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News Nintendo Acquires Shiver Entertainment from Embracer Group (Port Studio behind Mortal Kombat 1 on Switch, and others)

Danny said:
Being that small makes it even weirder that Nintendo bought them. They won't be offloading much work from Nintendo being that size.
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Smart folks who worked on porting some key titles and preventing a brain drain as they’re on unstable grounds (Embracer Group, Nintendo Switch at the end of its lifecycle + no future contracts or tie-in game), could be reasons for Nintendo to acquire them.
Just from looking at their portfolio and quality of work (or rather what they had to work with) on a surface level.
 
Sin & Punishment said:
That's very strange.

There are better port studios out there that they could have acquired.

But I guess the Embracer situation made this one very available, and likely inexpensive.
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Yeah, that and Nintendo seems to prefer buying “no name” studios to then build up/invest in. Thereby having a pretty direct connection to it’s value.

Plus, an internal studio for 3rd party ports NOW with direct access/contact with Nintendo? Sounds like a no brainer.
 
Apopheniac said:
When Embracer bought them, they were a studio of 17, and I'd imagine they haven't grown much since. They were also supposedly working on original titles, though who knows what would've happened to those.

I can't be too mad at Nintendo scooping this crew up, considering the alternative headline for the studio would've likely been its closure. Curious to see what they do in the future.
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I feel they've been looking to acquire a port studio and they jumped on the first opportunity. Other port studios such as Virtuos, Panic Button, QLOC or Saber might be just too massive for Nintendo to acquire. They can always expand Shiver.

Nintendo, or more specifically Nintendo of America is definitely planning for something about third party support. First they hired Gio Corsi and now they have a small but efficient port studio. They'll probably work towards having something bigger, some sort of direct service for third party partners. They seem to be aiming for platform parity.
 
NintenDuvo said:
The fact that no "insider" scooped this is also amazing and shows that Nintendo are still the kings of Sleuth
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Not even Pyoro said anything. Not that he should've said something, but it goes to show that when private companies of that size get bought, virtually nobody knows about it outside of just the people involved.
 
Furukawa did mention that there would have been investments in gaming

In regards to “building software assets,” investments in visual content, which is entertainment other than video games, are currently taking precedence in our cash utilization. However, in the future, there may also be video game-related investments, and it is possible that this will have something to do with the successor to Nintendo Switch
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yntsire said:
Yeah, that and Nintendo seems to prefer buying “no name” studios to then build up/invest in. Thereby having a pretty direct connection to it’s value.

Plus, an internal studio for 3rd party ports NOW with direct access/contact with Nintendo? Sounds like a no brainer.
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That’s a good point.

Plus Nintendo are notorious of seeing talent in people and developers, heck most of Nintendo top employees were either working with woods or heavily invested in puppets.

Hopefully they’ll get the supports they need to succeed, with what’s happening with embracer group.

Like they might also work in Backward compatibility enhancements, similar to the company that does NSO emulation.
 
9-Volt said:
I feel they've been looking to acquire a port studio and they jumped on the first opportunity. Other port studios such as Virtuos, Panic Button, QLOC or Saber might be just too massive for Nintendo to acquire. They can always expand Shiver.

Nintendo, or more specifically Nintendo of America is definitely planning for something about third party support. First they hired Gio Corsi and now they have a small but efficient port studio. They'll probably work towards having something bigger, some sort of direct service for third party partners. They seem to be aiming for platform parity.
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Interesting. Sounds like a "boring" acquisition on paper, but has potential to be an important team working in the background later on.
 
Hocot8 said:
do "insiders" typically even know this kind of thing?
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The studio being located in Miami probably makes it harder to come across gossip. It's not a big game development hub relative to other cities.

It's also relatively small, so there wouldn't be many people who'd know to begin with.
 
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Full disclosure: When I first skimmed through the press release, I completely misunderstood the "subsidiary overview" and spent a few seconds trying to figure out how Nintendo bought a studio for $10.
 
MilkyChance said:
I won’t be surprise if they sign Mercury-steam next, since they’re fans of there work and since they have done a good job making the 2D Metroid games
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I don't think they can, I believe they're owned by another company with no interest in selling.
 
Who wants to place bets on Shiver's first few Switch 2 ports?

I'm going to say Dragon Age: Dreadwolf.

Perhaps a Microsoft title like Avowed.

And of course the upcoming Wonder Woman game since they've got the WB connection.
 
Lugia667 said:
Their port on Mortal Kombat One was widely panned but some others were praised.
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I’m more surprised that Mortal Kombat 1 didn’t get a PS4 and Xbox one release, instead the Switch port is from a PS5 game, which is impressive (despite the game not looking the best)
 
Lugia667 said:
Their port on Mortal Kombat One was widely panned but some others were praised.
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When it released, it was very bad. But it's since been heavily patched - it's received over a dozen patches, and performance is a lot better.

