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

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Giancarlo said:
Golden Sun reboot? why not a a Golden Sun 4?
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because it's been 14 years since Dark Dawn, which itself came 8 years after The Lost Age. essentially, ain't no one remember that story and telling people to just play the NSO versions to get caught up ain't gonna help numbers

doesn't help that the presentation was dry as a motherfucker. a reboot can fix a lot of problems and restart the series. doesn't even have to break the bank; personally, I want more Vita spec rpgs with modern lighting. shit would look fire
 
ILikeFeet said:
doesn't help that the presentation was dry as a motherfucker. a reboot can fix a lot of problems and restart the series. doesn't even have to break the bank; personally, I want more Vita spec rpgs with modern lighting. shit would look fire
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I've always thought MediaVision had the mold in Digimon Cybersleuth. Vita graphics but clean, cinematic specials (replace with summons) and decent environment. Add modern feature/tech and done.
 
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Giancarlo said:
Golden Sun reboot? why not a a Golden Sun 4?
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Nintendo's preferred choice when it comes to bringing back dormant IP seems to be doing double-pack remakes. So far they've done it with Advance Wars, Famicom Detective Club, and Another Code.

So if Golden Sun ever comes back, I think smart money says a reboot that combines the GBA games into a single game is probably the likeliest outcome.
 
I feel like Nintendo really like Cing but couldn't save them from bankruptcy because they were busy developing the 3ds and don't have to resort available to acquired them. Maybe the same thing happened with alpha dream were Nintendo were forced to choose between the a NLG with a proven track record of bangers on their hardware versus a studios that have been doing nothing but porting their tittles to a console Nintendo no longer interest in supporting.
 
LongDrake said:
I feel like Nintendo really like Cing but couldn't save them from bankruptcy because they were busy developing the 3ds and don't have to resort available to acquired them. Maybe the same thing happened with alpha dream were Nintendo were forced to choose between the a NLG with a proven track record of bangers on their hardware versus a studios that have been doing nothing but porting their tittles to a console Nintendo no longer interest in supporting.
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There was no choosing between Alpha Dream and NLG. The two events are separated by years. Alpha Dream just couldn't keep up with modern development, took out loans, and had games fall through. Cing might have been the same
 
LongDrake said:
I feel like Nintendo really like Cing but couldn't save them from bankruptcy because they were busy developing the 3ds and don't have to resort available to acquired them. Maybe the same thing happened with alpha dream were Nintendo were forced to choose between the a NLG with a proven track record of bangers on their hardware versus a studios that have been doing nothing but porting their tittles to a console Nintendo no longer interest in supporting.
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We have no clue if they even approached Nintendo about a potential buyout; possible that they'd rather go out swinging than lock themselves to Nintendo permanently, as both either did games outside of Nintendo (Cing jumped back and forth between Tecmo and Nintendo) or wanted to do so (AlphaDream was trying to shift to multiplatform development in its final years).

That said, if Nintendo wanted to buy Cing, they had the money to do so. Launching the 3DS wouldn't have stopped them; hell, they bought a majority stake in Monolith Soft in early 2007, meaning those business discussions were happening in the midst of launching the Wii the previous year. As for AlphaDream, their bankruptcy occurred months before NLG would have approached Nintendo about officially joining the family, so that wouldn't have been a factor either.
 
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AlphaDream was trying to make multiplatform HD games, it didn’t work out and they closed. I dont see what Nintendo should have done in such scenario
 
Blue Monty said:
AlphaDream was trying to make multiplatform HD games, it didn’t work out and they closed. I dont see what Nintendo should have done in such scenario
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Yeah, if I'm not mistaken the last game they released was "Kedama no Gonjiro: Fit and Run" - a mobile game published by ForwardWorks, a studio that's literally owned by Sony, and in 2018-2019 they were hiring for a multiplatform PS4/Switch game.
It seems like they wanted to split from Nintendo and it didn't work out for them, the onus wasn't on Nintendo to save them 🤷‍♂️
 
Neves said:
Yeah, if I'm not mistaken the last game they released was "Kedama no Gonjiro: Fit and Run" - a mobile game published by ForwardWorks, a studio that's literally owned by Sony, and in 2018-2019 they were hiring for a multiplatform PS4/Switch game.
It seems like they wanted to split from Nintendo and it didn't work out for them, the onus wasn't on Nintendo to save them 🤷‍♂️
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I don't see that as splitting from Nintendo. they were just looking for new revenue sources. they're still a third party company who made lower budgeted works for Nintendo. that couldn't keep the lights on forever
 
