei Yokoi. The developer has created several notable Nintendo series such as Metroid, Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong. R&D1 developed the hugely successful Game Boy line, which was released in 1989. They developed some of the line's most popular games, such as Super Mario Land, and created the character of Wario. Team Shikamaru was a small club within Nintendo R&D1 that was composed of Makoto Kano, Yoshio Sakamoto, and Toru Osawa. The group was responsible for designing characters and coming up with scripts for several games including Metroid, Kid Icarus, Famicom Detective Club, Trade & Battle: Card Hero, and several others. After Yokoi's resignation in 1997, this group was led by Takehiro Izushi. In 2004, Satoru Iwata restructured the Nintendo R&D1 team. Many of the staff members were later reassigned to the Nintendo SPD team, which in turn merged with Nintendo EAD in 2015 to form Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development.

In 1965, Nintendo, still primarily a hanafuda card manufacturer, hired Gunpei Yokoi, a newly graduated electronics engineer. Yokoi was assigned to the manufacturing division to work on the assembly line machines used to manufacture its cards. In the following year, Hiroshi Yamauchi, president of Nintendo at the time, during a visit to the factory Yokoi was working at, took notice of a toy, an extending arm, that Yokoi had made for his own amusement during his spare time. As Yamauchi was looking to diversify the company's business far beyond its primary card business, Yokoi was ordered to develop the toy into a proper mass market product for the 1966 holiday rush. The toy was launched as Ultra Hand and it was a huge success selling over 1.2 million units during its lifetime. Following that, Yokoi was assigned to work on other toys including the Ten Billion Barrel puzzle, a miniature remote controlled vacuum cleaner called the Chiritori, a baseball throwing machine called the Ultra Machine, and a "Love Tester."

Sometime before 1972, Nintendo created its first electronics development team, the Research & Development department from Nintendo's manufacturing division, assigning Gunpei Yokoi as its general manager. By 1972 the department had approximately 20 developers. In 1978, the manufacturing division split its single research & development department into two, renaming it to Research & Development No. 1 (R&D1) and creating the Nintendo Research & Development No. 2 (R&D2) department. After the split, Yokoi remained general manager of R&D1.

In the late 1970s, Yokoi saw a bored Japanese salaryman playing with a calculator on the Shinkansen high speed train. This was the inspiration for the creation of the Game & Watch series, a line of handheld electronic games, with each system featuring a single game to be played on an LCD screen in addition to a clock, an alarm, or both. Regardless, it was confirmed that Yokoi was inspired by calculators to develop the line, even using calculator integrated circuits in the systems and button cells to power them. From then on, all major video game consoles since have had a D pad of some shape on their controllers, until the Nintendo Switch in 2017.

When the department started working on a successor to the Game & Watch series, Yokoi envisioned a simple and cheap system with interchangeable game cartridges. Development of the system, however, suffered from disagreements in direction, with assistant director Satoru Okada arguing for a more powerful system with third party development and long term support from Nintendo, emulating the successful business model that Nintendo R&D2 had achieved with the Nintendo Entertainment System, while Yokoi planned for a much cheaper, less powerful device with a shorter life span, similar to its predecessor. During an interview, Okada compared the initial project to the Microvision. Eventually, Yokoi agreed to Okada's plan and the project would be known as the Game Boy.

In 1991, Nintendo partnered with Massachusetts based Reflection Technology, Inc. who had developed a 3D stereoscopic head tracking prototype called the Private Eye. Gunpei Yokoi saw this as a unique technology that competitors would find difficult to emulate. Additionally, the resulting game console was intended to enhance Nintendo's reputation as an innovator and to "encourage more creativity" in games. Code naming the project "VR32",

Spending four years in development and eventually building a dedicated manufacturing plant in China, retailing for more than $500.

In 1995, the department started developing a successor to the Game Boy, under the code name Atlantis. Despite its predecessors having a monochrome display, the R&D1 team had already experimented with color displays from as early as 1992. The Atlantis prototype consisted of an handheld with a 32 bit ARM7 CPU, a larger color display, and four face buttons. It was reported that the system was supposed to release in late 1996. Meanwhile, the department was also working on a revision of the Game Boy. The system would require fewer batteries, providing approximately 10 hours of gameplay, and was also equipped with a DC connector which could be used to power the system. The screen was also changed to a true black and white display, rather than the green tinted monochrome display of the original Game Boy, and had an improved pixel response time, mostly eliminating the ghosting effect. It finally released as the Game Boy Pocket on July 21, 1996, in Japan, on September 3 in North America, and in Europe during the following year. Although it had no power LED initially, it was soon added to later editions due public demand. Following the commercial success of the Game Boy Pocket, the Atlantis system was delayed by a year to late 1997. Nonetheless, the system was eventually cancelled due to concerns of it being too big, having a drastically decreased battery life (to approximately 1 hour, as LCD color displays required a back light at the time), and being too expensive to manufacture.

