A few relics of Nintendos secret hardware development past have been shown off to developers at this week’s Game Developers Conference in California, showing the early thinking that may have led to the all-conquering Nintendo DS. Nintendo handheld design director Masato Kuwahara has shown off a few never-released projects that reveal Nintendo had considered touch-screen controls as early as 1998. More inside A snap-on touch-screen peripheral designed to sit on the upper clamshell screen was prototyped for the GBA SP. The prototype looks a little clunky, so perhaps we can all be thankful that the better, integrated screen was what finally went to market with the original DS.
Something we wish they had gone ahead with, however, was the dual-card booting prototype of the DS. It would have been fantastic to have two cards loaded in your DS for when youre on the go. The bulkier design of the dual-boot DS of course never went ahead, and makes a dwarf by comparison of this year’s sexy new DSi.
Source: Wired
