How games were made on the Nintendo DS | MVG 

I love how the ethernet port is labeled "wireless". Delightfully confusing.

One of my favourite stories from Dev is around the NDS dev kit. We had outsourced the NDS version of our console/PSP game to a small developer in Utah but they didn't have any (or not enough) NDS Dev Kits. So one one of our managers boxed up a bunch of kits and sent them from our studio in Vancouver, Canada to Salt Lake City, USA. A week later the guys in Utah let us know that the package had not arrived so we looked into it and the shipment was stuck at the border. We got our shipping/receiving guys to find out what was going on and they found out that the shipment had been flagged as hazardous material. What? Well, it turns out the manager who boxed everything up wrote "NITRO" all over the shipping box and that caught the attention of screeners at the US border. We were able to sort it out and the kits eventually made their way to the developers.

This "behind the doors of the studios" stuff is really cool, especially having a chance to see the stuff that helped make games that I never would have come across.

When the Swedish Distributor for Nintendo games did a few marketing campaigns (this one in particular was a competition in 'Best Nintendo Player'), they used this device to be able to show gameplay live on a screen. This was very mysterious for me, so being able to see what it actually was is interesting.

My hunch is that "Emulator" is used as in "In Circuit Emulator" - a tool used for debugging and developing embedded software/firmware, particularly in the days of mask rom processors. (You'd plug in the ICE instead of the processor, and it would act like the processor in the circuit) That said, most things labeled this are now used for just in circuit debugging of a flash micro, so there's no actual emulation happening because you can reprogram the micro. (E.g. I have an "Atmel ICE" that is just a debug adapter for AVR and ARM SWD)

"C" is the language, cygwin is a collection of tools as environment for programming in "C" under Win.

That Arkham Asylum prototype's title screen looks glorious when blown into a bigger screen.

Wow. That was a fast video! You were excited to make this! It was fun sending this to you!

Personally I own a PSP debugging test unit that is pretty similar. I would say the biggest difference is it can play retail games out-of-the-box as long as you have the firmware up to date.

Good memories of middle school coming back. Back then we had to do a week-long "internship" of sorts to learn about the world of work, and I did mine in a development studio working on DS titles: they had the same exact devkits that you're showing. It was my first time seeing the insides of game development; and the image of those devkits sitting on the desks next to the PC monitors stayed with me ever since. Thanks MVG, great video as always !!

At this point, it's sometimes more cost effective to buy one of these, than it is to buy a 3DS and mod it with a capture card. Mad jealous that you got a hold of one of these, absolutely incredible!

WOW...this brings back memory when I was working in a video game development studio many years ago as a Level Designer for Nintendo DS games (worked around 8 titles). If I recall correctly, at some point the dev kids got refreshed with the newer Nintendo DS Lite screen and I was happy to somehow get one assigned to me. :D Unlike working on the "traditional" consoles at that time with longer development cycles, most of our Nintendo DS games took a year or less to make so a project never dragged for too long and before I knew it I was starting on a new project. I still miss those days, it was a real blast to work in a small team and create something with your own digital hands. Too bad the pay was low so I had to eventually switch careers to something with better pay. Thanks MVG for the trip in the memory lane!

Didn't know Intelligent Systems had a hardware department making Nintendo dev and debug tools, nice!

Devkits are always fascinating.

I love stuff like this. Dev kits are always so interesting to me. Thanks for bringing stuff like this to us.

Always fun to see dev kits up close!

4:58 I love that one of the cable ports is labeled "wireless"!

I love the look of this thing, it's like a piece of industrial equipment. I've used MIG/MAG welding machines with thinner cables than that.

Dude i love this! I always love to see how games or music for a specific console are made, since I don‘t have the slightest clue about game development. And then my favourite homebrew and modding and gaming tech in general youtuber makes a video about my favourite handheld. Awesome!

Thanks for sharing this! I used to work at a QA studio and would see some of the testers using this dev kit, but never got to personally check it out myself since I was on the PC games team. Made my day!

Who knew Intelligent Systems was so influential on Nintendo as a whole.

As much as the explanation given in the video for the name of the device makes perfect sense, I like to think that everything else at Nintendo is labelled "ISN'T NITRO EMULATOR".

It's extremely cool that Intelligent Systems made so much hardware, on top of their generally excellent games.

Was always curious on how these dev kits worked. Great video!

That DS dev kit looks more like something you would see in hardware store or some piece of electronics from a plane.

I've had one of these since I worked on some DS titles back in the day, but hadn't looked into whether it still had any use today. The software development tools we downloaded from Nintendo would phone home every time they were started and quit working after a short time, maybe just a few weeks, requiring a new download and update. After I was no longer working on DS games I lost access to the Nintendo developers portal, and shortly afterwards the hardware became useless to me as all the software expired.

Awesome vid, would love to see more dev kit focused videos!

