Nintendo European Research & Development

August 2019
Nintendo introduces new gaming experiences to the world again with Nintendo Labo: VR Kit

The quality of the overall VR experience relies heavily on the performance of the Nintendo Switch console’s accelerometer and gyroscope. In order to get the most out of this sensor, NERD engineers created a new technology to simplify calibration and improve the precision of sensor data. The result is a more stable virtual world that drifts less over time.

In addition, NERD developed tracking and positioning technology uniquely tailored to the Joy-Con. Using the IR motion camera to capture a set of markers, it accurately situates the Joy-Con in the virtual world, allowing the user to reposition objects or create paintings in 3D space with remarkable precision.

For this project, NERD's software team worked in close cooperation with the system software development team and the Nintendo Labo development teams in Japan.

September 29th 2017
Nintendo releases the Nintendo Classic Mini: Super Nintendo Entertainment System

Nintendo releases the Nintendo Classic Mini: Super Nintendo Entertainment System, enabling a new generation of players to enjoy some of the most iconic games of the 1990s, an era considered by many as the pinnacle of 2D gaming and the start of 3D gaming.

Despite early anticipation from fans following the release of the Nintendo Classic Mini: Nintendo Entertainment System in 2016, NERD has strived to surprise users with the Nintendo Classic Mini: Super Nintendo Entertainment System, all the while refining the Nintendo Classic Mini: Nintendo Entertainment System experience.

In charge of developing the Nintendo Classic Mini: Super Nintendo Entertainment System software stack, NERD is proud to highlight the following contributions:

November 11th 2016
Nintendo releases the Nintendo Classic Mini: Nintendo Entertainment System

The NES and some of its best games will be back in your living room!

As one of the main contributors to the software that made this possible, NERD hopes that fans of all generations will enjoy the experience!

January 2015
NERD enables Wii games on the Wii U eShop

Following a long tradition of Nintendo console backward compatibility, the Wii U has always been able to play Wii games from disc.

However, in this age of permanent internet connection, Nintendo felt that its users should have new ways of enjoying Wii games – namely being able to access them as downloadable content.

There was a catch: Wii games were never intended to run from anything but the optical disc. Yet, after much hard work, and overcoming a number of technical hurdles, the engineers at NERD finally succeeded in running Wii games from Wii U internal memory and external USB HDDs.

Thanks to a tight-knit collaboration between NERD, Japanese and American developers, Nintendo then made it possible for Wii games to be launched directly from within the Wii U menu and allowed users to play select titles with the Wii U GamePad.

Although bringing these improvements has been tricky – our hardware and software had to be used in quite unintended ways – it fills us with great pride to know that they are out there for users to enjoy today.

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October 2014 - NERD teams up with hardware experts in Japan to deliver "super-stable 3D" on the New Nintendo 3DS.

The first generation Nintendo 3DS, launched in February 2011 in Japan, was equipped with an autostereoscopic screen, allowing a user perfectly centered with the device to view stereoscopic images without the use of any additional headgear, thanks to a parallax barrier screen.

The New Nintendo 3DS, launched in October 2014 in Japan, uses a new "super-stable 3D" screen that redefines the sense of immersion and comfort offered by 3D displays.

Our team of software engineers created a new technology that takes full advantage of the New Nintendo 3DS system’s dynamic parallax barrier, by tracking the user's face with the internal camera and infrared LED to adjust the screen accordingly.

To further improve the user experience and react to faster motion, it leverages on several technologies including machine learning, adaptive prediction, sensor fusion, etc. In the end, it provides 3D viewing with a significantly wider range compared to the original Nintendo 3DS.

For this thrilling project, NERD's software team developed a close cooperation with Japanese colleagues in charge of the hardware.

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June 2014
NERD creates a high speed, high quality Nintendo DS emulator for Wii U

The Nintendo DS platform, thanks to its vast game catalog and variety of gameplays, is a prime choice for Virtual Console.

However, emulating the Nintendo DS poses a considerable challenge in terms of speed and accuracy, due to the difference in architecture with the Wii U.

Adopting a fresh approach, NERD created a novel way to overcome this challenge, relying on state of the art technologies including JIT, multicore architecture, GPGPU computations, etc.

NERD also developed a large array of reverse engineering tools in order to speed up emulator development.

In close collaboration with Japan headquarters, the NERD team in Paris has created an industrial-grade emulator that successfully meets Nintendo's high quality standards.

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About

Nintendo European Research & Development (formerly Mobiclip) is a subsidiary of Nintendo located in Paris, specialized in the field of highly optimised software technologies. We are committed to providing the gaming industry with the latest innovations in middleware. NERD is currently working on a number of exciting and innovative projects, which we cannot discuss in detail due to their highly confidential nature. You can get an idea of our work by reading up on previously released projects above.

Team

We are a team of highly focused engineers who strive to push the limits of software. Leveraging on the synergy of our diverse skills, we are able to create disruptive technologies from low-level hardware to high-end software stacks. You can find more details about the team in this Iwata Asks NERD interview.

Jobs

Talented people are always welcome!

We like programming challenges at NERD. If you enjoy reverse-engineering and/or math-oriented problems, feel free to have a look at our difficult programming contest(s) below (although you don’t HAVE to solve them to apply at NERD):