Topic: Nintendo Honors PictoChat Artists

[TheYoungerPlumber]

Nintendo showcases PictoChat art in its forums.

Did You Know?

Nintendo DS Fans Use Touch Screen to Create Pocket Picassos

The touch screen of Nintendo DS(TM) has created a legion of pocket Picassos. Around the world, artistic Nintendo DS owners have contributed to image galleries that capture the temporary art they created using the system's built-in PictoChat(TM) chatting and drawing program. PictoChat was designed to send wireless messages between Nintendo DS owners, but users are turning the touch-screen into a high-tech canvas.

Some of the images show simple scenes, while others depict video game and comic book characters in great detail. A variety of galleries can be seen at online fan sites like ndsart.net or in the discussion boards of nintendo.com.

"The creativity shown by these artists illustrates the innovation and new thinking Nintendo DS was designed to inspire," says George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. "Nintendo DS fires the imagination with its dual screens -- a touch screen to create the art and a second to display it."

Nintendo DS, which launched in North America on Nov. 21, 2004, is on target to ship 6 million systems worldwide by the end of March.

PictoChat creations can be viewed at: http://forums.nintendo.com/nintendo/board/message?board.id=ds&message.id=679149

[Hostile Creation]

Some of that is really impressive stuff, pretty cool.  It's a smart move to spread the news about stuff like this, since DS seems to be becoming the unique, creative system, and it's good to have it reflect on the users, too.

[darknight06]

It's very much like doing pen and ink.  Despite a lot of the risk being gone, it can still be challenging to get things just right given that the only two colors you're given are black and white..  Yeah, it's not a lot of drawing area, but the challenge is to be able to make something happen with it anyhow.  I've often pulled it out just to draw on it waiting for meals at restaurants and I've gotten a few lookers as well.  I will say this though, it's MUCH easier to draw on this than it was to draw graphics on a TI-83 calculator for a menu driven game I coded on there once.  That's crap has to be done point by point.  

You know it's kind of funny, cuz I remember asking my bro when he got his "So, how do you like your $150 etch-a-sketch!"  lol