page_title: Nintendo Labo
section_title: Development
hierarchical_section_title: Nintendo Labo / Development
caption_attribution_description: An in-progress construction of a Nintendo Labo Toy-Con. While the on-screen instructions (on the Switch unit) are copyrighted, the image is considered in de minimus to the overall purpose of the photo.
context_page_description: Nintendo Labo is a toys-to-life concept developed by Nintendo and released in April 2018. Labo consists of 2 parts, where one part is a game and one part is multiple sheets of cardboard.
  The games come as kits that include cardboard cut-outs and other materials that are to be assembled in combination with the Nintendo Switch console display and Joy-Con controllers to create a "Toy-Con" that can interact with the included game software and vice versa. Nintendo designed Labo as a way to teach principles of engineering, physics, and basic programming.
context_section_description: Labo was announced on January 17, 2018. The director is Tsubasa Sakaguchi and the producer is Kouichi Kawamoto. According to Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé, "Labo is unlike anything we've done before", and was developed to extend the age-audience for the Switch. Nintendo said the product was "specifically crafted for kids and those who are kids at heart." The tagline for Labo is "Make, Play, Discover"; "Discover" refers to how the user of the Toy-Con can understand the fundamentals of physics, engineering, and programming that make the Toy-Con work through the act of making and playing with them. The product was not originally intended to be educational, though one of its goals was to "explain how the technology behind the Toy-Con creations works".
  The concept of Labo came from Nintendo when they asked their employees to come up with ways that the Switch's Joy-Con could be used; out of many potential ideas, the idea of building cardboard toys around the controllers held promise. According to Shinya Takahashi, the use of cardboard as part of playthings is common among Japanese children, and as they started prototyping ideas, they found the "trial and error" process of putting together the cardboard toys was "extremely fun". As the Labo concept was developed, they found it fit well within Nintendo's overall philosophy on innovating new ways to have fun, and had potential to introduce the Switch to more than just game enthusiasts.
  Nintendo Labo developers Kawamoto, Sakaguchi, and Ogasawara stated in an interview that their goal was to use the unique features of the Nintendo Switch in such a way that no other system could emulate. The Joy-Con were treated as a "bundle of sensors" that could be used in a multitude of ways by attaching them to different hardware pieces, focusing on the gyro motion-sensor, IR motion camera, and HD Rumble features. The team was tasked with exploring Joy-Con attachment and game prototypes during three weeks of brainstorming sessions, called "prototype parties." When asked about the choice of building material, the developers responded by saying that cardboard was chosen over plastic because the 3D printer they were using for prototyping was unable to keep up with their pace of testing; cardboard would also allow for the player to create, repair, and customize the project themselves. The initial construction designs were first thought as being simple to construct, but later proved to be complex and challenging when it was decided that no cutting or gluing would be required to assemble the kits. Improvements were made to the prototypes based on feedback from consumer and developer testing; this prompted the creation of the interactive instruction software, as well as favoring simplicity over appearance. During development testing—prior to the cardboard designs being finalized—photographs were taken and compiled into booklets to be used as temporary instruction manuals; these booklets ranged from 1,000 pages for simpler models to 3,000 pages for complex ones. While the cardboard Toy-Con are sturdy, Nintendo recognized that the cardboard can suffer wear and tear with time, and sells replacement sheets for individual Toy-Con through its online store. When asked about the durability of Labo during an interview with CNET, Yoshiyasu Ogasawara stated, "We tested their resilience to the same action through hundreds and thousands of repetitions, so we expect them to last a long time under normal use."
  Starting in October 2018, Nintendo worked with the Institute of Play to bring Nintendo Labo into elementary schools, with an initial goal to reach 2,000 students by the end of the 2018–2019 school year. Nintendo is providing the Switch and Labo kits, while the institute is developing the lesson plans for teachers.
caption: A Toy-Con being constructed from punch-outs from cardboard sheets with instructions via the Switch Labo software
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