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

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oracion said:
Of course.
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Nice, first time I heard of it so I was out of the loop.
No, Game Freak counts contract workers.
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Uh, don't know why I was under the impression they didn't. Must have read it somewhere and assumed it was the case. Thank you.

Great to see them staff up so much because they sure need it, and have the means to do so comfortably in terms of costs. Increases my belief in the studio not wanting anything to do with "simplistic"(*) top-down anymore. I think it's all open world for the foreseeable future. If they announce anything GF-made during Pokémon Day I really can't see it being a chibi remake of Gen 5.

(*) Yes, I'm not saying top-down games are simplistic. You all get what I mean.
 
Vernal said:
Genuine question: are MyNavi numbers reliable? Because Game Freak's jump is huge by their standards (though March '22 to March '23 also was, even if in a smaller way.)

Edit: could that number include contract workers? Which if I remember correctly GF doesn't count on their site.
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The jump makes sense considering from around late 2022 to sometime September last year they were averaging like 70-80 openings on their job board at any point in time. This is with openings being closed and new ones opened consistently throughout the year. At it's peak it was around 90 if I'm remembering correctly.
 
I don't know if it has been previously discussed but Nintendo Systems has 230 employees, according to a job posting on the company's own website.

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boodream said:
It’s not. On the other hand, it’s interesting, because UE4 excludes the possibility that it’s the famous 2D game from EPD Tokyo.
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It always seemed very unlikely since 2d action implies something pretty specific while you still navigate a 3d space through a fixed camera in the game.
 
Oh yeah I'm fully on the boat that Good Feel are the developers Princess Peach Showtime now that we know it's using Unreal Engine.

I'm very excited for it since they're probably working on the game for a hell lot of time since Yoshi's Crafted World was done by late 2018. Not they jumped right into it(tho I'd be surprised if they hadn't at least started pre-production shortly after), but to me the visuals at least give a very good impression of polish(to the point that many believed it was Next Level Games).
 
If it truly is Good-Feel, I guess they completely transitioned away from proprietary tech. Yoshi's Crafted World and Princess Peach: Showtime are UE4, and Otogi Katsugeki Mameda no Bakeru is Unity.

Seems like Princess Peach is the most stable tech-wise, as Yoshi has incredibly low resolution and Mameda no Bakeru has absolutely abysmal framerates.
 
Whatever the developer, I wonder when the project was validated by Nintendo. How long before the release of the movie Nintendo decided to develop a new license around Peach? And I am also curious to know the impact that may have had the covid on the release timing of the game.

I hope there will be an ask the developer, it would be exciting to read.

I also think there is a very good chance that it is Good Feel. It must have made sense for several reasons. They can still make a Yoshi WW port for the start of the next console’s lifecycle. Then, either Yoshi switches to 3D, or Peach Showtime is a success they can work on a sequel.

That said, in the hypothesis that it would not be them but another studio, I would find it interesting that it is a collaboration a little unexpected. The Vicarious Vision alumni who worked on Mario kart home would be an interesting choice for example.
 
I'm willing to bet that PP:S is a co-developed project. Where EPD designed the base concept and mechanics in-house, then hired an outside party to bring it to life. Like Metroid Dread, WarioWare, and Sushi Striker.
 
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At the least to me Good-Feel implies a high quality game packed with content, and with surprising depth if going for 100%, if there is something equivalent to that in this game.
 
Other possible developers of Princess Peach besides Good-Feel are Arzest or Tose. They too have released games using the Unreal Engine.
 
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ceres15 said:
Why? Couldn't it be possible they're working on an early Switch 2 title or another title coming out this year? (They did Wario Land, right?)
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That’s certainly possible it’s just been five years since this team’s last game Yoshi’s Crafted World seems really early for them to then jump into making a game for next gen hardware
 
TheMoon said:
There's absolutely no rational reason for this. The studio literally just released an original IP game.
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Agreed. Good Feel has 2 studios. One studio works with other publishers (mainly Nintendo) and the other makes self-published titles (Monkey Barrels and Otogi Katsugeki Mameda no Bakeru: Oracle Saitarou no Sainan!!). If Princess Peach Showtime is from Good-Feel, then it would obviously be from the first studio. The delay could be from the fact that the second studio is relatively new it may have taken a while to get up and running.
 
The covid may have had an impact on the project’s development time or even on its planning by Nintendo. This may explain a longer delay.

I would really like to know how the project started. Did Nintendo decide to make a franchise about Princess Peach and then went to several studios for ideas? Did they have a studio in mind, probably Good Feel, from the beginning of the project? Or is it on the contrary an external developer, who may still be Good Feel, who went to Nintendo to propose the project?
 
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MvDK credits (there's two versions of the credits sequence but I believe the names are identical between them).




