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

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@KarmaDesires

Nintendo co-developed games are usually programmed and (partially or fully) designed by an external team under the guidance of someone from Nintendo. Remember that even the original Super Mario Bros. was not fully developed in-house but programmed by SRD following Miyamoto and Tezuka's direction. SRD, Intelligent Systems, HAL Laboratory, PAX Softonica, and TOSE were Nintendo's programming arm during the early years (early 80s / late 90s). I guess they had different kinds of contracts, so you see Intelligent Systems' name on the title screen of Super Metroid, whereas SRD and PAX were not mentioned in the title screens of Mario World and Donkey Kong '94 (and TOSE by policy is always anonymous).

This interview with a former IntSys employee sheds some light on the relationship between the two companies
I originally made [the Game Bpy game Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru] to be more of an RPG like The Legend of Zelda, but I realized that copying it wouldn’t be very interesting, so midway through I simplified the battle system. I actually remade the whole system 3 times, partly because Super Mario Club (Nintendo’s in-house playtesting/debugging group) gave the first version a bad review. A
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[Super Metroid] was a joint venture between Nintendo and Intelligent Systems, with Nintendo doing the planning and design, and we did all the programming. In the final push before the deadline, though, we all worked together at Nintendo’s main office and pulled many consecutive all-nighters there.
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And we also have this interview with Iwata (at the time, president of HAL)
Back then, programmers had a lot of discretion. The concept of “director” didn’t really exist yet, and planning/spec docs were likewise fairly crude and vague. The programmer himself would make a lot of decisions about the content, making guesses about how players would react to such-and-such idea. Then we’d show what we had made to Nintendo, who would give their advice, and we would go back and revise it. Most of our developments followed that pattern.

[Nintendo] would send a very general outline, along with some concept art. Then we’d make the more detailed decisions on how to bring that to life in the game. For something like Pinball, for instance, we’d decide how the ball moved, how the flipper response should feel, all those little details. Pinball was actually really well-made: in fact, it was so well done that the recently released Pokemon Pinball game uses the same basic engine!

F-1 race was also a huge challenge in a different sense. It was the first game to use raster scrolling on the Famicom, a technique that many other companies would start using after. We had to program it ourselves; raster scrolling was not an innate feature of the Famicom hardware.
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So even though they were officially only handling "programming", the definition of "programming" back then also included designing the game to a certain extent (the battle system in Kaeru, the ball physics in Pinball), and they clearly worked very very close to Nintendo.

An interesting case is the original Famicom Wars, developed by Intelligent Systems under the direction of Satoru Okada from Nintendo, who also had the original idea. Likewise, Game Boy Wars was directed by Hirofumi Matsuoka from Nintendo. At the time, Wars was in the same position as Metroid -- a series designed by Nintendo, developed by Intelligent Systems. Starting with Super Famicom Wars, the series became a "proper IntSys series", with Nintendo people supervising the project only as (co-)producers.

The working relationship Nintendo has with Eighting (or in the past with Vitei, or Platinum for Star Fox Zero) is akin to these older development models, I think. Goddard from Vitei even described his team as an "extension of EAD". In this age and time developer roles are better understood and formalized, though, and of course games nowadays are a lot bigger and require more people.
 
EAD Ninja said:
This assumption is not correct for a few reasons. But I will begin with a question; do you think Sora/Masahiro Sakurai developed Smash Bros. Ultimate or "heavily supervised?" It's just one guy soo that means Bandai-Namco was the developer and he just supervised. Obviously the production hierarchy allows for less people to have more creative involvement depending on who commissions and leads development on a game. Many times in Nintendo's case with collaborations, they can have less people - but their actions weigh heavier on the creative design of the game -- because it's their game and the other developers involved are the subcontractors. For Star Fox Command, Takaya Imamura is the Masahiro Sakurai. He was the creative lead in the game's development and was lead on the gameplay direction, story direction, and overall production. Imamura even created the unique endings for the game.

Nintendo also did the music and sound effects on top of that. With Nintendo there's a lot of odd situations like that.
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I guess Star Fox Command was co-developed then, though the difference with SSBU is that Sakurai is credited as director while is Imamura is credited as producer. Maybe Dylan Cuthbert was trusted enough to be the sole director because of being involved with SF 1/2. How would you classify the Yoshi Good-Feel games?
 
