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StarTopic Nintendo First Party Software Development |ST| Nintendo Party Superstars

Creatures relocated to a new office on October 24th. Not sure if it's any bigger.


Hzg7NG3.png



Staff count is at 217 as of October 1st (+10 from February).

any closer to any other affiliate studios? either that or the new rooms are bigger. or just lease ran out and got a better deal
 
There's no way to know though. Most carts don't get reprints with all updates on the cart sadly. You'd have to get impressions from folks who are into that sort of thing, like those Switch Corps folks on twitter.

I would imagine that if I went to Amazon or whatever and order a copy of let's say, Super Mario Odyssey, I would get version 1.3.0 of the game since new copies were patches years ago. I would like to think old launch stock has long since been gone and that new copies would all be the latest cart versions but I see no way to verify this without purchasing. Was considering ordering a few Switch games during the holidays to get the newest cart versions but idk.
 
I would imagine that if I went to Amazon or whatever and order a copy of let's say, Super Mario Odyssey, I would get version 1.3.0 of the game since new copies were patches years ago. I would like to think old launch stock has long since been gone and that new copies would all be the latest cart versions but I see no way to verify this without purchasing. Was considering ordering a few Switch games during the holidays to get the newest cart versions but idk.
That would only apply for games that are still selling. Odyssey would definitely be one of them
 
That would only apply for games that are still selling. Odyssey would definitely be one of them

Right. I can't afford to rebuy all my games but there is definitely a handful of favorites I would like to own with all the patches on cart such as Mario Odyssey so I'm hoping if I was to buy a copy from Amazon or Best Buy during say Black Friday that I would get a copy with all the patches on cart (since those started printing in 2019).
 
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Besides Monolith, Creatures has probably expanded the most in recent years out of all the Nintendo affiliates. An increase of more than 100 since June 2017, 73 of which were from just over the last 3 years.

A lot of that probably has to do with modelling for the mainline Pokemon games, but I wonder if the company is also ramping up its software pipeline again. We know there's another project in development alongside Detective Pikachu 2 and Ambrella seems to have mostly been comprised of planners and programmers when it was acquired.
 
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I wish creatures offered official support for the trading card game online. Other than than, the tgc can't account for a lot of the hires

EDIT: looking on their site, they're hiring for a Unity position. Have they used Unity before?
 
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how's the beta? they expanded into more areas but still no US, so I haven't paid too much attention to it
Haven’t gotten in either but from what I have read and seen the product is better then the original in some areas. However, with competition being tough in the digital TCG landscape; PCGO reminds me to much of MTGO both in functionality & audience to be one of the better ones outside of enthusiasts.

I think something using the characters from Masters & built like a modern card game app would have been more interesting & profitable for TPC. They could even bring over some of the features like physical card scanning.
 
Haven’t gotten in either but from what I have read and seen the product is better then the original in some areas. However, with competition being tough in the digital TCG landscape; PCGO reminds me to much of MTGO both in functionality & audience to be one of the better ones outside of enthusiasts.

I think something using the characters from Masters & built like a modern card game app would have been more interesting & profitable for TPC. They could even bring over some of the features like physical card scanning.
guess that's more of a problem with Creatures not supporting the game. the japanese side hasn't touched this game or the last version of it, it's a TPCi affair. I assume there are asian translations of this at least?
 
guess that's more of a problem with Creatures not supporting the game. the japanese side hasn't touched this game or the last version of it, it's a TPCi affair. I assume there are asian translations of this at least?
That could be part of it. I think there is only so much the dev can do with that old of a core base. Developing a new app would probably be better.

The beta hasn’t touched Asia yet
 
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I have been looking for information about Tetsuya Sasaki, as I did not know him. I have not been able to gather much information, but it seems someone who has been linked to tool design and programming tasks more than game design.

Tetsuya%20Sasaki%20Cropped.jpg


Some links that I have found:
 
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Pokemon SV has leaked and someone has posted some of the apparent leads for the game to Wikipedia, but I can't actually find the credits myself. Can anyone confirm?


If true, it looks like:

Director - Shigeru Ohmori
Art Director(?) - Mana Ibe
Planning Director - Hiroyuki Tani
Main Scenario - Ryota Muranaka
Sound/Music Lead - Minako Adachi

We already knew about Ohmori because of Toby Fox. Muranaka and Adachi filling in for Toshinobu Matsumiya and Go Ichinose makes sense, as they had the same positions on Arceus. I'm pretty sure they both worked on SV in a smaller capacity anyway.
 