Developed by NST, as we already figured out after the reveal. Seemed to be produced under EPD Group 2 after all though; unlike past titles in the series Tanabe was not a producer.
 
Lawrence Schwelder working with NST again after he left them in 2012 is cool to see, and he brought his company onto the project too: 'Schwedbeast Studios'! He was the composer on the original game.
 
Vast majority of NST staff have now recently been credited between this and F-Zero 99.

Seems like EPD 6 will focus on known quantities for the time being (Retro,NLG). Makes WarioWare being transferred over to them even stranger.
 
N75 said:
Vast majority of NST staff have now recently been credited between this and F-Zero 99.

Seems like EPD 6 will focus on known quantities for the time being (Retro,NLG). Makes WarioWare being transferred over to them even stranger.
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EPD 6 and 7 have IPs in common (Wario, Metroid) and both have collaborations with Intelligent Systems (Paper Mario for EPD 6 and Wario Ware, as well as, for a long time, 2D Metroid for EPD7). Rather than a transfer of WarioWare, I think we can talk more about a logical unification. Now that Nintendo's development environment is unified with an hybrid console, bringing the teams together and streamlining them makes sense.

Technically, EPD 7 nearly doesn't do anything other than 2D Metroid anymore, because it's Sakamoto's baby (yeah, I know Samus, I know, "the baby") and he won't share it with anyone else as long as he's around, but in the future it makes no sense for the people who work on Metroid, in 2D as in 3D, not to end up belonging to the same group.

We've just seen a similar and equally logical connection between EPD 8 and EPD 10, with an EPD Tokyo producer actively involved in the development of Wonder at EPD 10. It seems completely logical that 3D Mario and 2D Mario should share the same management, just as EPD 3 manages both 2D Zelda and 3D Zelda.

So these connections don't seem so strange to me. As long as Sakamoto is around, there will be a separate entity to look after 2D Metroid. As long as Tezuka and Miyamoto are there, EPD 10 will remain "THEIR" group. But in the longer term, simplifying and bringing the teams together is the whole point of Nintendo Switch, so it's inevitable.

Instead of having several groups working on different platforms, there will be fewer groups, but they'll be bigger and the projects will be more homogeneous, bearing in mind that the internal mobility of Nintendo's teams is its greatest strength. As we've just seen once again. Working on Splatoon doesn't mean you can't go and work on Pikmin or Mario afterwards, just as you can be the director of Mario Wonder after working on 2D Zelda for a long time. There are just special cases with iconic producers.
 
MondoMega said:
MvDK credits (there's two versions of the credits sequence but I believe the names are identical between them).




Developed by NST, as we already figured out after the reveal. Seemed to be produced under EPD Group 2 after all though; unlike past titles in the series Tanabe was not a producer.
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huh? I was totally expecting tanabe to be credited as producer. So this is another series not being in epd6 and going to epd2.. i wonder if we'll see epd2 merge with 6 at some point if projects are going to them.
 
I expect that the groups won't really make sense any more, except for Nintendo's core games. I mean, yes, Mario, Zelda, Mario Kart or Animal Crossing have very distinct teams, but on the other hand, what was SPD no longer needs to be split into different groups when development is unified.
 
boodream said:
I expect that the groups won't really make sense any more, except for Nintendo's core games. I mean, yes, Mario, Zelda, Mario Kart or Animal Crossing have very distinct teams, but on the other hand, what was SPD no longer needs to be split into different groups when development is unified.
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I imagine that at some point epd6 and 7 will end up merged to 2, maybe not this or not next year but like in the next 5 years
 
Nemesis24 said:
huh? I was totally expecting tanabe to be credited as producer. So this is another series not being in epd6 and going to epd2.. i wonder if we'll see epd2 merge with 6 at some point if projects are going to them.
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Its more that EPD Group 2 is now the team in charge of handling games from external developers. They took over the Fire Emblem, Pokemon, and Xenoblade series as well.
 
Since we're talking about possible reorganisations in the medium term, it would seem quite logical to me that the people from Bamco who work on EPD 9 should end up being integrated into it, along the same lines as what happened with the people from Flagship who worked with EPD 3. It may not happen straight away, but I think it will happen eventually, because Mario Kart is simply too strategic and too important for EPD.


Smash's situation is obviously different and very specific given Sakurai's special status.
 
MagiCarbo said:
Its more that EPD Group 2 is now the team in charge of handling games from external developers. They took over the Fire Emblem, Pokemon, and Xenoblade series as well.
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yeah im aware, it took it from epd1 for a while. but as tanabe has been working in basically the same series for the last 10 years I expected him to have been working on this as well, same as paper mario and metroid prime. I wonder how things will happen in the future.
 