So cool to see one of these kits again. When we used them we didn't use duel monitors for the game. We had one monitor for the game and one for the PC and the game also going to a capture card to record

Blast from the past! I used to see the Nitro Capture all the time, since I worked on the same floor as the marketing/PR team. I only occasionally used it myself, interesting to know that there were so many variants. Definitely didn't expect to see such a detailed video about it, took it for granted. Thanks for the awesome content as always 👍

I used to work with one of these back in 2009... very nostalgic. The one I used was a newer model though, so the DS attached to it was a DS Lite model.

Because of your video about retroarch on Xbox I bought a Series S and have installed it! Thanks man, I love emulation!

What a throwback! I used both the Emulator and Capture back when I used to work for SEGA's QA department. Thanks for this video!

More Dev stuff please. This stuff is fascinating

Love the industrial look of it. Beige box PC style felt like the norm with some exceptions like Sony.

How does the hardware look like inside? The same chips as the DS+debug stuff or 100% FPGA?

And now I'm here asking myself again, how did the dudes in the gaming show on NBC Europe back in the day showcase games then they received for such purposes. Where those really special builds of the games or are there indeed Nitro-Emulator boxes that were intended for magazines and TV shows?

Sweet Nitro Devkit MVG!

I remember using this while working at Nintendo. I was the only way to record videos off the DS.

I love this kind of videos, give to much insight on how works internally the develop for consoles.....!!

I’m soooooooo addicted to your videos❤❤❤❤ I would feel lost without all this techical info and history i wouldn’t otherwise know about at all, i really appreciate your work

I love DevKits. They are so fascinating to me. As always, thanks for the informative video!

You always bring amazing content! Love this one, i didnt know that thing exist at all!

quick fact, the nds handheld thats hardwired to the box is actually just a controller, it has no processor and such inside, just the bare minimum to have the i/o devices work. if you watch the retro futures video about this system you can see elliot take it apart to restore it, he also mentions that part himself.

Very cool device! Thanks for covering this in detail. 🙂

Interesting to see old dev kits.

These were used extensively at Pokemon events held by Nintendo Australia. The kit did work with the infrared inside Pokemon Black White carts and their sequels, though sometimes the battle could drop out - usually they'd have the other competitor using their retail DS stand closer to the nitro unit to overcome this.

MVG, you inspire me to get back into programming. Thank you.

Finally appreciating how far ahead of their time the DS and PSP were.

This was so interesting! Very well made.

The best thing about the DS devkit/SDK was that while the hardware didn't support floating point operations the devkit *did* and the debug libraries were fine with it while release libs only supported fixed point. So in debug variables defined as fixed point were actually floating point and all the basic arithmetic operations behaved like you'd expect. But compile in release and they'd all switch over to fixed point and those same operations would not do anything remotely close to what you were expecting because they all became integer operations. The math library provided functions for all the operations that you had to be really careful to use because the compiler wouldn't necessarily warn you.

An Emulator that's not an emulator? It should have been called a "simulator" xD Edit: taking my words back, please read hellterminator's comment in the replies

1:55 I chuckled that most sponsership videos would say "If you're not happy you get money back, etc etc" but you just say "If you think it sucks...". Love it.

Steel box looking like a welding unit with actual rust eating at the metal under the paint wow

Would u ever do a psvita video about how the security was broken like u did for PS3 and Xbox 360 etc?...or even a dev kit video similar to this one...would love to know more about psvita hard and ur videos are amazing for showing this

devkit for nintendo ds .. never heard of that ...freaking cool stuff ... more please :)

Insane that you managed to even one of these, with the manual and discs too

I have the "IS Nitro Video" which only can show 1 screen on one Monitor. But on the plus side: it can run original retail Games on the get go. I have the model with a NDS Lite and it's just a great system, to play your Games on (2) TVs I wished i had the Capture Unit, to show both screens on one TV, but im happy having it in my collection. It's one thing to own a Game Collection, but having something that was not sell to the public back in the days, is always special. (Especially if you see the prices... i was lucky getting mine on ebay for 170€)

I remember seeing this development kit, but in red color, at Gameworld 2011 in Sao Paulo, Brasil. It was standing with some trash games and in a empty place, because in that event the 3DS was shown and everyone forgot about the little old Nintendo DS. I was wondering back then what was that thing haha Now after 10 years finally i can see some explanation. Thank you!!

OMG!!! That Dev. Kitt i was looking for that one for years! Wooow!!!!

This literally the only dev hardware I'd ever want to own some day. I LOVE the DS and a way to record/stream with actual hardware would be amazing, but alas the are CRAZY expensive (kinda makes sense that they are though)

You always show such interesting stuff, I love it!

Oh man what a trip down memory lane. I worked with one of those by my side for so many years!

devkits always have a certain mythical feel to them :D love it

I know for a fact that a few developers "prototyped" their games first with a (highly illegal if you ask Nintendo's lawyers) R4 card before going to the trouble of getting an official devkit ... 5th Cell's first DS game, Drawn to Life, was apparently developed in this way.