Pokemon SV has leaked and someone has posted some of the apparent leads for the game to Wikipedia, but I can't actually find the credits myself. Can anyone confirm?


If true, it looks like:

Director - Shigeru Ohmori
Art Director(?) - Mana Ibe
Planning Director - Hiroyuki Tani
Main Scenario - Ryota Muranaka
Sound/Music Lead - Minako Adachi

We already knew about Ohmori because of Toby Fox. Muranaka and Adachi filling in for Toshinobu Matsumiya and Go Ichinose makes sense, as they had the same positions on Arceus. I'm pretty sure they both worked on SV in a smaller capacity anyway.
From this live stream. If you don't want to see spoilers, skip to 21:02:55 for the staff credits.

new Pokémon Designers
Tomohiro Kitakaze ("new", last work was X & Y)
Ryosuke Oshiro (cinematic motion designer for SWSH/PLA)
Kazuyuki Kurashima (Super Mario RPG, Live A Live)
Mari Shimazaki (Bayonetta series, Okami, Soulcalibur V) (she designed humans too, wonder who she designed...)

The actual credited sound lead is still Go Ichinose, but Minako Adachi is the most involved composer. I'm guessing Ichinose composed only a few tracks, He is only billed 3rd out of 7 since he is in-house. The new contracted composer is Teruo Taniguchi, who is a sound designer under SuperSweep. He composed some of the battle themes, I think.

Noriko Uono has been promoted to 3D Map Graphics Lead, succeeding Mana Ibe. Uono is notable cause I see her often cited as the Monolith Soft personnel involved in Pokémon games (in forums and Twitter), but I think she may have transferred to Game Freak a while ago. She also illustrated a Pokémon TCG card.

Toshinobu Matsumiya has consistently been involved in the game scenario writing for every original game except for Red & Green/Blue, his absence may be the biggest surprise.
 
Pokemon SV credits


I'll dive deeper into it later, but a few things not mentioned by Chiffon:

  • ILCA worked on both the planning and story
  • James Turner still worked on both Pokemon and Trainer design. He's actually the highest credited person for the former, but I'm not certain on how they order credits when it comes to that.
  • This actually started with Arceus, but Tetsuya Watanabe has replaced Masuda as the General Producer from Game Freak's side.

Along with Matsumiya, I've noticed a few other notable absences, even some who didn't work on Arceus.
 
  • James Turner still worked on both Pokemon and Trainer design. He's actually the highest credited person for the former, but I'm not certain on how they order credits when it comes to that.
glad Turner was able to get one more game in

also, I'm kinda surprised GF hasn't tapped into Nintendo-affiliated designers yet. like Mario and Zelda designers for pokemon, Splatoon artists for trainers, etc
 
ILCA worked on both the planning and story
They know their way around Switch hardware but we still are not getting One Piece Odyssey on Switch, despite how much sense it would make. Not sure if it even will receive a late port. Once Piece games missing Nintendo will never be not weird for me, especially knowing Eiichiro Oda is big Nintendo fan.
 
Toshinobu Matsumiya has consistently been involved in the game scenario writing for every original game except for Red & Green/Blue, his absence may be the biggest surprise.
I'd imagine he was to busy with Legends Arceus to work on anything else, given that, unlike the other mid-gen games, PLA features a completely original scenario. Maybe the same thing happened with B2W2.
 
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They know their way around Switch hardware but we still are not getting One Piece Odyssey on Switch, despite how much sense it would make. Not sure if it even will receive a late port. Once Piece games missing Nintendo will never be not weird for me, especially knowing Eiichiro Oda is big Nintendo fan.
A few months ago Bandai Namco mistakenly confirmed in several official accounts and press notes (both One Piece and BNG in multiple regions) the release of One Piece Odyssey on Switch.

It is evident that they have planned the launch on Switch as a double dip.
 
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I've not watched the streams, but from trailers and screens visually it still looks shockingly ass. Arceus, performance issues aside, was eons better at blending the art style and hiding its short comings. There's texture work in SV that looks worse than GC-levels, it's unreal. The only stuff that's impressed me so far is the lighting and some effects, but again some spots are ass.
 