Nemesis24 said:
yeah im aware, it took it from epd1 for a while. but as tanabe has been working in basically the same series for the last 10 years I expected him to have been working on this as well, same as paper mario and metroid prime. I wonder how things will happen in the future.
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I wonder if Tanabe's official appointment to a position in charge of Nintendo's diversification means he's taken a step back as a producer at EPD?
 
sanstea said:
EPD Tokyo needing over 7 years for their new project is just insane.

I'm confident they've gone through a smaller Retro Studios special - had a game for the Switch in development that was completely cancelled ~3 years in.
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I think they worked on Mario and Donkey at the same time, which was too much, because Donkey wasn't a small project like Nes Remix or Toad. Besides, it's only been 3 years since Bowser Fury, although I know NST did everything, I hear here.
 
sanstea said:
EPD Tokyo requiring over 7 years for their new project is just insane.

I'm confident they've gone through a smaller Retro Studios special - had a game for the Switch in development that was completely cancelled and thrown into the bin ~3 years in.
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I mean, probably. That's pretty common these days. They might have gone through a billion prototypes (the most advanced of which was Bowser's Fury which they passed off to NST to complete) before settling on the game they wanted to make.

You're gonna feel pretty ashamed of your words and deeds when this is an open world Mario game with 100 hours of content and extensive multiplayer, of course.
 
sanstea said:
EPD Tokyo requiring over 7 years for their new project is just insane.

I'm confident they've gone through a smaller Retro Studios special - had a game for the Switch in development that was completely cancelled ~3 years in and started a new one for the next system.
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my tinfoil hat theory is it's part victims of circumstance and part "the ol' Galaxy 2/Tears of the Kingdom special"

1. They start working on Odyssey DLC; that eventually turns into an Odyssey 2 instead which takes things in a more Bowser's Fury-esque direction
2. They can't get what they want to do running decently on current Switch, start aiming to have it as a launch title for the planned "Switch Pro"
3. COVID hits, Switch Pro is scrapped, they take the bones of what they have and hand it over to NST who turn it into a bonus side-mode for the 3D World port (where things like the poor performance and dropping to 30fps in handheld won't be as big a deal because hey, it's just a bonus anyway)
4. EPD Tokyo gets working on a 3D Mario game for the Switch 2 launch-game

Throw in the rumors of them possibly trying to make something happen with Donkey Kong during all of this and it kinda maybe explains their extended absence
 
sanstea said:
EPD Tokyo requiring over 7 years for their new project is just insane.

I'm confident they've gone through a smaller Retro Studios special - had a game for the Switch in development that was completely cancelled and thrown into the bin ~3 years in.
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we have no idea of the scope of the next 3D Mario,it could be a massively ambitous game, also the pandemic problaby screw up the development process
 
sanstea said:
EPD Tokyo requiring over 7 years for their new project is just insane.

I'm confident they've gone through a smaller Retro Studios special - had a game for the Switch in development that was completely cancelled and thrown into the bin ~3 years in.
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"requiring"

we need to stop doing this, we need to transfer knowledge from things we know onto other things and remember that we know them. we know they gave tears of the kingdom a whole extra year just to polish things up, we know they sat on fire emblem engage and metroid prime r for like over a year, we know they give time to try out and explore ideas.

framing things as "requiring" 7 years is putting a flavor on the whole thing that is not supported by evidence. my response here is affected by somewhat unrelated things happening in the gaming sphere these past few weeks but the same "we don't really learn from things" issue applies to both of these cases.

we don't know if they're sweating trying to get a game out and they just couldn't do it until now. we don't know if they have 2 new games sitting there waiting mostly done while they "tighten up the graphics on level 3". we don't know.

yes, they've not released a new, full, standalone, original game since 2017. but let's also stop doing the thing where we ignore the two games they did release since then as if those did not require new work and time (and please let's also not do the "but NST" thing for the n-th time).

EPD Tokyo's last game came out in 2020 2021. Not in 2017.

edit: fixed date
 
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Didn’t the hiring listing for the 3D title in Tokyo go up in late 2019? That’s probably when they started going full steam ahead on the next 3D Mario. Throw in Covid and them potentially working on DK in tandem, and if it comes out in March 2025 that’s just over 5 years of development.

A year longer than Odyssey on more powerful hardware with a bunch of other factors seems quite reasonable to me. If Bowser’s Fury was a prototype that they handed off to NST in mid 2019 or so, then that fills the year after the release of Odyssey too
 
Best summary of key milestones for EPD Tokyo this generation I can get:

