I can still vividly remember the days of my childhood that were filled with countless hours of gaming on my Nintendo DS. That was years ago, and I still love the Nintendo DS. Not because of Pokemon as much anymore, but rather, because it was an innovative product. However, Nintendo’s most recent product is even more innovative. In this blog, I will break down the Nintendo Switch and analyze why it is such an innovative product.
The original Nintendo DS
First, let’s look at the original Nintendo DS. By the way, the DS stands for dual screen, as you can see in the picture. Though this product is still rather popular today, I would say the Nintendo Switch is in the hands of much more people than this product. Regardless, less analyze how Nintendo transformed the DS to a switch. Alright, let’s first understand the very general components of this product. Components of the Nintendo DS include the two screens, the buttons, the pen, the speaker, the housing, the charging port, and the internal hardware and software. Because we aren’t going into great detail regarding the electronics aspects of this product, we can simply state “internal hardware and software” as a component of this product. Though this product was and still is a success, Nintendo needed a new product to satisfy its customers and shareholders. So what did they do? First they removed one screen completely from the product. Let’s say the top screen was removed completely. Quickly visualize this new product. It is starting too look more like a switch now. However, one more step is necessary until we reach the new product, the Nintendo Switch. Divide out the buttons so that each side of the bottom screen has their own set of buttons on a stick. Similar to a remote control for a television, but in this case, smaller versions of a Nintendo DS‘s buttons. These steps I’m taking may seem a bit strange to you. You may be wondering why I am removing and dividing these components, but I will speak to that at the end of this post.
Nintendo Switch: An Innovative Twist
Take a look at the picture of the Nintendo Switch. The steps we performed in the previous paragraph essentially created the idea for this new, innovative product. First, by removing an essential component. Then, by dividing the button components from the product so that they can function while connection to the screen and apart. Nintendo realized there lied a new innovative, marketable product here. Now, though Nintendo may have not exactly followed the same steps as I did to analyze this, the reason I can analyze such innovative products quickly is because I know the blueprint of a majority of innovations such as the Nintendo Switch.
The steps I used to analyze the Nintendo Switch
So what are these blueprints that I know so well? I mean, that is a pretty bold statement to say I know the blueprint for a majority of innovative products. However, I do. You can too. In fact, anyone can. These blueprints that govern a majority of these innovations are called the five techniques of Systematic Inventive Thinking. From the DS to the Switch, we went through two of the techniques of Systematic Inventive Thinking: Subtraction and Division, thus why we removed and divided components from the original product to arrive at the new product. The five techniques of Systematic Inventive Thinking follow a process that you too can learn to analyze products around you and create products of your own.