I've not watched the streams, but from trailers and screens visually it still looks shockingly ass. Arceus, performance issues aside, was eons better at blending the art style and hiding its short comings. There's texture work in SV that looks worse than GC-levels, it's unreal. The only stuff that's impressed me so far is the lighting and some effects, but again some spots are ass.
Some texture are terrible sure, especially in open world cities where the game clearly struggle to fit it all in. The game is also much more complex now (I struggle to think of a lot of Switch games who do as much as this one in terms of scope tbh). But there are places in the wild that look legit great, I'm talking BotW-level of long grass blowing in the wind and beautiful warm colors. The game does give glimpses of something really nice visually with a bit polish and improved performance.

Putting in spoiler because I don't want to get too much into it in this thread:
there is a lake area in particular that looks actually good, like the best an open world can look on Switch. I think the game might surprise people especially after Arceus which struggled with the fidelity. It really gives hope for the future with better hardware and refined talent. Because it's still too unpolished.
 
I've not watched the streams, but from trailers and screens visually it still looks shockingly ass. Arceus, performance issues aside, was eons better at blending the art style and hiding its short comings. There's texture work in SV that looks worse than GC-levels, it's unreal. The only stuff that's impressed me so far is the lighting and some effects, but again some spots are ass.
I don't know about worse than GCN levels. remember that system had 43MB of ram. texture considerations for an open world game are way different than something like Metroid Prime
 
Some texture are terrible sure, especially in open world cities where the game clearly struggle to fit it all in. The game is also much more complex now (I struggle to think of a lot of Switch games who do as much as this one in terms of scope tbh). But there are places in the wild that look legit great, I'm talking BotW-level of long grass blowing in the wind and beautiful warm colors. The game does give glimpses of something really nice visually with a bit polish and improved performance.

Putting in spoiler because I don't want to get too much into it in this thread:
there is a lake area in particular that looks actually good, like the best an open world can look on Switch. I think the game might surprise people especially after Arceus which struggled with the fidelity. It really gives hope for the future with better hardware and refined talent. Because it's still too unpolished.
I don't know when I'll buy the game (pre-order incentives have claimed my hand a few times this gen already, so probably sooner than later), so hopefully I'll be surprised. Thanks. :)
 
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I've not watched the streams, but from trailers and screens visually it still looks shockingly ass. Arceus, performance issues aside, was eons better at blending the art style and hiding its short comings. There's texture work in SV that looks worse than GC-levels, it's unreal. The only stuff that's impressed me so far is the lighting and some effects, but again some spots are ass.
I like Arceus but that game didn't hide its shortcomings and the artstyle they were going for didnt blend at all.

The sky looked very nice tho.
 
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I don't know about worse than GCN levels. remember that system had 43MB of ram. texture considerations for an open world game are way different than something like Metroid Prime
Yeah but you still have bits like this:

pokemon-scarlet-violef2cgg.jpg


 
yes, but that highlights what I mean. low res textures are splayed over a much higher resolution than a GCN game. Game Freak hasn't gotten too much of a handle on texture budgets yet, even more well versed teams suffer from poor resolution textures, they just hide it better thanks to better practices though experience.
 
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Pokemon SV credits


I'll dive deeper into it later, but a few things not mentioned by Chiffon:

  • ILCA worked on both the planning and story
  • James Turner still worked on both Pokemon and Trainer design. He's actually the highest credited person for the former, but I'm not certain on how they order credits when it comes to that.
  • This actually started with Arceus, but Tetsuya Watanabe has replaced Masuda as the General Producer from Game Freak's side.

Along with Matsumiya, I've noticed a few other notable absences, even some who didn't work on Arceus.

It's good to see Go Ichinose leading the sound team. To me, his style is still quintessential Pokémon music. Even if I like other composers too (especially Masuda), I think he just "gets" how Pokémon is supposed to sound. All of his tracks in Legends were a blast.
 
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Some of the absences on Scarlet/Violet. It’s possible that a few of these have since left or were just doing contract work. I've left out artists for the most part, as it's more difficult to tell if they work at GF, Creatures, or a contract/freelance role.