ILikeFeet said:
I don't see that as splitting from Nintendo. they were just looking for new revenue sources. they're still a third party company who made lower budgeted works for Nintendo. that couldn't keep the lights on forever
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For 20 years they developed games exclusively for Nintendo consoles that were also published by Nintendo themselves (obviously). Suddenly they decide to make a multiplatform game that would've been published by somebody else, to me that sounds like splitting up. I'm not saying they would've fully stopped working with Nintendo, they most likely would've been like Good-Feel where they work on both independent and Nintendo-published games.
I just don't agree with the people who are mad at Nintendo for not rescuing them by acquiring them.
 
SirArthur said:


Pretty interesting to see this Dev Interview. Its on Nintendo's website so I dont know if Namco or Nintendo did the interview.
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I always appreciate posts like this because I always miss stuff like this since I have no social media. Thanks for sharing @SirArthur , I love BK and I feel this remaster is worth everyones time.

@FAMIBOARDS: please play this if you can :)
 
game freak hired the lead character modeler from that final fantasy movie,like the last time a lot of high profiles hires in the last months,people will get excited again thinking the next game will look good and when it is shown everybody will be shocked becuase it looks like shit
cgworld.jp

映画『キングスグレイブ ファイナルファンタジーXV』スペシャルインタビュー。オーダーには最大限応える〜キャラクター、背景＆プロップ〜

アートディレクションの段階から生身の役者を3Dスキャンしたデータを基に キャラクターデザインが詰...
cgworld.jp cgworld.jp
www.mobygames.com

Kazuaki Iwasawa - Video Game Credits - MobyGames

Kazuaki Iwasawa has 15 credits on 12 games
www.mobygames.com www.mobygames.com
 
I might get burned for this…I long for the days when the Pokémon games were sprite based. I believe making their games completely open world does a huge disservice to the overall quality. Maybe I’m just old-fashioned, but I wish they would go back to the roots.
 
Momo said:
I might get burned for this…I long for the days when the Pokémon games were sprite based. I believe making their games completely open world does a huge disservice to the overall quality. Maybe I’m just old-fashioned, but I wish they would go back to the roots.
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The problem with Pokemon games is not that they're open world now. Sword&Shield are some of the most linear Pokemon games ever and yet they feel rushed and incomplete. The problem is Game Freak's development.

I would also love a return to sprite Pokemon games but again, I have a feeling that would be too much work for modern GF.
 
Momo said:
I might get burned for this…I long for the days when the Pokémon games were sprite based. I believe making their games completely open world does a huge disservice to the overall quality. Maybe I’m just old-fashioned, but I wish they would go back to the roots.
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sprites aren't going to fix Game Freak's problems
 
Out of all the things GF needs to fix (the list is long), imo, character models ain't one. SV have fantastic character designs, as well as Arceus. Although that could just be down to art direction.
 
Game Freak (and/or The Pokémon Company, as the publisher) just needs to give their games more time to cook. That’s literally it. They’re still trying to develop games at the same rate as they were on handhelds like 3DS, DS, etc. where it took much less time and resources to develop quality, well-polished games than on an HD console like Switch. They just need to start giving Pokémon games longer development times instead of trying to rush them out at the same pace as they always have, because that’s clearly unsustainable.
 
Momo said:
That’s not at all what I was saying.
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well you did say going open world was a disservice to the quality. if you mean performance, we've already seen GF struggle with performance on non-open worlds. this started back on the DS even! if you mean quality of the gameplay and mechanics, well, I disagree. but not only that, Pokemon's biggest problems, for years, haven't been world design but encounter and combat design. the rail-roading kept getting worse until we got the absolute worst of it in Gen 7. and their refusal to craft a modicum of difficulty has reduced any weight of battles in single player unless you go in strapped to a Jigsaw death machine that will rip your toenails off for the slightest provocation.

other that just really liking sprites, I don't see how it fixes their problems when they're not really related to visuals
 
LongDrake said:
I feel like Nintendo really like Cing but couldn't save them from bankruptcy because they were busy developing the 3ds and don't have to resort available to acquired them. Maybe the same thing happened with alpha dream were Nintendo were forced to choose between the a NLG with a proven track record of bangers on their hardware versus a studios that have been doing nothing but porting their tittles to a console Nintendo no longer interest in supporting.
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Both NLG and Alpha Dreams would be small fries for Nintendo to buy at the same time. Alpha dreams is just a new Rare situation, they could have easily acquired both if they wanted to, but choose not to, while they must have been impressed with NLG to want to acquire that studio. Nintendo have the money to buy a lot of studios for the same kind of cash that Sony buys studios, but prefers to use the money to expand their internal development centers and hire new devs directly instead.
 