Really good video I enjoyed it

The other day there was a gaming expo on the mall on my town, I was amazed... it had devkits on display for the wii, wii u, ds and GC... and even some old stuff like odyssey 2 and ataris

Good name for the dev kit

Ha, still have fond memories of the first titles I worked on the DS. Still got the tools for exporting/viewing 3D stuff from the CAD soft to the kit I think.

That hose looking cable is so thick you would almost think theres a fluid going to the Nintendo DS from that blue box haha

That's just neat MVG.

Can you do a video on the secondary serial port on the gamecube? I heard it’s for game development and it would be cool to see. Videos on how games were made on these older systems are very interesting

I love these kind of videos so much!!

I'd love to hear and see more about the Nitro as this is the first video I've ever seen such a kit. The kit itself is very fascinating to me and I'd love to see more about the internals. I'd really like to see more videos covering DS development and more working directly with the kit for examples and such. One thing that I think would make for an interesting video is how games are written/printed to cartridges, who handles that (Nintendo or the developer?), are the plastic cases typically made in the same place where the cartridges are printed? Are the games shipped from the developer office(s) or are they shipped direct from factories to retailers? Does this process vary from small indie devs to triple A big budget developer studios? I'd be really interested in how this has worked historically from the Atari/NES era through the modern era. One topic I think that would make that kind of video more engaging is how 'games' like Halo are being printed and shipped with Steel-books despite not actually having the full game on them or being usable without internet or patches. This is an issue of the balance between this supposed 'all digital future'. To me a simple solution would be to differentiate the price between physical and digital games. Digital games just aren't as valuable as so many costs from packaging to shipping and all the overhead that come along with them compared to just paying for the hosting fees/sales cut that game shops like the Nintendo eShop takes. I think more gamers should be more outspoken and more focused on talking about having finished games available on physical the day the physical edition releases. Preferably the digital and physical versions are released day and date but this seems to be less common. What has changed? Is it the fact that development of games just is a lot more complex in the modern era whereas in the past it was relatively smaller as the industry was smaller and graphics weren't as detailed? There's so much I'd like to hear about from a developer such as yourself and from things you have learned in the industry through your time, experience, and connections. Thanks MVG.

Love my IS Nitro Emulator! I have the DS Lite version! Great video!

oh damn that nitro devkit takes me back. Used that before on my first job.

If you'd like to see inside one of these Ben Heck did a teardown/repair of an IS Nitro Capture a little while ago. I found it fascinating that the DS on the IS nitro is just the screens and inputs in a modified shell, all of the processing happens in the blue box rather than on the handheld.

Cool video man!

Neat. I think CodeWarrior was what we used for my C++ classes back in the early 00s.

Ben Heck did a repair video on one of these units. The attached DS is basically just a pair of screens with a controller, touch screen and microphone. The rest of the hardware is in the desktop box.

Wow, who knew you could make Nintendo DS games on a welding machine.

That is a pretty interesting emulator-case.

I saw some of these dev kits on the shelves in the IT dept. at EA Florida ~2005.

Awesome video! Love the videos where you go through older systems. Whether it is how graphics work on Gameboy or devkits for the DS. Where do the music come from? Who made it?

As someone who loves both Advance Wars and Fire Emblem, I had a feeling I knew what IS would stand for.

No fucking way. I literally searched that video yesterday and was surprised you didn’t make one. What are the fucking odds.

Emulator here refers to an In-Circuit Emulator or ICE. It is a generic term in embedded systems programming.

I love the lil dip switches oh yes that gives me a warm feeling comming from the past. I love this thing only to look at it in your vid. THANK YOU

That "Mario Bros. 2"-styled "Development Kid" on the Disc.

As a game developer, it is epic to watch this

I like how it appears they just got an enclosure for a cheap import inverter welder and put their toolchain in it.

Wow this brings me back to the olden days of game development!

I have 2 of these wish i had more there so cool

Hey, I have one of those, except for the DSi, the IS-TWL-DEBUGGER. No Ethernet, has the original DWM-W015 wifi chip, seems to recognize retail games. No video out, mine doesn't have the expansion board. Have to run CodeWarrior in a VM (bleh). For DSi roms you need to tweak the header/CRC and re-modcrypt it before installing it as a .tad

This was way more interesting than I expected lol

This just COMPLETELY blew my mind.

if you want to see inside Ben Heck took one apart. The hand held part has no hardware in it just the displays, speakers and buttons.

I bought one of these when I was starting out recording DS games way back when. Turns out, the one I bought didn't have video out or the development kit cd so it wound up being useless in the end. I have a modded DS and n3DSXL with capture cards installed nowadays so the Nitro Emulator I got is a nice collectable now! Still, always wondered if I could make use of it somehow.

Oh yeah! Here we go, sports time!

One of my favorite youtubers, thanks for the content! I wish you could do a FAQ on how to get a PS3 going with pirate games.

Codewarrior, there's a name that brings back memories. We had to use it for my computer systems class (for Electrical Engineering) because it could also emulate a Freescale HCS12-series microcontroller. All code was done in Motorola syntax Assembly.