Giga Wrecker Alt
Little Town Hero
Sword/Shield
Arceus

Planning

  • Tetsuya Odate
  • Masahito Nagasu
  • Atsushi Terachi
  • Rena Koda
  • Katsunori Suginaka
  • Kensaku Iwata
  • Hidenaga Endo
  • Keita Okamoto
  • Kazumasa Iwao (Directed USUM/Arceus)
  • Yuichi Murase
  • Toshinobu Matsumiya (Main writer for most of the original Pokemon titles)
  • Miku Yoshida
  • Tetsuji Ohta
  • Yuki Asada

Programming
  • Kazuhiko Takata
  • Yuji Tomura
  • Kei Fujita
  • Shimon Sakamoto
  • Yuji Tomura
  • Masao Taya (Directed Pocket Card Jockey/Little Town Hero)
  • Manabu Ishioka
  • Katsuhiko Ichiraku
  • Akira Endo
  • Naoya Uematsu
  • Masateru Ishiguro
  • Masayuki Onoue (Directed Giga Wrecker/Alt)
  • Takafumi Uechi
  • Nicholas Dahms
  • Hiroyuki Nakamura
  • Katsumi Ohno
  • Syo Araki
  • Koji Kawada
  • Takumi Harada
  • Junya Ikuta
  • Yuya Ikeuchi

Art
  • Tsubasa Matsuzaki
  • Hitomi Ogawa
  • Junsei Kuninobu

Production
  • Masafumi Saito


We know that GF has at least one Gear Project game in development, but a lot of work for those is usually outsourced. I wonder if this next one will be noticeably bigger in scope or if another Pokemon game has been in the works since at least late last year. Matsumiya not being involved in SV at all kind of makes me think the latter. I don't know if they would put the above staff on DLC that early instead of the initial release.
 
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Some of the absences on Scarlet/Violet. Some of these could have since left or were just doing contract work. I've left out artists for the most part, as it's more difficult to tell if they work at GF, Creatures, or a contract/freelance role.

Giga Wrecker Alt
Little Town Hero
Sword/Shield
Arceus

Planning

  • Tetsuya Odate
  • Masahito Nagasu
  • Atsushi Terachi
  • Rena Koda
  • Katsunori Suginaka
  • Kensaku Iwata
  • Hidenaga Endo
  • Keita Okamoto
  • Kazumasa Iwao (Directed USUM/Arceus)
  • Toshinobu Matsumiya (Main writer for most of the original titles)
  • Miku Yoshida
  • Tetsuji Ohta
  • Yuki Asada

Programming
  • Kazuhiko Takata
  • Yuji Tomura
  • Kei Fujita
  • Shimon Sakamoto
  • Yuji Tomura
  • Masao Taya (Directed Pocket Card Jockey/Little Town Hero)
  • Manabu Ishioka
  • Katsuhiko Ichiraku
  • Akira Endo
  • Naoya Uematsu
  • Masateru Ishiguro
  • Masayuki Onoue (Directed Giga Wrecker/Alt)
  • Takafumi Uechi
  • Nicholas Dahms
  • Hiroyuki Nakamura
  • Katsumi Ono
  • Syo Araki
  • Koji Kawada
  • Takumi Harada
  • Junya Ikuta
  • Yuya Ikeuchi

Art
  • Tsubasa Matsuzaki
  • Hitomi Ogawa
  • Junsei Kuninobu


We know that GF has at least one Gear Project game in development, but a lot of work for those is usually outsourced. I wonder if this next one will be noticeably bigger in scope or if another Pokemon game has been in the works since at least late last year. Matsumiya not being involved in SV at all kind of makes me think the latter. I don't know if they would put the above staff on DLC that early instead of the initial release.
Game Freak's new gear project seems reasonably big in terms of scope based on job listings for it

Edit: most of the listings are contract roles though
 
Quoted by: Leo
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Game Freak's new gear project seems reasonably big in terms of scope based on job listings for it

Edit: most of the listings are contract rolesthough

I mean, at this point they're already working on two pokémon games, most likely. One since Arceus wrapped and probably gen 10 pre production.
 
I mean, at this point they're already working on two pokémon games, most likely. One since Arceus wrapped and probably gen 10 pre production.
Gen 10 Pre production probably only started last month and isn't really a staff drain until actual production. I can maybe see actual production for a nextgen engine but, Gen 10 is probably still in the conceptual phase. I would assume that the SV Expansion would have started using some Arceus and some SV staff along with the start of production on the Gen V remakes/Legends game though.
 
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curious...
 
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At this point, I’m expecting Tani to be in charge of the DLC like he was for SwSh, Ohmori beginning pre-production on Gen 10 while producing other entries in between, maybe Kazumasa Iwao on the next Legends/side game, and someone (probably Masao Taya) leading the next Gear Project title.

Reception aside, I also wouldn’t be surprised if ILCA returns for a BW remake or whatever is being planned for Gen 5, if anything. BDSP sold very well, but based on the Planning Lead only jumping ship from Vanpool back in August 2020, I can’t imagine the game was in development for that long. Hopefully things would be better planned this time around.
 
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