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

Exactly this! Smash Bros. is one of the few large contract jobs, most others are a myriad of medium to small scale art asset work.

The 3D action game just is hiring for a gameplay designer which is interesting and suggests new content.

I could see a remake with new content though I’m not sure what they would remake. Maybe a 3D Zelda idk
 
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While not technically related to this thread, the spun off Nintendo-focused studios is part of a new organization at Bandai Namco Studio. Which now consists of six divisions.
  • Studio 1 (info TBA)
  • Studio 2 / Studio S (Mainly contract works for Nintendo)
  • Studio 3 (Tales of, Idolmasters)
  • Development Enchantment Studio (info TBA)
  • Technology Studio (info TBA)

It's funny how at this time, only Studio 2/S and Studio 3's pages are up, while others will be released at a later date.

 
I really strongly question the need of starting from scratch in terms of visual assets for Smash.

I can’t think of a game that benefits less from higher quality assets, you can never see the fine details in game.
 
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It's kinda impressive that Nintendo has been working with Bandai Namco so much over the past decade that the latter just went "Screw it" and made sure to have a dedicated division for tackling Nintendo projects when restructuring their internal teams.
the pay is really good apparently. KT was rewarded handsomely for Hyrule Warriors, so Smash and Mario Kart probably pays out even more
 
TBH, it’s hard to think of a game that satisfies

1. Nintendo would want to graphically remake it

2. Nintendo would like to add new content to it

3. Nintendo would outsource both visual and game design to Namco

4. The game is 3D
 
From a quick look at Mobygames, there is a lot of staff overlap between Mario Sports: SuperStars and the Smash games. Keep in mind these numbers include people from Nintendo and other involved companies.

People credited on [Mario Sports: SuperStars] were also credited on:

Maybe Studio S -> Smash Bros. & SuperStars, Studio 2 -> Assets for EPD9?
While not technically related to this thread, the spun off Nintendo-focused studios is part of a new organization at Bandai Namco Studio. Which now consists of six divisions.
  • Studio 1 (info TBA)
  • Studio 2 / Studio S (Mainly contract works for Nintendo)
  • Studio 3 (Tales of, Idolmasters)
  • Development Enchantment Studio (info TBA)
  • Technology Studio (info TBA)

It's funny how at this time, only Studio 2/S and Studio 3's pages are up, while others will be released at a later date.

It will be interesting to see where the Pokémon games will fall.
 
with how few games get followed up on, this is dependent on TPC actually greenlighting sequels. why there wasn't a sequel to Pokken, I don't know
Part of the Tournament DX team then went to develop New Pokémon Snap, including the director, Haruki Suzaki. He hasn't been credited since 2021; perhaps they are already developing a new game.
 
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While not technically related to this thread, the spun off Nintendo-focused studios is part of a new organization at Bandai Namco Studio. Which now consists of six divisions.
  • Studio 1 (info TBA)
  • Studio 2 / Studio S (Mainly contract works for Nintendo)
  • Studio 3 (Tales of, Idolmasters)
  • Development Enchantment Studio (info TBA)
  • Technology Studio (info TBA)
Good find. I wonder why they are now being spun off. It could pave the way for the studios to be sold off to Nintendo.

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Candidates:

Kid Icarus Uprising: This is the hardest fucking port of all time due to how weird the on-foot controls are. You're basically making an entire new game gameplay wise and the graphics aren't good either and need to be completely redone. This would be like the TWEWY port... Which was disliked and no one bought... Unless you put a ton of effort into it.

OoT/Wind Waker/Twilight Princess: Make easily the most sense for a "remaster and add additional content" game as all three lack in terms of side content, but I'm highly doubtful Namco would get to do game design for a remake of these three. Mario 64 falls into the same category.

Prime 2/Prime 3: No

F-Zero GX: I guess this could make some sense?

3D Land: Maybe?

Overall, I don't know, lol.
 
Going by the leads, it looks like:

Studio 2:

Mario Kart 8- 2014
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe- 2017
ARMS- 2017
Mario Kart Tour- 2019

Studio S:

Smash 4- 2014
Mario Sports Superstars- 2017
Smash Ultimate- 2018

I'm guessing Studio 2 is working on the next Mario Kart with EPD 9. Studio S probably working on the Action Game Remake (Kid Icarus Uprising?) with Sora as well as the next Smash. Studio S seems to have worked on Mario Sports and Smash Ultimate concurrently, so it wouldn't be out of the real of possibility.
 
