Nintendo Research & Development 3

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Nintendo Research & Development 3
Type Division of Nintendo
Founded 1974
Headquarters Kyoto, Japan
Key people Genyo Takeda, manager (1972 - 2003)
Industry Video games
Products Video game consoles, hardware, games
Number of people
Website http://www.nintendo.com/

Nintendo Research & Development 3 (任天堂開発第三部, Nintendō Kaihatsu Daisan Bu, R&D3) was the third video game development group within Nintendo. This development group focused primarily on the development of video game hardware, however it did develop some software as well. It was managed by Genyo Takeda from its creation in 1974 until Nintendo's internal development groups were restructured by Nintendo president Satoru Iwata in 2003.

Formation of Nintendo Research & Development 3

In 1972, Genyo Takeda joined Nintendo, working at Nintendo Research & Development with Gunpei Yokoi and Masayuki Uemura on Nintendo's arcade system that utilized light guns, the Simulation System. Later that year, when additional R&D divisions were created after the success of the Simulation System, Gunpei Yokoi continued on as the manager of R&D1 and Masayuki Uemura became the manager of R&D 2. Genyo Takeda became the manager of R&D3 upon its formation in 1974.

Restructuring of Nintendo's development groups

In 2003, Nintendo Research & Development 3 was split, forming Nintendo Integrated Research & Development (IRD) and Nintendo Research & Engineering Development (RED). Genyo Takeda became the general manager of Nintendo IRD, while Satoru Okada became the general manager of Nintendo RED.

Video games by Nintendo Research & Development 3

Title Platform Released Notes
Punch-Out!! Arcade 1983
Super Punch-Out!! Arcade 1984
Arm Wrestling Arcade 1985
Punch-Out!! NES 1987 Mike Tyson was replaced with the fictional Mr. Dream after Nintendo's license to use Tyson expired in 1990.
StarTropics NES 1990
Super Punch-Out!! Super Famicom 1994
Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II NES 1994
Pilotwings 64 Nintendo 64 1996

Home video game consoles by Nintendo Research & Development 3

Title Released Notes
Nintendo 64 1996
GameCube 2001 First Nintendo console to use optical disc media, which was a proprietary mini DVD format with a total capacity of 1.5 gigabytes.

Handheld video game consoles by Nintendo Research & Development 3

Title Released Notes
Game Boy Pocket 1996 A ligher and smaller Game Boy that required less batteries.
Game Boy Light 1998 Slightly larger than the Game Boy Pocket, and includes an electroluminescent backlight.
Game Boy Color 1998 Slightly larger and thicker than the Game Boy Pocket, and includes a color screen.
Game Boy Advance 2001 Successor to the Game Boy Color, with a 32-bit processor, a horizontal layout with a color screen, two face buttons, start and select buttons, and two shoulder buttons.

Video game peripherals by Nintendo Integrated Research & Development

Title Released Notes
Game Pak 1983-2001 Nintendo cartridges from the Famicom to the GBA. Coined by Nintendo advertisment executive Gail Tilden, in order to distance it from the game cartridges of Atari, so that people wouldn't be reminded of the video game crash of 1983.
Controller Pak 1996 Memory card for the Nintendo 64.
Game Boy Camera 1996 Camera for the Game Boy.
Game Boy Printer 1996 Printer for the Game Boy.
Transfer Pack 1996 Transfers data between Nintendo 64 and Game Boy or Game Boy Color.
Rumble Pak 1996 Force feedback for the Nintendo 64.
Expansion Pak 1998 4 megabytes of random access memory expansion for Nintendo 64 which increases the console's total RAM from 4MB to 8MB.
Nintendo 64DD 1999 Drive that reads magnetic disks on the Nintendo 64, with a total capacity of 64 megabytes, which was released only in Japan.
GameCube controller 2001 A wired controller for the GameCube.
Memory Card 59 2001 The standard 4 megabit GameCube memory card.
Nintendo e-Reader 2002 A device for Game Boy Advance which would scan cards with dotcodes to load games and add-ons for games.
Memory Card 251 2002 A larger 16 megabit GameCube memory card.
Wavebird wireless controller 2002 A radio frequency-based wireless controller for the GameCube.
Memory Card 1019 2002 A larger 64 megabit GameCube memory card.