Early Days of Nintendo Switch Development Unveiled

The Nintendo Switch launched just last month and it quickly became a hot ticket item. Nearly all retailers around the world are suffering from the ability to keep Nintendo’s latest console hybrid release on store shelves.

Thanks to a report made by the Nintendo Everything publication, we learned that two developers, Shinya Takahashi and Yoshiaki Koizumi, that were in the know during the consoles early creation process were interviewed by Famitsu.

Early on within the interview, the question was asked on how the development started in which we found out that Nintendo is constantly coming up with new ideas. During discussion meetings, key members of Nintendo would speak on the various concepts and technology they already drafted up in the past.

Really, it was just three years ago that the ball really started to roll with the Switch development. Takahashi recalled a point in time when he met with the late Nintendo president, Satoru Iwata, along with other key members and came upon the decision to have Yoshiaki Koizumi lead the development process.

“When development for the Switch began, it didn’t even have the codename “NX.” But at that time, there were discussions taking place between the late president Iwata, Takeda, Miyamoto, and myself. The four of us began by looking at the entirety of our new hardware plans. When the discussion turned towards who should be at the center of the project, we decided to call in Koizumi.”

All-in-all, the early days of development revolved around on key aspect and that was the ability to bring everyone together in order to play according to Koizumi. That was easier said than done as the developers attempted to discover a way to keep a console portable, but also sociable.

 “Our goal from the beginning was to “bring everyone together and play”, and it never changed. After all, that is the core essence of Nintendo. And, while discussing the kind of hardware it would be, we made it another of our goals to make it possible for complete strangers to get sucked into the experience. We spoke about how the Nintendo Switch allowed people to “share the fun” at the presentation, and this key concept was something we came up with at a very early stage.

But we were always concerned with how we would actually go about making that possible. It had to be capable of being played anywhere, and be able to be shared with strangers. We spent an incredible amount of time trying to figure out exactly how we would accomplish those two goals.”

Likewise, while the late Nintendo president Iwata had overseen several projects for the company, the designers really was able to craft the system as they saw fit. Takahashi and Koizumi spoke of the fact that Iwata was an engineer and as such he didn’t give any firm directions to craft the console in a certain way.