The birth of Nintendo Labo: Nintendo, this paper toy is really not a slap

Prior to the release of Nintendo Labo, Nintendo also released two developer interview articles on Labo's official website, for Kawamoto Koichi (Nintendo Labo producer), Sakaguchi (Nintendo Labo software manager), Ogatahara Kato (Nintendo Labo hardware leader) The three men conducted an in-depth interview.

In the latest interview, “Production and Development”, several responsible persons spoke freely about software and hardware, raw materials, and team composition. Let us finally know how Nintendo Labo is a carton toy from scratch. Created.

Inspiration: The first trial, it turned out to be "noose"

In fact, the three core members of Nintendo Labo did not come together directly from the beginning, and did not even have a precedent for cooperation. At the beginning of the team's establishment, only one person of Sakaguchi was conceived in prototype design, and then four talents were expanded and decided to try to do something.

Sakaguchi said that the team had already decided to make a Switch-related product, and initially came up with a lot of "pinch him" concept. For example, "Do two scissors with Switch's Joy-Con handle, just want Joy-Con. Move like a scissors."

In fact, these ideas and ideas are valuable in the early days, and some designs have indeed applied to the current products. For example, the Labo team tried to make Joy-Con move by its own vibration mechanism, which is actually the gameplay of the remote control car.

The hardware structure of the Nintendo Switch is very special. The "special" here is not the configuration, but the two detachable handles. Specifically, both Joy-Con handles not only support gyroscope detection, but also have dedicated vibration motors inside.

It is also clear from Nintendo's introductory video that the right handle is equipped with an IR infrared camera that captures and tracks object motion trajectories or thermal signals, such as real human hands.

Although these functions are also common in various smart phone products, how to combine them perfectly together, the team did not find a good breakthrough at the beginning, according to Sakaguchi’s statement, “Although these ideas are unique, they can’t be found. Go to the exit."

On the one hand, the initial product accessories of the team are made by 3D printers. If the plastic material is finally chosen, the cost of the product will become very high. On the other hand, the judgment of the IR camera has certain requirements for the scene. Miscellaneous or too far away will result in unstable identification. If you just use a gyroscope instead of an IR camera, you don't feel like a "good thing to understand except Nintendo Switch."

This is unacceptable for Nintendo who wants to be the ultimate.

To this end, after Hebenhao joined the Labo team, he proposed the idea of ​​“supporting some easy-to-use game models” and launched an internal brainstorm activity called “trial sacrifice” in the team. Under the premise of cost consideration, diversify thinking as much as possible to collect ideas.

In addition, in order to make full use of the IR camera, the team decided to take a different approach and put it in a sealed environment - such as stuffed into a box. In this case, the position determination is relatively fixed and is not disturbed by external light.

In the end, the first prototype came out.

This design resembles the design of the "nostrils" game in "Walio Manufacturing" and became the first concept product of Nintendo Labo. If you insert the “finger” into the “nostrils,” the IR camera of the internal Joy-Con handle will detect it. A team member accidentally stuffed his real hand into his nostrils and was clearly legible on the internal demo screen.

Another prototype is a "tank car" made of cardboard. The Labo team took the material locally, using the sweep handle as a controller, and the puncher as a foot pedal. Each pedal also has a small ball hanging inside, so when the pedal is stepped, the ball will move up and down, the internal IR The camera will naturally detect it as well.

These have further convinced the Labo team that "black box operation" is feasible.