Nintendo European Research & Development

Nintendo European Research & Development

Formerly called	Actimagine (2003–2011)
Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Video games
Founded	March 2003 (as Actimagine)
Headquarters	Paris, France
Key people	Alexandre Delattre (Managing Director and CTO) Jérôme Larrieu (Chief Science Officer)
Products	Video playback software Middleware
Owner	Nintendo
Number of employees	30 (2016)
Website	Official website

Nintendo European Research & Development (or NERD) was formerly known as Mobiclip, formerly known as Actimagine /ˈɑːktᵻmədʒiːn/, is a Nintendo subsidiary, located in Paris, which develops software technologies and middleware for Nintendo platforms.^[1]

Some notable customers, aside from Nintendo, included Sony Pictures Digital, and Fisher-Price. Nintendo licensed Mobiclip compression technology for the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS video game consoles, used by popular games such as Square Enix's Final Fantasy III and Konami's Contra 4. Fisher-Price used them for its Pixter Multi-Media educational toy. Sony Pictures Digital and The Carphone Warehouse used Mobiclip software to deliver TV-like full-length movies on MicroSD memory cards for smart phones.

Nintendo European Research & Development (NERD) holds patents on its video codecs and DRM technology.

History

Actimagine logo

Actimagine was established in March 2003 by a team of engineers and managers. Actimagine started out with mobile gaming consoles. The video compression technology offered by Mobiclip was an optimized response to the battery life and video quality requirements of Nintendo video gaming platforms: Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Wii, and Nintendo 3DS.

The Mobiclip codec provides high video quality with low battery consumption and has been selected by major studios, such as Sony Pictures Digital, Paramount, Fox and Gaumont Colombia Tristar Films, and by leading handset manufacturers, such as Nokia or Sony Ericsson, to deliver video on memory cards for mobile phones.

On April 2006, Actimagine raised €3 million in equity financing from US venture capital firm GRP Partners. This first round of institutional fund raising enabled Actimagine to accelerate its business development in the US and Japan. The same year, Adobe acquired Actimagine's Flash rendering engine optimized for mobile devices.^[2]

In 2008, Mobiclip launched the first application delivering live TV on the iPhone, a year before Apple. ^{[3] [4]}

On October 2011, Mobiclip^[5] was bought by Nintendo and is now a subsidiary of the latter. Since then it is now known as "Nintendo European Research & Development" or "NERD".

Mobiclip video codecs

Mobiclip logo

Mobiclip was developed with a completely different algorithm from the one used for other video codecs on the market, based on minimal use of the processor resources, allowing battery life to be increased considerably and the cost of the hardware to be reduced.

Nintendo licensing

Nintendo selected Mobiclip as its main provider of video codec technologies on the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii and Nintendo 3DS. Major software titles used it for in-game cinematics, including:

• GBA Video series on the Game Boy Advance^[6]
• Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies on Nintendo DS^[7]
• Professor Layton series on Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS^[8]
• Fire Emblem: Awakening on Nintendo 3DS.^[9]

List of technologies developed by NERD

• Mobiclip video codecs for Smartphone / Game Boy Advance / Nintendo DS / Nintendo 3DS / Wii / Wii U
• Media Player for Wii U Internet Browser
• Wii U Chat (Co-developed w/ Nintendo Software Technology and Vidyo)
• NES emulator for NES Classic Edition

Described on NERD's homepage :^[10]

• Nintendo DS emulator on Wii U
• Super-stable 3D display on New Nintendo 3DS
• Downloadable Wii games on the Wii U eShop

References

1. "Iwata Asks - 1. Introduction - Iwata Asks: NERD - Nintendo". Nintendo of Europe GmbH. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
2. "Adobe - Adobe Press Room: For immediate release". Retrieved 28 January 2015.
3. Christian D. "France 24 sur mobile grâce à Mobiclip.com d'Actimagine". Génération-NT. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
4. "Apple launches HTTP Live Streaming standard in iPhone 3.0". Retrieved 28 January 2015.
5. "Nintendo adquiere Mobiclip". Revogamers. Retrieved 2012-10-05.
6. "GBA Video: Pokemon -- Johto Photo Finish and Playing with Fire!". IGN. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
7. http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/gameslist/manuals/DS_Dragon_Quest_IX.pdf
8. "実写映画化も発表！　『レイトン教授と悪魔の箱』は映画級の作品に - ファミ通.com". Retrieved 28 January 2015.
9. "Fire Emblem Awakening Movies (Cutscenes) Studio : fireemblem". reddit. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
10. "NERD homepage". Retrieved 3 April 2016.