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News Nikkei: Nintendo is planning to construct a new building on the site of the former headquarters to expand its game development base.

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Nintendo is expanding its game development base.
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The company will lease approximately 8,500 square meters in a Kyoto City building under construction next to its headquarters and will move into the building in May 2022.
In addition, a new building for game production will be built on the site of Nintendo Kyoto Research Center (Kyoto City) on the site of the former headquarters as early as 2022.
In the past, the company has often outsourced game development, but it will increase the number of its employees.
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The new building will be located on the sixth and seventh floors of the new building of the Kyoto City Waterworks Bureau's southern base as a tenant.
The company is subject to Kyoto City's "Corporate Location Promotion System" and will receive subsidies of up to 160 million yen every year for three years to cover part of its operation costs, depending on the number of new employees.
The number of employees and the amount of investment is not disclosed. Neither the site area nor the number of employees of the building on the premises of the Kyoto Research Center has been disclosed.
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Nintendo announced at its management policy briefing in November that it would invest up to 100 billion yen to strengthen the hiring of developers over five years ending in March 2027.
By increasing the number of in-house employees in game development, the company will speed up development and reduce outsourcing costs.
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https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQOUF108JR0Q1A211C2000000/
 
I think the focus on staffing up stems from them realizing how person-hour intensive HD game development really is. They aren't getting games out fast enough, therefore they need more butts in seats. This new office space seems like a lotta buttspace.
 
There is something that I do not understand.
They say they will build a new building where the old headquarters used to be.

But the old headquarters still works right? In fact Nintendo in Kyoto are two buildings that are next to each other, and one of them was built relatively few years ago. So there is no Nintendo building under demolition to build a new building on the old headquarters, as the old headquarters is still in operation. I don't quite understand what they mean by a new building where the old headquarters used to be. If someone can explain these plans more clearly to someone like me, I would appreciate it.
 
I'm sure when they communicated their expansion plans they were already being planned and discussed for months if not years. In fact when they communicated it to the investors I'm sure most of it was already in motion.
 
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Onizuka said:
There is something that I do not understand.
They say they will build a new building where the old headquarters used to be.

But the old headquarters still works right? In fact Nintendo in Kyoto are two buildings that are next to each other, and one of them was built relatively few years ago. So there is no Nintendo building under demolition to build a new building on the old headquarters, as the old headquarters is still in operation. I don't quite understand what they mean by a new building where the old headquarters used to be. If someone can explain these plans more clearly to someone like me, I would appreciate it.
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It says the new building will be on the site of the Nintendo Kyoto Research Center. That’s not the current Nintendo HQ, it’s a building a couple blocks away and which used to be the HQ once if I remember right.
 
Onizuka said:
There is something that I do not understand.
They say they will build a new building where the old headquarters used to be.

But the old headquarters still works right? In fact Nintendo in Kyoto are two buildings that are next to each other, and one of them was built relatively few years ago. So there is no Nintendo building under demolition to build a new building on the old headquarters, as the old headquarters is still in operation. I don't quite understand what they mean by a new building where the old headquarters used to be. If someone can explain these plans more clearly to someone like me, I would appreciate it.
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There's definitely something lost in translation. Like how their "building" will be located on the 6th and 7th floors.
 
Onizuka said:
There is something that I do not understand.
They say they will build a new building where the old headquarters used to be.

But the old headquarters still works right? In fact Nintendo in Kyoto are two buildings that are next to each other, and one of them was built relatively few years ago. So there is no Nintendo building under demolition to build a new building on the old headquarters, as the old headquarters is still in operation. I don't quite understand what they mean by a new building where the old headquarters used to be. If someone can explain these plans more clearly to someone like me, I would appreciate it.
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Hosermess said:
There's definitely something lost in translation. Like how their "building" will be located on the 6th and 7th floors.
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They're leasing two floors of a new office complex which is next to their current R&D center (the one that opened in 2015, I think?).

They are building their own new building which will be on the site of their old R&D center.

At least that's my understanding from this.
 
MisterSpo said:
They're leasing two floors of a new office complex which is next to their current R&D center (the one that opened in 2015, I think?).

They are building their own new building which will be on the site of their old R&D center.

At least that's my understanding from this.
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Yes, that's right!
 
This talk about expansion is interesting. They've got the capital obviously. One thing that I'm asking myself is that an argument to be careful about expansion in the past has been that they wanted to preserve the specific working culture at Nintendo, and that quick growth could water that down too much. Curious what has changed. Happy to read it though, it's a bit overdue IMO.
 
All in all that's a pretty big increase of their development footprint in Kyoto. We may see a similar situation to recent developments in Tokyo, where they moved the EPD group there into a shared facility with development partners like HAL and Game Freak. Outside of EPD, I don't think there are many Nintendo developers based in Kyoto, but I do know Intelligent Systems are there. IS moved out of the old Nintendo R&D building in 2013 to a separate building, so I dunno.

Outside of IS, though, I don't think there's any current subsidiary or long-term partner who would make use of this space, so this could purely be about expanding EPD itself. It seems like a pretty big jump in facilities for them, which is positive.
 
Nintendo's a fairly steady company, so it makes a lot of sense for them to decrease reliance on outsourcing / contractors. I know it'll be years before we see the fruits of this move, but I am wondering: will this expansion be primarily support staff, like Monolith Soft Kyoto, so they can make games faster? Or are they increasing the number of teams to make more games at the same time?

