History
After development for Super Mario Galaxy had been completed in late 2007, two employees of the Nintendo EAD Tokyo branch - Yoshiaki Koizumi and Hideaki Shimizu - decided to work together on their own side-projects. Koizumi described the collaboration as something like an "afterschool project" for the pair, as they had no goal in mind other than creating something fun.
Shimizu had wanted to create a network for quite some time, so they experimented with potential network-based projects for the Nintendo Wii. At some point, the pair decided to try working with the Nintendo DS - not knowing that the Nintendo DSi was in early stages of development at the time - Shimizu developed a prototype application that would transmit pictures he'd drawn on a Nintendo DS to a Nintendo Wii, where they would be displayed all lined up on the Wii screen.
When Koizumi saw what Shimizu had made, he thought it would be interesting to use the application to create flipbook-style animations, so Shimizu immediately got to work and implemented the animation feature in just two days. Then the pair also quickly implemented other features that they found interesting, such as using the DS's internal microphone to record sound effects for the animation.
In April 2008, they decided to share their project with others in the office under the name "Flipnote Workshop", to a rather mixed reception; one of the programmers rejected the idea, saying that he wouldn't be interested in flipbook animations.
While on the train, Koizumi had the idea of making the application into a "notepad", so that people could use it to write down notes and share them with others or keep them for themselves. When he saw Shimizu, he suggested that the application should be called "Ugoku Memochou" ("Moving Memo Pad"), or "Ugomemo" for short.
For a while they considered using the Nintendo DS's local wireless connection to let users share Flipnotes with their friends, but this didn't feel like it was enough. They wanted a way to share Flipnote creations with others, which lead them back to the software that Shimizu had originally developed for the Wii. The idea was to create a WiiWare application that could be used to load the Flipnote Studio app onto a DS via DS Download Play, users could create Flipnotes on the DS, and send them to the Wii. Once they were on the Wii, they could be shared with the whole world through an online bulletin board.
At this point, only a select few within Nintendo knew about the then in-development Nintendo DSi, until Takashi Tezuka came from Nintendo's Kyoto offices to talk about it. Koizumi and Shimizu immediately realised that the DSi was the perfect console for their project, so they presented it to Tezuka.
Tezuka found the concept very unique, however he thought that if the project wasn't completed soon, then its window of opportunity would be missed, so he quickly arranged a meeting between himself, Koizumi, Shimizu, and Nintendo's CEO, Satoru Iwata[https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Satoru_Iwata], to discuss working with Nintendo's Network Development Department to implement the online service.
Iwata was worried about not being able to release Flipnote Studio until late 2009, as the Network Development Department was already involved in a number of different projects. After thinking about it, he excitedly suggested a collaboration with Hatena Co., Ltd, a Japanese company who provide various social web-based services in Japan. Hatena's Research and Development department had recently moved their offices to Kyoto, Japan; the same city that Nintendo Corporate Labs where located in, hence Iwata's suggestion.
A meeting was later held with Junya Kondo and Teppei Ninomiya from Hatena, where Koizumi gave a presentation about the project. During the presentation, he experienced some technical difficulties, so instead he asked if he could give them a simple demo of the app directly. This struck a chord with Kondo, because Hatena barely ever use presentation software, preferring instead to show the real thing.
The earliest known screenshot of the app, from a demo at Nintendo's Autumn 2008 conference.
A preview of the Flipnote Hatena website was released, featuring sample Flipnotes by Hatena and Nintendo employees. An archived version can be found here.
This update was provided for free though the Nintendo DSi Shop. It was still possible to continue using the old version until July 1, when updating to version 2 became required in order to use Flipnote Hatena. The main changes included:
- Additional sample Flipnotes
- "Advanced" toolset mode
- "Back up" feature to bulk-save all your Flipnotes to the SD card
- Significant improvements to the online functions of Flipnote Hatena
- An update to the DSi Menu icon
This update improved the internet communication in order to reduce the number of errors. In addition, Hatena ID registration became available for Flipnote Hatena.
This a photo from [August 12, 2009] taken exactly when Flipnote Hatena went live at Hatena's offices in Kyoto, Japan. Source
As was announced on May 13, Flipnote Hatena ceased service to make way for Flipnote Studio 3D.