I don't really understand people's obsession with acquisitions. If Alpha Dream and Cing went under is because they had a lot of debt and, hence, were terrible purchases. The better option is for Nintendo to hire employees from those companies into their already existing internal teams.
 
I have to admit that i am a bit bitter that every Mario RPG franchise got a new game/remake (both for Paper Mario!) on Switch, except for Mario & Luigi. I completely understand the circumstances, don't get me wrong, but it still just sucks man.

My favorite game in the series is Partners in Time so it already sucked when AlphaDream skipped that game to remake Bowsers Inside Story (Again, i completely understand why)

I just hope some ex-AlphaDream staff were able to get picked up by Nintendo and have been working on the Super Mario RPG remake (which i will probably buy) ever since the bankruptcy, maybe Nintendo will give them the opportunity to make a new Mario & Luigi game or remake an already existing game.

Im so jealous of Paper Mario fans. Brand new game and a remake. Its not fair bros...
 
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Danny said:
Both NLG and Alpha Dreams would be small fries for Nintendo to buy at the same time. Alpha dreams is just a new Rare situation, they could have easily acquired both if they wanted to, but choose not to, while they must have been impressed with NLG to want to acquire that studio. Nintendo have the money to buy a lot of studios for the same kind of cash that Sony buys studios, but prefers to use the money to expand their internal development centers and hire new devs directly instead.
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Absolutely crucial to remember that they didn't acquire them because they wanted to acquire a studio, they did so because the owners wanted to get out and sell.

That gets overlooked too much in these casual fan discussions that are often weighed down by "why isn't MY favorite sports team platform holder drafting hot picks acquiring studios for the great console wars playoffs" vibes. That's how you end up with scores of people going "so why didn't they buy X/Y/Z" or "they might scoop up X/Y/Z next!" constantly because it just gets presented as "Nintendo bought studio they worked with a lot" without the key(!) bit of contextual info that makes clear this isn't a acquisition bandwagon scenario.
 
jnWake said:
I don't really understand people's obsession with acquisitions. If Alpha Dream and Cing went under is because they had a lot of debt and, hence, were terrible purchases. The better option is for Nintendo to hire employees from those companies into their already existing internal teams.
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Generally, I think part of it is that some people get "the good brain chemicals" from seeing those "Platform x Studio: Welcome to the Family" graphics. With Nintendo specifically, there's also probably also a bit of fanboyism at play in that a certain kind of person sees Xbox and Playstation making these big purchases and feels left out that their preferred box isn't also making similar moves. The kind of concerns you have when you spend more time talking about video games than you do playing them, imo.

I also think when it comes to Nintendo, there's maybe an element of not wanting to deal with all the "this studio is basically a 1st party in practice but is still technically a 3rd party and it'd be easier to talk about if they were all actually just 1st party" cases. Again, more of a problem for people that talk about video games more than they play them.
 
BlackthornOrion said:
Generally, I think part of it is that some people get "the good brain chemicals" from seeing those "Platform x Studio: Welcome to the Family" graphics. With Nintendo specifically, there's also probably also a bit of fanboyism at play in that a certain kind of person sees Xbox and Playstation making these big purchases and feels left out that their preferred box isn't also making similar moves. The kind of concerns you have when you spend more time talking about video games than you do playing them, imo.

I also think when it comes to Nintendo, there's maybe an element of not wanting to deal with all the "this studio is basically a 1st party in practice but is still technically a 3rd party and it'd be easier to talk about if they were all actually just 1st party" cases. Again, more of a problem for people that talk about video games more than they play them.
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Yeah and with Nintendo it could be that they don't want to go too global like Sony has done with Playstation, if you want to buy out tons of western studios that can lead to it making sense to move you company HQ to say the USA and do your business mainly from there. With Nintendo having few western studios under their belt they can continue to operate from Kyoto without any issues.
 