On August 15, 1996, long time department general manager, Gunpei Yokoi, left Nintendo to form his own company, Koto Laboratory. Despite speculation that he had left Nintendo due to the commercial failure of the Virtual Boy a year prior, Yokoi clarified that he'd long wished to become independent. Yokoi and his new company eventually worked on the WonderSwan handheld for Bandai before his tragic death in 1997 in a traffic accident. In order to fill Yokoi's vacancy, long time Nintendo engineer Takehiro Izushi was appointed as the new general manager of the department. Additionally, the department's hardware team was spun off into a new development department, called Nintendo Research & Engineering and led by Satoru Okada. The software development team, however, remained at R&D1. This new department would be responsible for continuing the Game Boy's legacy becoming the source of every major Nintendo handheld game console until its closure in 2012. Following Yokoi's departure, and no longer having a dedicated hardware development team, the department focused instead on developing games for other Nintendo developed consoles. It was responsible for the re releases of its Game & Watch classics in the Game & Watch Gallery series for both the Game Boy and Game Boy Color, starting in 1997. It also developed sequels to its Wario Land classic in the form of Wario Land II, released in 1998, and Wario Land 3, in 2000, both for the Game Boy Color, and Wario Land 4 for the Game Boy Advance, released a year later. The department was also responsible for creating the Wario spin off series with WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames!, released in 2003 for the Game Boy Advance. After an 8 year hiatus, R&D1 introduced a new installment in its Metroid series, Metroid Fusion, released in 2002. In 2004, R&D1's last project was launched, Metroid: Zero Mission a remake of the original game.

In 2004, the department, along with Nintendo Research & Development 2, was absorbed into the newly created Nintendo Software Planning & Development division. Then Nintendo president Satoru Iwata created and appointed himself as general manager of the new division to focus on co producing and supervising second party development, thus relieving the Entertainment Analysis & Development division (EAD) and its general manager Shigeru Miyamoto to focus on first party projects. Although that was the division's primary focus, it went on to develop some video games titles internally. In 2018, former general manager of the R&D1 department Takehiro Izushi retired from Nintendo after 43 years in the company.

+ List of electronic games developed by the Nintendo Research & Development No. 1 department Year (Year of first release) Title Genre(s) Platform(s) Series Ref. (Reference(s)) 1978 Computer Othello Arcade 1979 Head On N Arcade 1979 Sheriff Arcade1980 Radar Scope Arcade 1980 Heli Fire Fixed shooter Arcade Game & Watch: Flagman Game & Watch Silver Game & Watch: Popeye Game & Watch Wide Screen Game & Watch: Chef Game & Watch Wide Screen Game & Watch: Mickey Mouse Game & Watch Wide Screen Game & Watch: Egg Game & Watch Wide Screen Game & Watch: Fire Game & Watch Wide Screen 1982 Game & Watch: Turtle Bridge Game & Watch Wide Screen Game & Watch: Fire Attack Game & Watch Wide Screen Game & Watch: Snoopy Tennis Game & Watch Wide Screen Game & Watch: Oil Panic Game & Watch Multi Screen Game & Watch: Donkey Kong Game & Watch Multi Screen Game & Watch: Donkey Kong Jr. Game & Watch New Wide Screen Game & Watch: Mickey & Donald Game & Watch Multi Screen Game & Watch: Green House Game & Watch Multi Screen 1983 Game & Watch: Donkey Kong II Game & Watch Multi Screen Game & Watch: Mario Bros. Game & Watch Multi Screen Game & Watch: Donkey Kong Jr. Game & Watch Table Top Game & Watch: Mario's Cement Factory Game & Watch Table Top Game & Watch: Mario's Cement Factory Game & Watch New Wide Screen Game & Watch: Snoopy Game & Watch Table Top Game & Watch: Rain Shower Game & Watch Multi Screen Game & Watch: Popeye Game & Watch Table Top Game & Watch: Manhole Game & Watch New Wide Screen Game & Watch: Snoopy Game & Watch Panorama Game & Watch: Popeye Game & Watch Panorama Game & Watch: Donkey Kong Jr. Game & Watch Panorama Game & Watch: Lifeboat Game & Watch Multi Screen Game & Watch: Mario's Bombs Away Game & Watch Panorama Game & Watch: Pinball Game & Watch Multi Screen 1984 Game & Watch: Spitball Sparky Game & Watch Super Color Game & Watch: Crab Grab Game & Watch Super Color Game & Watch: Mickey Mouse Game & Watch Panorama Game & Watch: Boxing Game & Watch Micro Vs. System Game & Watch: Donkey Kong 3 Game & Watch Micro Vs. System Game & Watch: Donkey Kong Circus Game & Watch Panorama Game & Watch: Donkey Kong Hockey Game & Watch Micro Vs. System 1985 Game & Watch: Black Jack Game & Watch Multi Screen Game & Watch: Tropical Fish Game & Watch New Wide Screen