AngryAlchemist said:
Let. him. COOK.
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absolutely not

master-chef-gordon-ramsey.gif
 
Gingerbread Man said:
@KarmaDesires

Nintendo co-developed games are usually programmed and (partially or fully) designed by an external team under the guidance of someone from Nintendo. Remember that even the original Super Mario Bros. was not fully developed in-house but programmed by SRD following Miyamoto and Tezuka's direction. SRD, Intelligent Systems, HAL Laboratory, PAX Softonica, and TOSE were Nintendo's programming arm during the early years (early 80s / late 90s). I guess they had different kinds of contracts, so you see Intelligent Systems' name on the title screen of Super Metroid, whereas SRD and PAX were not mentioned in the title screens of Mario World and Donkey Kong '94 (and TOSE by policy is always anonymous).
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Actually, there is no Intelligent Systems' name on the title screen of Super Metroid. The reality is consignment programmers don't have the luxury as subcontractors to put a flashy logo much anywhere. Nintendo hired and formed relationships with SRD, Iwasaki Electronics, Pax Softnica, and HAL to basically program or help program the myriad of games Nintendo was producing. Originally R&D1's programmers mainly had Game&Watch expertise, and hired Tose and Iwasaki Electronics (before IS) to program a lot of their NES games. R&D2 programmed their own games, which were kind of crappy, and also had Famicom tech duties. R&D3 programmed their own arcade games and NES games, but also had tech duties for chipset designs. R&D4 / EAD didn't have any programmers, but subcontracted SRD as their exclusive in-house programming team. HAL would also go on to port, program, or fix a few R&D2 and R&D4/EAD games. PaxSoftnica became Nintendo's Tokyo programming arm and literally was working in a hotel with Nintendo designers to work on several Famicom Disk games (later Super Famicom and Game Boy).

There's a lot to unpack. But SRD did move in-house with R&D4/EAD and Iwasaki and R&D1 formed TEC, as a joint venture, before it merged into IS, who basically also moved into the same building and worked as their programming arm. R&D1 did start hiring their own programmers for NES and Game Boy to work alongside or separate from IS. EAD also started hiring programmers (and stealing staff from R&D2).

Gingerbread Man said:
So even though they were officially only handling "programming", the definition of "programming" back then also included designing the game to a certain extent (the battle system in Kaeru, the ball physics in Pinball), and they clearly worked very very close to Nintendo.

An interesting case is the original Famicom Wars, developed by Intelligent Systems under the direction of Satoru Okada from Nintendo, who also had the original idea. Likewise, Game Boy Wars was directed by Hirofumi Matsuoka from Nintendo. At the time, Wars was in the same position as Metroid -- a series designed by Nintendo, developed by Intelligent Systems. Starting with Super Famicom Wars, the series became a "proper IntSys series", with Nintendo people supervising the project only as (co-)producers.
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R&D1 also did all the pixel art and music for Famicom / Game Boy Wars besides being the concept and director of the game. Sure the programmers had much more freedom in general, especially with things like physics and all sorts of things that probably couldn't be translated from the specification sheet and grid template Nintendo's design teams were using. But there must have been back and forth between the programmers and directors/planners on how the game should feel periodically. Unless we are arguing that Miyamoto/Tezuka designed the concepts and levels and then never had an interaction with program builds to move forward. Realistically they probably had tons of build interactions.

Really, crediting game production is ultimately about the lead team / production team that is handling all the moving pieces. 95% of the time, there's always a lead production team and then a few or several associated or hired subcontractors making up the full production team. That seems to have been the case for video game development from the 80s through now.
 
Giancarlo said:
Donkey Kong game levels are tighy designed, you can replicate that in 3D
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you basically just said 3D Mario is bad.

there's no logical follow through here. are you saying you can't make Donkey Kong COUNTRY exactly the same way but in 3D space? because nobody is talking about that. By definition a 3D DK game would be something else from the way the DKC games are designed, or the way any other DK works. I'm simply not buying any argument for "can't make a DK game in 3D" that isn't just veiled DK64 bashing.

KarmaDesires said:
I guess Star Fox Command was co-developed then, though the difference with SSBU is that Sakurai is credited as director while is Imamura is credited as producer. Maybe Dylan Cuthbert was trusted enough to be the sole director because of being involved with SF 1/2. How would you classify the Yoshi Good-Feel games?
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All the Yoshi games, including those by Arzest, had EPD level designers on them, if I'm not drunk. So that's already making things muddy.
 
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The simple truth is that 3D World already feels like a reskinned 3D Donke Kong Country. It even has the roll!

kidding

or am I?
 
TheMoon said:
you basically just said 3D Mario is bad.

there's no logical follow through here. are you saying you can't make Donkey Kong COUNTRY exactly the same way but in 3D space? because nobody is talking about that. By definition a 3D DK game would be something else from the way the DKC games are designed, or the way any other DK works. I'm simply not buying any argument for "can't make a DK game in 3D" that isn't just veiled DK64 bashing.


All the Yoshi games, including those by Arzest, had EPD level designers on them, if I'm not drunk. So that's already making things muddy.
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3D Mario completely changed it formula when Super Mario 64 was released back in 1996 on N64
 
Giancarlo said:
Mario went for 2D side scroller plataform game, to a 3D sandbox game
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why are you explaining this to me, though. pretty sure you can assume that everyone in this thread knows this very basic fact.

we can also just decide to drop this ridiculous "3D DK can't be good" topic and try to forget it ever happened :)
 
TheMoon said:
why are you explaining this to me, though. pretty sure you can assume that everyone in this thread knows this very basic fact.

we can also just decide to drop this ridiculous "3D DK can't be good" topic and try to forget it ever happened :)
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ok
 
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Yusuke Amano's last credit was New Horizons, in 2020; the EPD 8 2D game issued a hiring call in August 2020, so maybe Amano is attached to whatever that is (unless of course he does turn up on Wonder).
 