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Studio S is hiring for a side view 3D action game. Wonder what that could be
 
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I figured the most likely thing that remake is probably the Luigi's Mansion 2 HD. It's a bit short in terms of development time but it certainly qualifies as a 3D Action game and it seemed pretty early when it was originally announced.
 
From a quick look at Mobygames, there is a lot of staff overlap between Mario Sports: SuperStars and the Smash games. Keep in mind these numbers include people from Nintendo and other involved companies.



Maybe Studio S -> Smash Bros. & SuperStars, Studio 2 -> Assets for EPD9?

It will be interesting to see where the Pokémon games will fall.
Isnt pokken developed by Tekken team? not sure about new pokemon snap if its the same or another team under BNS, but if we use this new info, they arent the same team as smash
 
While not technically related to this thread, the spun off Nintendo-focused studios is part of a new organization at Bandai Namco Studio. Which now consists of six divisions.
  • Studio 1 (info TBA)
  • Studio 2 / Studio S (Mainly contract works for Nintendo)
  • Studio 3 (Tales of, Idolmasters)
  • Development Enchantment Studio (info TBA)
  • Technology Studio (info TBA)

It's funny how at this time, only Studio 2/S and Studio 3's pages are up, while others will be released at a later date.

Thank you for posting this, always interesting to see how its organized and outside of BNS existing we didn't know how the teams are divided out there

Its intersting to me though how Bandai Namco unlike the other jp companies made an entire new company with the developers under their division and now this very new subsidiary has divisions too lol
 
I figured the most likely thing that remake is probably the Luigi's Mansion 2 HD. It's a bit short in terms of development time but it certainly qualifies as a 3D Action game and it seemed pretty early when it was originally announced.
Possibly, but Nintendo keeps referring to it as a graphical remake (kind of implying no new content) so that would be weird with hiring a game designer.

"Explore multiple spooky mansions and clean house as the easily scared Luigi in this visually enhanced version of Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon."​

 
also are those new studios as in new companies subsidiaries of BNS or just divisions? i thought it was division but now im not too sure
 
Isnt pokken developed by Tekken team? not sure about new pokemon snap if its the same or another team under BNS, but if we use this new info, they arent the same team as smash
I thought the same, but from the Mobygames page of Pokkén:

People credited on this game were also credited on:

As before, note that this includes everyone listed on Mobygame -- staff from Nintendo EPD, staff from Namco, staff from NoA and NoE handling localization, supervisors from GameFreak and Creatures, etc..

This means that, at most, 60 people worked both on Pokken and on a Tekken title. Maybe some key staff is shared between Pokken and Tekken -- kinda like Splatoon and Animal Crossing. The director and the lead game designer did work on Tekken 6, as game designers.

When New Pokémon Snap was released, the director said in an interview
"Pokkén Tournament utilized Bandai Namco Studio's strengths and it made Pokémon appealing in a new way," he says. "Because of this, we got another opportunity to do something together again and this led to the development of New Pokémon Snap. We were able to talk with the developers [from the original game] and the project started with the involvement of many people."
This pretty much sounds like "the Pokkén Team did a good job, and we were trusted with New Pokémon Snap".

Btw, the lead game designer of Pokkén and Snap, Yasuhito Kobayashi, also worked on Smash 4 for the planning -- so there is a bit of overlap with Studio 2/Studio S. But Pokkén and Snap are not listed on the Studio page. Maybe the core group of people from Pokkén and Snap got assigned to different projects, and the team effectively dissolved, or maybe they are part of a bigger studio (Studio 1?).
 
Personally I think the team that made Pokken/New Pokemon Snap are now part of Studio 1. The absent of those titles for Studio 2/S wouldn't make sense otherwise.
 
I thought the same, but from the Mobygames page of Pokkén:



As before, note that this includes everyone listed on Mobygame -- staff from Nintendo EPD, staff from Namco, staff from NoA and NoE handling localization, supervisors from GameFreak and Creatures, etc..

This means that, at most, 60 people worked both on Pokken and on a Tekken title. Maybe some key staff is shared between Pokken and Tekken -- kinda like Splatoon and Animal Crossing. The director and the lead game designer did work on Tekken 6, as game designers.

When New Pokémon Snap was released, the director said in an interview

This pretty much sounds like "the Pokkén Team did a good job, and we were trusted with New Pokémon Snap".

