page_title: History of Nintendo
section_title: Nintendo DS and Wii
hierarchical_section_title: History of Nintendo / 1972–present / Nintendo DS and Wii
caption_attribution_description: A black Nintendo DS Lite, shown open.
context_page_description: The history of Nintendo traces back to 1889, when it was founded to produce handmade hanafuda. Nintendo Co., Ltd. is a Japanese multinational consumer electronics company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It eventually became one of the most prominent figures in today's video game industry, being the world's largest video game company by revenue.
context_section_description: In May 2004, Nintendo announced plans to release a new brand of handheld, unrelated to the Game Boy, featuring two screens, one of which was touch-sensitive. The Nintendo DS, released on November 21, 2004, received over three million pre-orders. In addition to the touch screen, the DS can also create three-dimensional graphics, similar to those of the Nintendo 64, although its lack of hardware support for texture filtering results in more pixelated graphics than on the Nintendo 64.
  President Satoru Iwata reassigned all of Nintendo's software designers under new managers and different division; most of the resources were allocated to Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka and the Nintendo EAD division.
  On May 14, 2005, Nintendo opened its first retail store accessible to the general public, Nintendo World Store, at the Rockefeller Center in New York City. It consists of two stories, and contains many kiosks of GameCube, Game Boy Advance, and Nintendo DS games. There are also display cases filled with things from Nintendo's past, including Hanafuda, Nintendo's first product. They celebrated the opening with a block party at Rockefeller Plaza.
  At E3 in May 2005, Nintendo displayed the first prototype for their "next-generation" system, codenamed the Nintendo Revolution (now known as the Wii), its controller revealed at the Tokyo Game Show later that year.
  On January 26, 2006, Nintendo announced a new version of their Nintendo DS handheld, the Nintendo DS Lite, designed to be smaller and lighter, with a brighter screen. It was launched in Japan on March 2, 2006, and three months later in North America and Europe on June 11 and June 23, 2006, respectively.
  On May 25, 2006, Reggie Fils-Aimé was promoted to President and COO of Nintendo of America, Inc. The former President, Tatsumi Kimishima, was promoted to Chairman of the Board and CEO.
  On July 7, 2006, Nintendo officially established a South Korean subsidiary, Nintendo Korea, in the country's capital, Seoul, which replaced Daewon Media as the official distributor of Nintendo products in South Korea.
  In early August 2006, it was revealed that Nintendo, along with Microsoft, was made the target of a patent-infringement lawsuit. Leveled by the Anascape Ltd., the suit claimed that Nintendo's use of analog technology in their game controllers constitutes a violation of their patents. The lawsuit sought to recover damages from both corporations and possibly force them to stop selling controllers with the violating technology. Microsoft settled with Anasacape, while Nintendo went to trial, initially losing and being ordered to pay US$21 million in damages. Nintendo appealed, and on April 23, 2010 the Federal Circuit reversed the ruling. In November 2010, Anascape's appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States was denied.
  In mid-September 2006, during press conferences held in Tokyo, New York, and London on 13, 14 and 15 September, respectively, Nintendo announced launch details for its Wii console, as well as demonstrated features of the "Wii Menu" GUI.
  The system was first released on November 19, 2006 in the US, followed by the Japanese launch on December 2, the Australian launch on December 6, and the European launch on December 8.
  The console sold fast and was a big breakthrough for Nintendo, picking up the pace lost from their last console, the GameCube. The success of the Wii has been attributed to the intended market of the product; while at the time most competitors were focusing on more adult and fan-based games, Nintendo decided to release a console for a larger demographic, one including casual gamers, children and those who wouldn't ordinarily play video games.
  Since no other major gaming console was marketing for this image, these other companies were caught mostly unprepared by the success of the Wii system, and it wasn't until 2010 that Sony and Microsoft released consoles targeting the same demographic as the Wii.
  On September 17, 2007, Nintendo of America closed its official forums, the NSider Forums, indefinitely due to a major overhaul of their site. For months
caption: Nintendo DS Lite in its opened position
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