If the prior, it's easy to imagine getting more sequels, and if the latter, more diverse games, as who wants to have three similar games being developed simultaneously?
 
MisterSpo said:
Outside of IS, though, I don't think there's any current subsidiary or long-term partner who would make use of this space, so this could purely be about expanding EPD itself. It seems like a pretty big jump in facilities for them, which is positive.
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If I had to guess, I'd say SRD.
 
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Figured we wouldn't see anything till at least next year so this is a pleasant surprise. Hope this means that the Switch 2 can start off with a bang or at least be steady throughout its life
 
MisterSpo said:
They're leasing two floors of a new office complex which is next to their current R&D center (the one that opened in 2015, I think?).

They are building their own new building which will be on the site of their old R&D center.

At least that's my understanding from this.
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There is still something I don't understand.
The old headquarters was never demolished, when they built the new headquarters in 2015, the old building right next to it was still standing (and in operation as I understand it). I mean they can't build a building where there is already a building, what was that old headquarters being used for? Because I think it was still running.

This is the new building from 2015, built right next to the old building.
1498795560_359946_1532089294_portada_normal.jpg



And this is the old building, which is still standing and working. So I don't really understand what they are expanding (beyond buying 2 floors in a neighboring building) or what the real change is when they already had these two buildings since 2015.

nhq.900x.jpg
 
Onizuka said:
There is still something I don't understand.
The old headquarters was never demolished, when they built the new headquarters in 2015, the old building right next to it was still standing (and in operation as I understand it). I mean they can't build a building where there is already a building, what was that old headquarters being used for? Because I think it was still running.

This is the new building from 2015, built right next to the old building.
1498795560_359946_1532089294_portada_normal.jpg



And this is the old building, which is still standing and working. So I don't really understand what they are expanding (beyond buying 2 floors in a neighboring building) or what the real change is when they already had these two buildings since 2015.

nhq.900x.jpg
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it might be torn down for a larger, replacement
 
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Onizuka said:
There is still something I don't understand.
The old headquarters was never demolished, when they built the new headquarters in 2015, the old building right next to it was still standing (and in operation as I understand it). I mean they can't build a building where there is already a building, what was that old headquarters being used for? Because I think it was still running.

This is the new building from 2015, built right next to the old building.
1498795560_359946_1532089294_portada_normal.jpg



And this is the old building, which is still standing and working. So I don't really understand what they are expanding (beyond buying 2 floors in a neighboring building) or what the real change is when they already had these two buildings since 2015.

nhq.900x.jpg
Click to expand...

The two buildings aren’t actually that close to each other.
 
I'm sure Nintendo has seen quite a lot of results with the likes of Mercury Steam, however, capitalism sort of dicates, "hey this was actually quite successful. Hmmmm but we would have made 10-20% more profit if we had the ability to do it in house. Let's expand and do that"

Same with a lot of games and series honestly too. Smash with Namco, ect. I don't know how many more games we will get, but I suspect we will just see a lot more in-house games.
 
Lozjam said:
I'm sure Nintendo has seen quite a lot of results with the likes of Mercury Steam, however, capitalism sort of dicates, "hey this was actually quite successful. Hmmmm but we would have made 10-20% more profit if we had the ability to do it in house. Let's expand and do that"

Same with a lot of games and series honestly too. Smash with Namco, ect. I don't know how many more games we will get, but I suspect we will just see a lot more in-house games.
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I doubt this is to bring games like Metroid inhouse rather than to make more of their 10m+ sellers.
 
Lozjam said:
I'm sure Nintendo has seen quite a lot of results with the likes of Mercury Steam, however, capitalism sort of dicates, "hey this was actually quite successful. Hmmmm but we would have made 10-20% more profit if we had the ability to do it in house. Let's expand and do that"

Same with a lot of games and series honestly too. Smash with Namco, ect. I don't know how many more games we will get, but I suspect we will just see a lot more in-house games.
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yea, Metroid ain't that. Nintendo won't stop outsourcing work and Metroid will probably still be done by external studios
 
Maybe they're building a new love hotel.........

In all seriousness this is interesting news. They're looking to expand far more rapidly then I initially thought. Clearly they've identified long dev times and the need for big teams as a potential weakness going forward so they're future proofing themselves at least. Good that they're not sitting on their laurels. And if means a new F-Zero, then that'll do nicely
 
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The new public building is right between the 2 Nintendo buildings, its gonna be finished in March 2022 and Nintendo got two floors
 
rokero said:
Hopefully this means more obscure franchises can be brought back like a new MachRider
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Sadly it won’t and I really hope people don’t expect that. I don’t think those games not being brought back had anything to do with a lack or resources or manpower.
 
SlightlyMadGames said:
Awesome :)

A new Building to develop the Super Metroid Remake for the Nintendo Switch ;)
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Bit far from Spain for that though.

Lozjam said:
I'm sure Nintendo has seen quite a lot of results with the likes of Mercury Steam, however, capitalism sort of dicates, "hey this was actually quite successful. Hmmmm but we would have made 10-20% more profit if we had the ability to do it in house. Let's expand and do that"



Same with a lot of games and series honestly too. Smash with Namco, ect. I don't know how many more games we will get, but I suspect we will just see a lot more in-house games.
Click to expand...

Nintendo doesn't do that, lol. If they didn't do it for Luigi's mansion, I can't even begin to fathom why anyone would think they would do it for Metroid, which is going to do a fraction of the sales and is a far less important i.p. to Nintendo
 
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