Btw, the lead game designer of Pokkén and Snap, Yasuhito Kobayashi, also worked on Smash 4 for the planning -- so there is a bit of overlap with Studio 2/Studio S. But Pokkén and Snap are not listed on the Studio page. Maybe the core group of people from Pokkén and Snap got assigned to different projects, and the team effectively dissolved, or maybe they are part of a bigger studio (Studio 1?).
Yeah I looked into info and saw that pokken and snap shared staff
 
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Personally I think the team that made Pokken/New Pokemon Snap are now part of Studio 1. The absent of those titles for Studio 2/S wouldn't make sense otherwise.
do we have any idea when the rest will be shared? i saw that the studio 2 had it shared 5 days ago
 
TBH, it’s hard to think of a game that satisfies

1. Nintendo would want to graphically remake it

2. Nintendo would like to add new content to it

3. Nintendo would outsource both visual and game design to Namco

4. The game is 3D
Occam’s razor is smash bros ultimate. I was looking at Pokémon stadium 2 yesterday and thinking “they should add 3d grass to this stage”.

Smash is a 3D fighter on a 2D plane so it fits the script pretty perfectly. Makes complete sense that Nintendo want to try and make it another forever game like mk8d was for switch. Now they officially have a studio made to pump content into it for a generation as well as make other stuff.

We could be grossly overestimating with ‘graphically remake’ too.
 
The number of employees at Platinum Games has dropped from 360 in August to 346 now in November, according to the company's own website. Could this be due to Kamiya's departure?
Maybe but that’s probably just contractors time being up.
 
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Be wild if EPD 8's 2D action game was actually Nintendo bringing a bigger chunk of Smash production into the internal division.

I mean, it'd make a degree of sense for long term franchise stability and ease of development cooperation with Namco and the outsourcing scene in Tokyo; and given Smash's commercial returns, it definitely justifies the allocation of some EPD resources.
 
I forget: did something happen for us to assume that the 3D action game is a remake of Kid Icarus Uprising, or is it just a widespread hope among the community? Because we've been guessing that it's KIU from the moment the first job listings went up, long before Sakurai mentioned wanting a remake in his web series.

just hopes and dreams
the Uprising thing existed originally because of hopes and dreams and then the timeline roughly overlaps with this Bamco job posting and Sakurai covering KIU on his youtube channel and making a very Sakurai "it sure would be cool if this got re-released someday" wink wink nudge nudge comment which many naturally translated as "KIU ON SWITCH CONFIRMED", as is always the case in Nintendofanland.
Possibly, but Nintendo keeps referring to it as a graphical remake (kind of implying no new content) so that would be weird with hiring a game designer.

"Explore multiple spooky mansions and clean house as the easily scared Luigi in this visually enhanced version of Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon."​

I don't think we can dismiss the need for game designers in a game making platform transitions with new/different control input needs, different online environment, and going from dual-screen game design to single-screen game design. someone has to "design" that sort of thing. us forum game designers say "just put the second screen on a menu button" but that's literally someone's job to conceptualize and design this.
 
While not technically related to this thread, the spun off Nintendo-focused studios is part of a new organization at Bandai Namco Studio. Which now consists of six divisions.
  • Studio 1 (info TBA)
  • Studio 2 / Studio S (Mainly contract works for Nintendo)
  • Studio 3 (Tales of, Idolmasters)
  • Development Enchantment Studio (info TBA)
  • Technology Studio (info TBA)

It's funny how at this time, only Studio 2/S and Studio 3's pages are up, while others will be released at a later date.

They put up an interview series on their website a while back that seems to reference these same divisions. Idk how much can be gleamed from it, though I did note at the time that Studio 2 had credits for Nintendo contract work.
From a quick look at Mobygames, there is a lot of staff overlap between Mario Sports: SuperStars and the Smash games. Keep in mind these numbers include people from Nintendo and other involved companies.



Maybe Studio S -> Smash Bros. & SuperStars, Studio 2 -> Assets for EPD9?

It will be interesting to see where the Pokémon games will fall.
My guess is that Mario Sports Superstars was done by Smash staff who weren't needed on Smash 4's DLC, but they wanted to keep within the group regardless so they could come back to work on Ultimate.

Haruki Suzaki games not credited to this group definitely makes him doing another Pokémon collaboration more up in the air. Pokken and New Snap I don't think shared much staff outside of the leads, New Snap seems to have pulled a number of Ace Combat people while Pokken is more fighting game folks.
 
Getting off the Bamco train, what do we think EPD4 is up to right now? Ring Fit 2 or Switch Sports 2? Or something else entirely? Perhaps a casual "tech-demo" launch title for Switch 2?
 