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Just to go down the list of Nintendo acquisitions:
  • Retro Studios: Nintendo had a stake in the company from day one, as an alliance between them and Jeff Spangenberg. They just bought out Spangenberg's part of the company as part of the salvaging operation, when it became more than clear he wasn't managing the studio well at all.
  • Monolith Soft: Their relationship with Namco was souring due to the executive that championed their work at Namco retiring. Since a managing director at Nintendo was already pretty fond of them, with Monolith having already done a few Nintendo exclusive projects on top of that, they used that connection to push for Nintendo to purchase a controlling stake in them.
  • 1-Up Studio: Their work on Super Mario 3D Land seems to be what directly led to their restructuring into a Nintendo support studio (primarily for EPD Tokyo stuff) after years of working closely with Nintendo, going back to their very first game being published by them.
  • Next Level Games: The owners wanted to sell the company. By this point, NLG had been making games exclusively for Nintendo for a decade, with almost every game they delivered being a million-seller and Nintendo directly approaching them to produce projects like Luigi's Mansion 2.
  • SRD: Not sure what prompted this purchase, since Toshihiko Nakago hasn't retired yet, but maybe they just wanted to get it out the way before he does, who knows? In any case, SRD has exclusively worked as a support studio for Nintendo, programming on countless games going back to the Famicom.
  • Nintendo Pictures: I think Dynamo Pictures is the only company that didn't have strong ties to Nintendo prior to the purchase. They made the Pikmin shorts, and Miyamoto praised their work on that project, but Dynamo was pushing out work for dozens of companies. No special bond here, as far as I can tell. This was a case of Nintendo expanding their multimedia efforts, needing a good company under their belt that can help manage and lead those efforts, and knowing from past dealings that Dynamo fit the bill perfectly due to their experience with everything from gaming cutscenes to film to VR to live performances.
EDIT: It has been brought to my attention that I forgot NERD and (technically) iQue. To make it quick, NERD (formally Mobiclip) was a Dynamo Pictures situation, as Nintendo loved the hell out of their video compression tech. iQue was them gaining full ownership of a joint venture company they made to sell games in China. Chime in on anything else I forgot!
 
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OctoSplattack said:
Just to go down the list of Nintendo acquisitions:
  • Retro Studios: Nintendo had a stake in the company from day one, as an alliance between them and Jeff Spangenberg. They just bought out Spangenberg's part of the company as part of the salvaging operation, when it became more than clear he wasn't managing the studio well at all.
  • Monolith Soft: Their relationship with Namco was souring due to the executive that championed their work at Namco retiring. Since a managing director at Nintendo was already pretty fond of them, with Monolith having already done a few Nintendo exclusive projects on top of that, they used that connection to push for Nintendo to purchase a controlling stake in them.
  • 1-Up Studio: Their work on Super Mario 3D Land seems to be what directly led to their restructuring into a Nintendo support studio (primarily for EPD Tokyo stuff) after years of working closely with Nintendo, going back to their very first game being published by them.
  • Next Level Games: The owners wanted to sell the company. By this point, NLG had been making games exclusively for Nintendo for a decade, with almost every game they delivered being a million-seller and Nintendo directly approaching them to produce projects like Luigi's Mansion 2.
  • SRD: Not sure what prompted this purchase, since Toshihiko Nakago hasn't retired yet, but maybe they just wanted to get it out the way before he does, who knows? In any case, SRD has exclusively worked as a support studio for Nintendo, programming on countless games going back to the Famicom.
  • Nintendo Pictures: I think Dynamo Pictures is the only company that didn't have strong ties to Nintendo prior to the purchase. They made the Pikmin shorts, and Miyamoto praised their work on that project, but Dynamo was pushing out work for dozens of companies. No special bond here, as far as I can tell. This was a case of Nintendo expanding their multimedia efforts, needing a good company under their belt that can help manage and lead those efforts, and knowing from past dealings that Dynamo fit the bill perfectly due to their experience with everything from gaming cutscenes to film to VR to live performances.
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I think the next one for the future could be between mercurysteam, intelligent systems, hal laboratory, greezo, game freak, good feel or even eighting.
 
crashazo said:
I think the next one for the future could be between mercurysteam, intelligent systems, hal laboratory, greezo, game freak, good feel or even eighting.
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Hal Laboratory(maybe), Inteligent Systems(maybe), Grezzo(maybe), Mercury Steam(no, Nordisk game have a 40% share on Mercury Steam), Good Feel(maybe), Game Freak(already is partly owned by Nintendo trough Pokemon)
 
Giancarlo said:
Hal Laboratory(maybe), Inteligent Systems(maybe), Grezzo(maybe), Mercury Steam(no, Nordisk game have a 40% share on Mercury Steam), Good Feel(maybe), Game Freak(already is partly owned by Nintendo trough Pokemon)
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Actually, i think mercurysteam could be a case like monolith soft.
 
