Nintendo Cafe

Nintendo Talks About Wii U GamePad

Nintendo engineers used 3D printing technology to create the many different designs for the Wii U GamePad. The quick molds that were generated then went through some old-school manufacturing techniques as the engineers hand-carved and molded changes on the fly.

Ibuki: I made such a huge amount that I don’t even remember how many! (laughs) This time, instead of using the designs as it had come out of the 3D printer, we actually received approval for design with something that all the team members including myself whittled by hand to make fine adjustments to the 3D printed objects in the company workshop.

Iwata: Huh? You guys carved those models by hand?!

Ibuki: We did! (laughs) We carved what came out of the 3D printer by hand and then sanded it. Most of the controller designs approved in the past were fine-tuned by hand. By doing things by hand, each trial and error processes can be done much, much faster, so when the design is in the fine-tuning stage you absolutely need to make modifications by hand.

Iwata: Wow!

Ibuki: Besides using a 3D printer, design considerations are done using various techniques. You’ll need to not only be able to carve but add and mold, and depending on the situation we use clay to shape objects. When presenting a design for review we recreate it using a 3D printer to make a clean version, and then fine-tuning and detailing that model by hand.

Sadly, none of these different designs were displayed but Ibuki did admit that they changed the design of the GamePad after the 2011 E3 when it was first introduced. Back then it had a flatter tablet-like design and used circle pads similar to the 3DS instead of traditional analogue sticks.

Ibuki: After last year’s E3, we heard it was difficult to use. We played the NES version of Mario Bros. game on the Wii U GamePad and realized we couldn’t do it very well.

Iwata: I remember that with the design of the GamePad at the time, a good amount of people said it was tiring and difficult to play.

Ibuki: Yes. That’s no good as a controller, and just when we thought we wanted to do something about it, we heard of a desire from within the company to change the specs regarding improvement of the controls and took it up.

The design team then went through the process of changing the GamePad to something more like a controller with rounded grips. They also worked at making it lighter and set a weight limit of 500 grams (1.1 lbs). Any design change that took the controller over that weight was denied.

The wireless connection between the GamePad and the Wii U console was also important as the images on the controller screen can not lag behind what is shown on the screen or the gameplay will be ruined. As a result of Nintendo’s efforts, the GamePad is able to display video on its screen at the same speed or faster than most HDTVs. This is done using chips provided by Broadcom along with new algorithms that compress small chunks of the screen at a time and sends them to controller instead of doing the entire screen at once.

The range of the Wii U GamePad is approximately 24 feet so it should work within whatever room houses the console fine. Iwata and the engineers warn that different aspects of every home can interfere with the wireless signal. For example, it may or may not work in another room depending on whether the wall separating those rooms is made of wood or concrete.