+ List of video game consoles developed by the Nintendo Research & Development No. 1 department Year (Year of first release) Name Ref. (Reference(s)) 1989 Game Boy 1995 Game Boy Play It Loud! Virtual Boy 1996 Game Boy Pocket

+ List of video games developed by the Nintendo Research & Development No. 1 department Year (Year of first release) Title Genre(s) Platform(s) Ref. (Reference(s))1983Mario Bros. PlatformNintendo Entertainment SystemBaseball SportsNintendo Entertainment System1984PinballPinballNintendo Entertainment SystemDuck HuntShooterNintendo Entertainment SystemHogan's AlleyShooterNintendo Entertainment SystemDonkey Kong 3ShooterNintendo Entertainment SystemDevil WorldMazeNintendo Entertainment SystemUrban ChampionFightingNintendo Entertainment SystemClu Clu LandPuzzleNintendo Entertainment SystemExcitebikeRacingNintendo Entertainment System1985Balloon FightActionNintendo Entertainment SystemIce ClimberPlatformNintendo Entertainment System Wrecking CrewAction, puzzleNintendo Entertainment System1986 Baseball SportsFamily Computer Disk SystemGumshoeShooterNintendo Entertainment SystemMetroidAction AdventureFamily Computer Disk System Kid IcarusAction, platformFamily Computer Disk System1987Kid IcarusAction, platformNintendo Entertainment SystemMetroidAction AdventureNintendo Entertainment System Nakayama Miho no Tokimeki High SchoolDating simFamily Computer Disk System1988 Famicom Detective Club: The Missing HeirAdventureFamily Computer Disk System1989 Baseball SportsGame Boy Alleyway PuzzleGame Boy Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands BehindAdventureFamily Computer Disk System Tetris PuzzleGame Boy Tetris PuzzleNintendo Entertainment System Super Mario LandPlatformGame Boy1990 Dr. Mario PuzzleNintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy Solar Striker ShooterGame Boy Barker Bill's Trick Shooting ShooterNintendo Entertainment System1991 Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters Action, platformGame Boy Metroid II: Return of Samus Action AdventureGame Boy 1992Clu Clu Land: Welcome to New Clu Clu LandPuzzleFamily Computer Disk System Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden CoinsPlatformGame Boy1993 Joy Mech FightFightingFamily Computer 1994 Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3PlatformGame Boy Super MetroidAction AdventureSuper Nintendo Entertainment System1995 Mario's Tennis SportsVirtual Boy Teleroboxer FightingVirtual Boy Mario Clash ActionVirtual Boy Virtual Boy Wario Land PlatformVirtual Boy Kirby's Block Ball ActionGame Boy1997 Game & Watch Gallery Minigame compilationGame Boy BS Tantei Club: Yuki ni Kieta Kako AdventureSatellaview1998Wario Land IIPlatformGame Boy Wario Land II PlatformGame Boy Color2000 Trade & Battle: Card Hero RPGGame Boy Color Wario Land 3 PlatformGame Boy Color Sin and Punishment ShooterNintendo 642001 Wario Land 4 PlatformGame Boy Advance2002 Metroid Fusion Action AdventureGame Boy Advance2003WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames!Minigame compilationGame Boy Advance WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Party Games! Minigame compilationGameCube2004 Metroid: Zero Mission Action AdventureGame Boy Advance