Part 5 (final part)
The Reproduction of "Ball" for its Thirtieth Anniversary
Iwata: Mr. Izushi, which title do you remember best?
Izushi: For me, it was "Donkey Kong." We had to make the arcade version of "Donkey Kong" playable with the limited number of LCD segments we had to use. Even though I'm a terrible artist, I remember making sketch after sketch of my ideas. When I finally reached the stage where I thought "this could work," I had Mr. Kano make a cleaned-up version for me. "Donkey Kong" was also the first title that used the cross-shaped d-pad.
Iwata: A year before the launch of the NES, it was Donkey Kong that introduced the d-pad. wasn't it?
Izushi: Yes.
Yamamoto: It took a mountain of trial and error to make that d-pad. We'd give a prototype our engineers had done their very best to refine to Mr. Yokoi for his impressions, asking him "so? How is it?" He would just say "it's not ready." That happened over and over.
Izushi: We really did make a mountain of prototypes. Mr. Yokoi was very meticulous. He wanted players to have precise control without looking at their fingers. That was why we put a depression in the middle of the d-pad, among other things.
Iwata: I see. I think it's fair to say that his meticulousness led to the creation of one of the cornerstones of video game culture. Another innovation from "Donkey Kong" was the "multiscreen" system, with two screens.
Izushi: The multiscreen line was started about two years after the launch of "Ball," at a time when we felt we had to try something new. The order came down from above: "Use two screens!"
Iwata: Just the same as for the Nintendo DS. (laughs)
Izushi: At the time, though, we were caught completely by surprise.
Iwata: ... completely the same, then. (laughs) Still, in 1982, there was no such thing as a notebook computer, or any electronic device that folded up, was there?
Izushi: The folding idea was a natural one, though, since it was important to make something that could be played anywhere.
Kano: I wanted to do research on things that folded up, so I went shopping for compacts.
Iwata: Compacts? You mean the kind used to hold make-up?
Kano: Yes. I was doing research on the hinge that held the top and bottom screens together. Those compacts are still lying in a drawer somewhere at the office! (laughs)
Izushi: You mean you still have all that stuff? You really do have a lot of treasures, Mr. Kano. (laughs)
Kano: Well, the container sections on the bottom have all disappeared, but the mirror sections on the top are still there. Those were what I used as a reference for the multiscreen systems.
Iwata: So did the inspiration for the folding design come from those women's compacts?
Kano. That's right. Earlier, you asked me which title gave me the feeling that the winds were turning our way. I could just as well have said "Donkey Kong." Launching the multiscreen series with that title, only a year after Mr. Miyamoto had launched the arcade version of the game, really made everything feel like it was coming together.
Izushi: "Donkey Kong," which up to then could only be played in the arcade, could be played anytime and anywhere. We really felt that the customers would be happy about that.
Iwata: I see. I'll go even further and say that without the Game & Watch, portable game systems today would be very different, and the Game Boy and Nintendo DS never would have existed.
Yamamoto: I think so, too.
Iwata: And now, the title that started it all thirty years ago, "Ball," has been reproduced and reissued, and will be given as a gift to the 2009 platinum members of Club Nintendo. Mr. Kano, you accepted the task of developing the reproduction. You were at the heart of making and carrying out the plan.
Kano: Yes. I thought that "Ball" was the best choice, as it was the first title in the Game & Watch series, and thus the foundation for all the others. I also thought it was the best memorial to Mr. Yokoi.
Iwata: What was the most difficult thing about reviving a product from thirty years ago in the twenty-first century?
Kano: After all that time, the original design documents had disappeared. I had to track down the old staff for their copies. It was very difficult.
Iwata: What about the "Game Boy Gallery" edition from a while ago, which contained playable versions of the game? Wasn't it enough to have that software, combined with your know-how?
Kano: That software was useful as far as gameplay went, but the Game Boy version just wasn't the same as the real thing. The way the Game & Watch fit in your hand, the look of the screen, the feel of the buttons, and every other little detail were things I had to get right, if I wanted to take people back thirty years.
Yamamoto: Right down to the black pillars on both sides of the LCD screen.
Iwata: Ah, a unique aspect of the original design.
Yamamoto: There's actually a secret behind these.
Iwata: A secret?
Kano: Both sides of the screen used in the original "Ball" contained some extra wiring. It was necessary to hide it. We decided to add a printed filter over top to do that. On current LCD screens, that wiring is invisible, so there's no nothing to hide. But to make the reissue as faithful as possible, we included the printed filter. There's only one difference between the original version and the re-issue, and that's the mute function. The original had no way to mute the audio.
Iwata: So you did bring it a little up-to-date.
Kano: Yes, with a mute function you can even play on the train.
Iwata: And this reissue that you laboured over will soon be on its way to our platinum members.
Kano: Yes. These are the roots of portable Nintendo gaming, and I hope everyone gets a chance to try it out. Moreover, we put a lot of care into it, and it should last a long time. It wasn't easy making a faithful reproduction of something from thirty years ago, with no access to that era's documentation or materials.
Iwata: The materials are long-gone, too, aren't they?
Kano: Right. Along with my memory.
All: (laugh)
Kano: Sometimes the staff that were helping make the reissue would ask me "Why was this made this way?" and I would have to answer "Good question..."
Iwata: You couldn't answer because you couldn't remember! (laughs)
Kano: It's true. I designed it myself, but I often had to wonder "what is this and what is for?" It was quite a problem.
Yamamoto: We obviously finished just in time, if you'd already started to say to yourself "What is this? I don't remember this part." (laughs)
Kano: I suppose so...
All (laugh)