Details from Iwata Asks: Swapnote – started out on DSi, Nikki origins, more

Nintendo has published an incredibly intriguing Iwata Asks interview regarding Swapnote. We learn that the project started out for the DSi and hear about Nikki’s origins – including her name. Yu Kitai, Daji Imai, Motomasa Kondo, Satoshi Takenouchi, and Satoru Iwata participated in the discussion.

Head past the break for details from the latest Iwata Asks.

“Is This Project All Right?”

– Soon after the DSi launched in Japan, there was talk about how the system didn’t have much downloadable software
– Idea for a picture diary came up as the team talked about whether there was anything they could do within the department
– Imai volunteered for the project since he thought a picture diary would be perfect for downloadable software
– Before the picture diary idea, Imai thought it’d be neat to record a child’s development, like in a maternity health record book and give it to the child when he/she grew up
– When the team settled on the picture diary, Imai remembered that his sister had kept a diary for ten years (since the birth of her baby)
– She was doing what Imai wanted to do with the maternity health record book
– When asked about why he decided on a handwritten picture diary, Imai said that you can’t fully get your feelings across with a typewritten email
– It’s difficult to convey your feelings through text alone
– With handwriting, the writer’s personality comes out and there’s warmth to it
– The staff intended to finish this project in three months
– Three months became three years
– At the beginning of development, the team discussed doing a picture diary themselves to find out what one is like (on paper)
– Only Kondo kept a diary every day
– Started keeping diaries, and after a month or so, the only ones continuing were Imai and Takenouchi
– They were wondering if the project was alright and why people quit was a big theme
– Takenouchi initially wondered why they were making it handwritten as he thought typing would be normal in this digital age
– He was surprised to find he could keep going when he started keeping a diary, thought it was fun and made discoveries
– Kondo had been keeping a diary for about six years, so he thought the project was perfect for him

“I Want That!”

– Big theme early in development was how something was needed to make sure people wouldn’t quit their picture diary in three days
– Masaru Shimomura felt that it wasn’t right for a department with the word “network” in its name to release software without a network function
– Adding in network aspect would extend the project past three months, but Shimomura said that would be fine
– Imai was also okay with this since he wanted people to be able to share their content with family and friends
– It took the staff a little while before they showed Iwata a sample
– Imai: “Yes. I thought we could find something for a diary on Nintendo DSi which would be difficult for a normal diary, and we tried a number of things, like including a daily log or displaying a graph. At the same time, we were making Nintendo Zone Viewer for accessing Nintendo Zone.”
– Imai: “Yes. That time as well, we developed together with Denyu-sha, and there was a demand even then to watch videos with Nintendo Zone Viewer. But we thought it would be neat not to just put up videos, but to make it so you could do things like draw graffiti on them. After inquiries within the department about technology we could use, several engineers made suggestions. One involved the letters you had written wriggling around.”
– Imai ended up wanting this technology for the diary rather than Nintendo Zone
– This was a big turning point
– All of the staff members liked the idea of being able to see the diary as people wrote it (the “playback” feature in Swapnote)
– The project was being made for the DSi until the end of 2009
– It was almost done
– The staff needed to debut it, and then they could release the software
– Ten people had begun testing it
– Females were exchanging a lot of messages among themselves
– Could have been released for the DSi at the end of 2009, but it had some weaknesses
– The DSi itself didn’t have the Friend List, so that function was built into the software
– Could only register 18 friends (Maximum is 100 on 3DS)
– Because of this, you would only be able to exchange with a limited number of people with whom you were close
– Another weakness was how you had to manually access the server all the time to check whether you received a diary from others
– Testers had negative things to say about that
– Development of the 3DS began at Nintendo, and the team heard it would have something called SpotPass