Getting off the Bamco train, what do we think EPD4 is up to right now? Ring Fit 2 or Switch Sports 2? Or something else entirely? Perhaps a casual "tech-demo" launch title for Switch 2?

I'm guessing a multi-player title to showcase the new system's unique features for launch and Ring Fit 2 for the launch window.
 
They put up an interview series on their website a while back that seems to reference these same divisions. Idk how much can be gleamed from it, though I did note at the time that Studio 2 had credits for Nintendo contract work.

This is very interesting, thank you! They started using the group classficiations from the September 2022 interview, with the previous interview before that in May. The restructure would've occured somewhere in-between, and they're only starting to brand each group now. As for the included staff (three relevant to Studio 2/S, one not for the sake of completion), to figure things out:
  • Keita Noto:
    • Studio 2, Group 2, Production 3
    • Current position: Technical Director
    • Recent works: Go Vacation, Smash 4, Smash Ultimate (Programmer)
  • Munehiro Koyanagi:
    • Studio 2, Production 1
    • Current position: Director
    • Recent works: Go Vacation, Touch My Katamari, Smash Ultimate (Planner)
  • Shunsuke Otsuka
    • Studio 2, Group 2, Production 5, Art Section
    • Current position: Art Director
    • Recent works: Mario Kart 8, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, ARMS, (Character Design / Art Lead), Scarlet Nexus (2D Artist) [a Studio 3 project; seems as fluid as EPD lol]
  • Yohei Miyake
    • Studio 3, Group 2, Production 5
    • Current position: Lead Engineer
    • Recent works: Relatively new to Bandai Namco (joined in 2020), not sure if any existing credits; working on an upcoming game using Unity according to the interview itself.
 
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Nintendo's staff implied otherwise, as well as Nintendo's continued push for Pikmin to have presence anywhere and everywhere. the animated shorts are still popular, and Nintendo Pictures are still making stuff with them (the Pikmin Bloom commercial being a recent one). Pikmin show up in Super Mario World in Universal Japan. Pikmin has a new line of merch at some boutique stores.

if anything, Pikmin is becoming more like Kirby: the games do good, but not amazing, numbers; but as a brand, they are very valuable.
I once counted the total view count of the pikmin shorts and it was 200mil I’m pretty sure s it’s increased by at least 40mil.

Pikmin really lends itself to merchandiser like Kirby and Pokémon, even if the games sell 3 times as bad as Metroid it will alwasy be a safer franchsie going forward socne you can’t sell a million plushies, flower pots, hates, slippers or smth with the Metroid brand, not to downplay Metroid becuase it has tons of movie potential, but pikmin has that animal crossing, Kirby, Pokémon and Mario factor in terms of merch which no doubt plays a part in nintendos seemingly sudden pikmin deluge everywhere
 
Getting off the Bamco train, what do we think EPD4 is up to right now? Ring Fit 2 or Switch Sports 2? Or something else entirely? Perhaps a casual "tech-demo" launch title for Switch 2?
problaby a game that showcases Switch sucessor main gimmick/apeal(if is single player, multiplayer or something completely different for previous tech demos games, we have to wait until the console reveal,to know Nintendo is gonna present this game)
 
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the Uprising thing existed originally because of hopes and dreams and then the timeline roughly overlaps with this Bamco job posting and Sakurai covering KIU on his youtube channel and making a very Sakurai "it sure would be cool if this got re-released someday" wink wink nudge nudge comment which many naturally translated as "KIU ON SWITCH CONFIRMED", as is always the case in Nintendofanland.

I don't think we can dismiss the need for game designers in a game making platform transitions with new/different control input needs, different online environment, and going from dual-screen game design to single-screen game design. someone has to "design" that sort of thing. us forum game designers say "just put the second screen on a menu button" but that's literally someone's job to conceptualize and design this.

This could be a bad ML translation, but the game designer position says "design stages and levels according to game design" which would suggest new content specifically.
 
I once counted the total view count of the pikmin shorts and it was 200mil I’m pretty sure s it’s increased by at least 40mil.

Pikmin really lends itself to merchandiser like Kirby and Pokémon, even if the games sell 3 times as bad as Metroid it will alwasy be a safer franchsie going forward socne you can’t sell a million plushies, flower pots, hates, slippers or smth with the Metroid brand, not to downplay Metroid becuase it has tons of movie potential, but pikmin has that animal crossing, Kirby, Pokémon and Mario factor in terms of merch which no doubt plays a part in nintendos seemingly sudden pikmin deluge everywhere

It's true! They even have a statue and dedicated section at Nintendo Tokyo now, placing them alongside Mario, Splatoon, Animal Crossing, and Zelda! Anecdotally, the merch seems to be doing really well. I was at Nintendo Tokyo last weekend, and it seemed that all the Sanei Pikmin plushies were sold out. I'm STILL trying to find the Oatchi plush...
 