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Giancarlo said:
Hal Laboratory(maybe), Inteligent Systems(maybe), Grezzo(maybe), Mercury Steam(no, Nordisk game have a 40% share on Mercury Steam), Good Feel(maybe), Game Freak(already is partly owned by Nintendo trough Pokemon)
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Not that I'm disagreeing with your individual assessments, but why would Nordisk having a 40% stake in Mercury Steam preclude Mercury Steam's owners from selling the remaining majority 60% stake to Nintendo, thereby giving Nintendo controlling interest? Not saying it will happen, but not sure why you're so sure it won't.
 
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Giancarlo said:
Game Freak(already is partly owned by Nintendo trough Pokemon)
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Game Freak is fully independent. The two companies (and Creatures) share ownership of the Pokémon franchise via The Pokémon Company, and Game Freak specifically has an ongoing initiative to develop original IP outside of that series.
 
crashazo said:
I think the next one for the future could be between mercurysteam, intelligent systems, hal laboratory, greezo, game freak, good feel or even eighting.
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I'd say the next one will actually probably be Camelot. The Takahashi brothers have gotta be getting close to retirement age, and Camelot's a small (fewer than 50 employees, iirc) studio that's proven it can make multi-milion sellers on comparatively shoe-string budgets.

Feels like "founders retire and cash out by essentially handing Nintendo the keys on their way out" is a likely path for that studio sooner or later.
 
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OctoSplattack said:
Just to go down the list of Nintendo acquisitions:
  • Retro Studios: Nintendo had a stake in the company from day one, as an alliance between them and Jeff Spangenberg. They just bought out Spangenberg's part of the company as part of the salvaging operation, when it became more than clear he wasn't managing the studio well at all.
  • Monolith Soft: Their relationship with Namco was souring due to the executive that championed their work at Namco retiring. Since a managing director at Nintendo was already pretty fond of them, with Monolith having already done a few Nintendo exclusive projects on top of that, they used that connection to push for Nintendo to purchase a controlling stake in them.
  • 1-Up Studio: Their work on Super Mario 3D Land seems to be what directly led to their restructuring into a Nintendo support studio (primarily for EPD Tokyo stuff) after years of working closely with Nintendo, going back to their very first game being published by them.
  • Next Level Games: The owners wanted to sell the company. By this point, NLG had been making games exclusively for Nintendo for a decade, with almost every game they delivered being a million-seller and Nintendo directly approaching them to produce projects like Luigi's Mansion 2.
  • SRD: Not sure what prompted this purchase, since Toshihiko Nakago hasn't retired yet, but maybe they just wanted to get it out the way before he does, who knows? In any case, SRD has exclusively worked as a support studio for Nintendo, programming on countless games going back to the Famicom.
  • Nintendo Pictures: I think Dynamo Pictures is the only company that didn't have strong ties to Nintendo prior to the purchase. They made the Pikmin shorts, and Miyamoto praised their work on that project, but Dynamo was pushing out work for dozens of companies. No special bond here, as far as I can tell. This was a case of Nintendo expanding their multimedia efforts, needing a good company under their belt that can help manage and lead those efforts, and knowing from past dealings that Dynamo fit the bill perfectly due to their experience with everything from gaming cutscenes to film to VR to live performances.
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this is missing (most notably) NERD (formerly Mobiclip) and all those non-dev companies they bought that nobody cares about :)
 
crashazo said:
I think the next one for the future could be between mercurysteam, intelligent systems, hal laboratory, greezo, game freak, good feel or even eighting.
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here we go again dot gif :)
TheMoon said:
Absolutely crucial to remember that they didn't acquire them because they wanted to acquire a studio, they did so because the owners wanted to get out and sell.

That gets overlooked too much in these casual fan discussions that are often weighed down by "why isn't MY favorite sports team platform holder drafting hot picks acquiring studios for the great console wars playoffs" vibes. That's how you end up with scores of people going "so why didn't they buy X/Y/Z" or "they might scoop up X/Y/Z next!" constantly because it just gets presented as "Nintendo bought studio they worked with a lot" without the key(!) bit of contextual info that makes clear this isn't a acquisition bandwagon scenario.
Click to expand...
 
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