Mortal Kombat 11 had solid performance, even if graphically it didn't stack up to the other versions. But that's to be a given, really.
 
well that certainly came out of nowhere, and honestly a very interesting one as well. The wording about porting to multiple systems is an interesting, though I wonder if that just means switch and switch 2 in this situation. Guess we will have to wait and see what the next several years means for this company.
 
For a refresher, I'm pretty sure the last company Nintendo acquired was Next Level back in… 2021ish, I think? They generally only step in when a studio is looking to be acquired, and Nintendo doesn't want to lose the relationship. I wonder if Embracer was looking to sell/shut down Shiver, so Nintendo stepped in to take them, knowing they have experience porting games to Nintendo hardware and going elsewhere would likely shift the studio's priority to other consoles? It will certainly be valuable going forward.

I don't get the sense Nintendo went out of its way to acquire the studio. Especially given the whole "going to continue business as usual" part.

Edit: okay, there were a few other minor acquisitions since NLG. The larger point still stands though.
 
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bixente said:
Mortal Kombat 11 had solid performance, even if graphically it didn't stack up to the other versions. But that's to be a given, really.
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Yeah, considering the game not even on PS4 and Xbox One but somehow end up on Switch.
 
Please refrain from referencing Hogwarts Legacy in any capacity. For more information, please refer to the banned content list. - Lord Azrael, ngpdrew, IsisStormDragon, meatbag
Is this about helping make sure the next wizard game gets a top selling port? That seems like a very sound strategy, financially.
 
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Lugia667 said:
MercurySteam is owned by someone called Sociedad Limitada who I literally know nothing about. They don't even have a wikipedia page
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Pretty sure that just company type and not the parent company (the S.L. in the name is short for that word, meaning some kind of limited). The only thing I can find is some company named Nordisk Games who bought 40% of MS in 2020.
 
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Lugia667 said:
MercurySteam is owned by someone called Sociedad Limitada who I literally know nothing about. They don't even have a wikipedia page
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That's Spanish for "private limited company", which is the type of company MercurySteam is. Nordisk Film currently has a 40% stake in them, though.
 
Starphanluke said:
For a refresher, I'm pretty sure the last company Nintendo acquired was Next Level back in… 2021ish, I think? They generally only step in when a studio is looking to be acquired, and Nintendo doesn't want to lose the relationship. I wander if Embracer was looking to sell/shut down Shiver, so Nintendo stepped in to take them, knowing they have experience porting games to Nintendo hardware and going elsewhere would likely shift the studio's priority to other consoles? It will certainly be valuable going forward.

I don't get the sense Nintendo went out of its way to acquire the studio. Especially given the whole "going to continue business as usual" part.
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Yeah, this is exactly what I think happened given the history of both Nintendo and Embracer.
 
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Starphanluke said:
For a refresher, I'm pretty sure the last company Nintendo acquired was Next Level back in… 2021ish, I think? They generally only step in when a studio is looking to be acquired, and Nintendo doesn't want to lose the relationship. I wander if Embracer was looking to sell/shut down Shiver, so Nintendo stepped in to take them, knowing they have experience porting games to Nintendo hardware and going elsewhere would likely shift the studio's priority to other consoles? It will certainly be valuable going forward.

I don't get the sense Nintendo went out of its way to acquire the studio. Especially given the whole "going to continue business as usual" part.
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I think most recent was SRD (Systems Research and Development). They'd been doing programming support since the NES era and I believe were operating out of Nintendo HQ already, but they weren't acquired until 2022

e: forgot Dynamo Pictures (now Nintendo Pictures) was also 2022
 
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metwars said:
well that certainly came out of nowhere, and honestly a very interesting one as well. The wording about porting to multiple systems is an interesting, though I wonder if that just means switch and switch 2 in this situation. Guess we will have to wait and see what the next several years means for this company.
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I’m guessing they’ll keep porting games on the PS5 and Xbox, meanwhile the Switch 2 ports get’s higher priority.
 
So, will this studio become a port machine for Nintendo (Nintendo do the ports themselves)? or will it be a Nintendo's support studio for 3rd party developers (3rd party developers will be assisted by Shiver if they want to be helped)?
 
Starphanluke said:
For a refresher, I'm pretty sure the last company Nintendo acquired was Next Level back in… 2021ish, I think? They generally only step in when a studio is looking to be acquired, and Nintendo doesn't want to lose the relationship. I wander if Embracer was looking to sell/shut down Shiver, so Nintendo stepped in to take them, knowing they have experience porting games to Nintendo hardware and going elsewhere would likely shift the studio's priority to other consoles? It will certainly be valuable going forward.

I don't get the sense Nintendo went out of its way to acquire the studio. Especially given the whole "going to continue business as usual" part.
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I thought the last company was the animation studio now renamed Nintendo Pictures
 
Nintendo Austin (Retro Studios) is now joined by Nintendo Miami (Shiver Entertainment)
 
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