This could be a bad ML translation, but the game designer position says "design stages and levels according to game design" which would suggest new content specifically.
could also just be a default sentence for this type of position. at some point that person should probably design levels and stages" :)
just trying to caution against reading too many specifics into this.
 
could also just be a default sentence for this type of position. at some point that person should probably design levels and stages" :)
just trying to caution against reading too many specifics into this.

It’s certainly possible, you are correct.

We’ll see when LM2 releases.
 
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When I hear about EPD's efforts to increase its workforce and be less dependent on outsourcing, including the future new building dedicated to increasing the size of in-house teams, the first thing that comes to mind is that Smash and Mario Kart, among others, are concerned by these Nintendo projects. I've always thought of it as an ND Cube situation, with EPD 9 and EPD 2 recruiting the Namco people who already work with them. So I'm a little surprised by this announcement, unless this new entity ends up being bought out by Nintendo (yes, I know, I know).
Be wild if EPD 8's 2D action game was actually Nintendo bringing a bigger chunk of Smash production into the internal division.

I mean, it'd make a degree of sense for long term franchise stability and ease of development cooperation with Namco and the outsourcing scene in Tokyo; and given Smash's commercial returns, it definitely justifies the allocation of some EPD resources.

By the way, if I remember correctly, there were rumors a few years ago that Iwata had offered Sakurai to come and work at EPD Tokyo with Koizumi. That would have been great.
 
When I hear about EPD's efforts to increase its workforce and be less dependent on outsourcing, including the future new building dedicated to increasing the size of in-house teams, the first thing that comes to mind is that Smash and Mario Kart, among others, are concerned by these Nintendo projects. I've always thought of it as an ND Cube situation, with EPD 9 and EPD 2 recruiting the Namco people who already work with them. So I'm a little surprised by this announcement, unless this new entity ends up being bought out by Nintendo (yes, I know, I know).
being less dependent on outsourcing always sounded like a folly. unless they intend on making Switch scoped games, just in 4K, they will need a lot of people to make games. numbers that would match Ubisoft's army (and even they outsource a lot).
 
being less dependent on outsourcing always sounded like a folly. unless they intend on making Switch scoped games, just in 4K, they will need a lot of people to make games. numbers that would match Ubisoft's army (and even they outsource a lot).
if Nintendo increase it development team for 700/800 to 1200/1600, at the end of 2029, will Nintendo still need outsourcing for it games or they now be able to develop internally all it games?
 
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being less dependent on outsourcing always sounded like a folly. unless they intend on making Switch scoped games, just in 4K, they will need a lot of people to make games. numbers that would match Ubisoft's army (and even they outsource a lot).
Increasing your internal capabilities doesn't mean giving up on outsourcing, it seems to me. There will always be some. On the other hand, it's questionable to depend so heavily on Bamco for two of the Switch's best-selling games, including the best-selling game by far.

It's not that subcontracting is going to stop, it's just that strategically having such huge series completely dependent on an external partner for delivery and industrial viability is a critical vulnerability.

I mean, when Nintendo relies on Monolith for Zelda and Splatoon, nobody thinks that's crazy. When Mario games are developed entirely in-house, because even the many support studios required are in-house, nobody thinks that's crazy. Because Nintendo's entire value in this industry lies in its know-how, in its control, in its ability not to depend on anyone else to create its own unique competitive edge. And of course this doesn't mean never outsourcing anything, because of course that's totally impossible. But an asset as fundamentally essential as Mario Kart cannot be so heavily dependent on external stakeholders, at least in my opinion.
 
I will say that Nintendo should probably buy some art outsourcing studios if they want to sell because I could see Microsoft just starting to gobble these companies up.

Microsoft probably will be legally blocked from buying another publisher other than Sega, but they'll probably be legally okay to keep buying smaller dev studios.
 
I will say that Nintendo should probably buy some art outsourcing studios if they want to sell because I could see Microsoft just starting to gobble these companies up.

Microsoft probably will be legally blocked from buying another publisher other than Sega, but they'll probably be legally okay to keep buying smaller dev studios.
why buy a art studios, if Nintendo can rely on Nintendo Picture for that
 


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