DateEventNotes
2016/10/20Super Mario Odyssey - initial teaser footagePart of First Look at Nintendo Switch trailer.
2017/01/13Super Mario Odyssey - revealedFeatured in Nintendo Switch Presentation.
2017/07/XXSuper Mario Odyssey - rated in multiple regionsGame should be content complete around this time.
2017/10/27Super Mario Odyssey - releasedDeveloped primarily by EPD 8.
2018/02/21Super Mario Odyssey - Balloon World update released-
2018/03/08Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker port - revealedFeatured in that month's Nintendo Direct.
2018/03/26Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker port - earliest known rating (USK - 3DS)Game should be content complete around this time.
2018/04/05Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker port - earliest known rating (USK - Switch)Game should be content complete around this time.
2018/04/26Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker port - release build compiled (Switch ver.)Determined via datamining.
2018/07/13Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker port - releasedDeveloped in cooperation between EPD 8 and NST.
2019/02/13Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker port - Co-Op update released-
2019/03/14Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker port - Special Episode DLC releasedDeveloped in cooperation between EPD 8 and NST.
2019/04/25Super Mario Odyssey - Toy-Con VR update released-
2019/06/28Super Mario Maker 2 - releasedKoichi Hayashida seemingly left EPD 8 between 2018 and here.
2019/07/29Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker port - Toy-Con VR update released-
2019/10/04Nintendo publishes job recruitment for 3D Action Game in TokyoLink
2020/01/XXNintendo announces imminent plans to relocate Tokyo officesPotential impact on game production.
2020/03/20Super Mario 3D All-Stars - earliest known rating (USK)Game should be content complete around this time.
2020/08/06Nintendo publishes job recruitment for 2D Action Game in TokyoLink
2020/09/03Super Mario 3D All-Stars - revealed
Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury - revealed		Featured in Super Mario Bros. 35th Anniversary Direct.
2020/09/18Super Mario 3D All-Stars - releasedEmulation developed by iQue (N64) and NERD (GC / Wii).
EPD 8 created the game selection launcher (via datamining).
2020/09/XXSuper Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury - rated in multiple regionsGame should be content complete around this time.
2020/11/25Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury - release build compiledDetermined via datamining.
2021/02/12Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury - releasedDeveloped in cooperation between EPD 8 and NST.
2023/09/14F-Zero 99 - releasedDeveloped by NST, but utilising 3D Mario engine (Action Library).
Takeshi Hayakawa credited as Technical Producer.
 
boodream said:
I think they worked on Mario and Donkey at the same time, which was too much, because Donkey wasn't a small project like Nes Remix or Toad. Besides, it's only been 3 years since Bowser Fury, although I know NST did everything, I hear here.
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We've posted about the same topic in this thread and it's incorrect to say "NST did everything". EPD Tokyo had about 20 developers, NST about 40, 1-UP about 20 in the core staff. EPD Tokyo had the most lead senior developers, and they probably ported 3D Mario World in-house, and were the root of the Bowser's Fury prototype NST helped finish.

MondoMega said:
Super Mario 3D All-Stars - releasedEmulation developed by iQue (N64) and NERD (GC / Wii).
EPD 8 created the game selection launcher (via datamining).
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Super Mario Galaxy (3D All-Stars) was probably ported by Nintendo PTD Porting Technology Team or EPD Tokyo. NERD only takes credit assisting in emu tools that the port team used during development.


boodream said:
Technically, EPD 7 nearly doesn't do anything other than 2D Metroid anymore, because it's Sakamoto's baby (yeah, I know Samus, I know, "the baby") and he won't share it with anyone else as long as he's around, but in the future it makes no sense for the people who work on Metroid, in 2D as in 3D, not to end up belonging to the same group.
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You are forgetting Tomodachi Collection / Miitomo which is under EPD 7's jurisdiction and should still be considered one of the most noteworthy IPs the company probably has been working on for a long time. What happens to Rhythm Tengoku / Dr. Mario is still up in the air.
 
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EAD Ninja said:
We've posted about the same topic in this thread and it's incorrect to say "NST did everything". EPD Tokyo had about 20 developers, NST about 40, 1-UP about 20 in the core staff. EPD Tokyo had the most lead senior developers, and they probably ported 3D Mario World in-house, and were the root of the Bowser's Fury prototype NST helped finish.
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My comment was obviously ironic, and referred to the recurrent discussions on this subject here. The point of my post was mainly to say that no, of course not, EPD Tokyo hasn't been working on the next 3D Mario "for 7 years".

EAD Ninja said:
You are forgetting Tomodachi Collection / Miitomo which is under EPD 7's jurisdiction and should still be considered one of the most noteworthy IPs the company probably has been working on for a long time. What happens to Rhythm Tengoku / Dr. Mario is still up in the air.
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It's not that I'm forgetting about these licences, it's just that they haven't been active during the Switch's lifecycle so far. While a late release can't be ruled out, we haven't even had a port of Todomachi, while even Miitopia has arrived on Switch.

From the point of view of streamlining EPD groups, none of these other licences, as Wario Ware recently showed, are as inseparable from Sakamoto as Metroid in my opinion. With the exception of Famicom Detective Club, whose remakes are precisely the only other projects he has produced for Switch.
 
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