Trial-and-Error in Design

– With SpotPass, they thought they might be able to remove the disappointment of accessing the server only to find out that no new messages had come through
– What family/friends sent would be automatically delivered
– Imai made presentation materials outlining the merits to remaking the software for the 3DS and excitedly took it to Iwata
– Iwata’s opening words were, “Why don’t you remake it for the Nintendo 3DS system?”
– It was hard for Denyu-sha to take what they had spent so long making for the DSi and start all over again
– The DSi version was almost done and they only had to debut it; end of 2009 was fast approaching, but then Imai said, “Why don’t we take it slow at the end of the year?”
– Usually you needed to be debugging, but Imai wanted everyone to take it easy
– As 2010 approached, Takenouchi wondered what was going on
– Talk of making the software for a new platform spread toward the end of January
– The name Nintendo 3DS was still secret at that time
– Takenouchi heard about SpotPass, and knew it was more powerful in a lot of ways
– Takenouchi realized they could do the things they hadn’t been able to on the DSi
– They started remaking it, and around April 2010, Takenouchi was shown the 3DS for the first time and saw the 3D effect
– He was stunned because no one had said anything to him about 3D
– He felt that they were making software for one seriously stellar machine
– New ideas came about as to how they could make the software more fun
– The graphics that pop out was the biggest change from the DSi to the 3DS version
– There was a trial and error process for writing in 3D
– They tested a pen that would cause it to gradually stand out as you wrote, but controlling it got too complicated
– Two options in the end: writing normally and writing with the pop-out pen
– Decided to keep it simple because they wanted to make something that anyone could enjoy
– Not knowing what they should write might be one reason why people stopped keeping diaries, so they prepared stationary that would stimulate their desire to write something
– A lot of trial-and-error in design for the stationary
– The team thought of seasonal themes, things for generating topics, and things that moved and would compliment the writing
– The staff knew stationeries are more popular with women, so they bought a bunch of comic books/magazines that young women would read and studied up
– Stationeries were almost done around summer/fall
– There were about 50 types
– They were all pleased with the results of the stationary except for Kitai
– Some other women designers and Kitai looked at the stationary designs
– Although they were interesting/pleasant, they didn’t think they were cute
– They agreed on that and decided to write down some pretty harsh criticism
– Kitai was the only one who wrote down what she truly felt

Nikki

– Kitai said the stationary was sort of middle-aged
– The team was like, “If you’re such an expert, why don’t you make some!!”
– Kitai got dragged into the project
– Kitai made a few, and they were totally different
– They made a ton of stationary, but chose the best and settled on 42
– They remade almost all of the stationary
– Kitai made some samples of what kinds of cards are popular now or are popular overseas and expatiated on them to Denyu-sha
– Some “absolutely adorable” ones started coming in after that
– Nikki came about for the same reasons they made the stationary
– Also thought about having a character appear to help users figure out how they should write or to inspire them to write and draw
– Even the people at Nintendo didn’t have a clear idea of what SpotPass was when remaking the software for the 3DS
– Imai thought they needed to have the users understand better what they still couldn’t quite imagine themselves, so the launch point was a need for a character to explain things like that in an easy-to-understand way
– First thought of a character who would drift in all of a sudden like a balloon
– They later made something like a combination of a bird and a ghost, which was a final candidate
– It was cute, but it looked pretty freaky
– It could write a note for you, so it had something like hands as well
– It was a distinctive character, so the design of the whole thing was warping around it, and they decided to take it out in the interim
– They continued for a while without a character
– Since a character was needed to explain how to write notes and how to use the software, they held auditions
– Because it was software for the 3DS, they thought Mii characters would be good and had Denyu-sha introduce a batch
– They decided to choose the Mii character that was perfect for the software, which was Nikki
– They came up with the name Nikki because you can write a diary (nikki in Japanese)
– Another candidate was Fumi Kakuyo (“I’m gonna write a latter” in Japanese)
– Nikki’s spelling is a little different overseas depending on the language, but they all sound like Nikki when pronounced
– Kitai: “We want her to write things that will be useful to people who aren’t sure how they should write, so she drew cats and stars and footprints—the kinds of things that anyone can easily copy. Come to think of it, Imai-san and Denyu-sha did create some example sentences for what she should say, but they were like a parade of phrases today’s girls would never use! (laughs)”

Unimagined Uses

– Takenouchi carefully selected what functions to include and placed emphasis on something that anyone could write easily, send right away, and use comfortably
– He feels that Swapnote is something that many people can use
– Kondo felt something distinctive about Swapnote while debugging
– The response to Swapnote was much greater than they imagined
– Imai checked the burden on the server, and in the four weeks since release, over ten million notes/comments were sent around the world
– They expected Swapnote to spread slowly so people can have fun with it over a long period of time
– Imai heard that an amazing amount of people are exchanging Friend Codes
– It became a tool for increasing your number of friends
– Takenouchi hopes users will put it to unimagined uses; this was a goal from the start
– People are using Swapnote to play tabletop RPGs overseas
– Kondo hopes that, eventually, one hundred million people around the world use Swapnote

You can read the full Iwata Asks discussion here.