EAD Ninja said:
I think Tokyo owes Futoshi Shirai and Shinya Hiratake those new Project Leader / Director roles in Tokyo.
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Maybe Amano joins them as a planning supervisor. Alternatively, he's created another wacky new IP in Kyoto and it's targeting new hardware...
 
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Wasn't sure if indieszero would be handling the remasters themselves at first but the Famitsu article mentions that Masanobu Suzui will be at TGS for the game, so, very safe to say they are. An informed guess for now, if you will.

www.famitsu.com

Switch『ゲームセンターCX 1+2』発売決定。DS版の1作目と2作目を1本にまとめてリマスター&新作レトロ風ゲームも収録 | ゲーム・エンタメ最新情報のファミ通.com

有野課長でおなじみ『ゲームセンターCX』の新作ゲームがNintendo Switch（ニンテンドースイッチ）で発売。ニンテンドーDS版の初代＆続編を1作にまとめてリマスターした1本となる。
www.famitsu.com www.famitsu.com
 
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Obviously Nagoshi would love to get a Nintendo funded project signed (as would most people). Couldn't be arsed to ever seriously give Yakuza on their platforms a shot without them footing the bill lol. Not really anything of substance there.
 
EAD Ninja said:
Unless Yusuke Amano is the Co-Director or like Lead Planner, I seriously wonder what game they would give one of their top new game directors at this point since he isn't on Splatoon anymore.
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Isn't the next Animal Crossing the more likely next game for him?
 
NetEase wouldn’t allow it anyway, you don’t invest millions on a new studio just for it to not own what they make unless it’s a highly profitable IP (which F-Zero isn’t)
 
Gingerbread Man said:
They brought Famicom Detective Club back from the dead. Everything is possible.

Granted, they will not fund a new AAA installment of F-Zero, but a remake or a middle-budget game is very well in the realm of possibility.
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someone has to want it. Mages went to Sakamoto with the desire and Sakamoto vouched for them. do we know of anyone who's willing to stump for F-Zero in Nintendo?
 
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F-Zero feels like the kind of game Sumo Digital would pitch but I assume everyone involved is acutely aware of the financial risk involved.
 
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Giancarlo said:
F-Zero dead since 2004, why we still insist the franchise could return
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F-Zero like Metroid is a franchise beloved by Nintendo internet core fanbase that’s why. Also almost 2 decades without a new entry and one without a new console racer at all by Nintendo
 
with Mario Kart been a system seller, Nintendo dont see the point of suporting a franchise that akways sell worse
 
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Andre3333456 said:
If we're getting a new FDC game, it really needed a higher budget and go 3D.
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I'm kinda surprised there aren't many "3D adventure games". but given how many VN devs are so small as is, and they specialize in 2D work, it's kinda an obvious outcome that there aren't many
 
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The last AD games (In a similar fashion) that have been 3d are: The Somnium Files duology and RainCode. And out of the 3, RainCode is the more popular (given who worked on it) but unless you have a decent size studio and people experience in 3d dev its difficult. Maybe they could pull it off, MAGES doing the art and another studio (Maybe Spike?) doing the 3D environment.

The other question is, would they still keep the same name? I dont mind it, it kinda makes it a detective story for a younger audience.
 
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Giancarlo said:
F-Zero dead since 2004, why we still insist the franchise could return
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We live in an era where dead ip can get fans to fund millions of dollars on sites like kickstarters to see spiritual successors made. Dead IP are getting remastered/remade and in some cases the success of those remasters is leading to new projects being green lit. Just in the past few years here is a small list of dead ip that have been given a second chance

Advance Wars
Crash Bandicoot
Mega Man Battle Network
Famicom Detective Club
Rune Factory
Suikoden
Rhapsody
Baten Kaitos
Dead Space
Baldur's Gate
Samba De Amigo
Panzer Dragoon
Front Mission
Destroy All Humans

Now I do agree with feet that any ip to get a second chance needs to have someone who's willing to be a champion for it. It's why Chibi Robo despite being born a dead franchise got 5 games over the span of a decade as Skip went to bat for it. It's also silly to discount F-Zero when there's been a lot of credible insiders reporting a GX remaster is in the works.
 
how would you react if the next Legend of Zelda is still set on Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom Hyrule?
 
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Gingerbread Man said:
Kyogoku is likely to be promoted to producer, and Nogami to... EPD manager (?), I suppose? So Animal Crossing will need a new director.

Same for Fujibayashi and Aonuma.
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Nogami is a EPD Manager essentially. Until Eguchi retires (or moved to a Creative Fellow role), he probably won't be promoted. Kyogoku seems to be in the producer position already. She just had a more hands on role with New Horizons similar to like Ocarina of Time and Miyamoto.
As for Fujibayashi, I'm pretty sure they want another Nintendo veteran (Daiki Iwamoto or Makoto Miyanaga) to shepherd the series while keeping Fujibayashi more in just the main games.
 
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