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

With the thing about Creatures using Unity for multiple projects, on top of BDSP also using it, I wonder if Nintendo (or at least Game Freak) is going to eventually convert to outsourced engines as well. SE has almost given up on Luminous Engine (Forspoken is the only one using it atm) and fully committed to Unreal. RGG is considering Unreal and ATLUS has already made that jump. The only major holdouts in Japan I can think of atm are Sonic Team, FromSoft, Capcom (who will probably never convert, because RE is less of an engine and more of a divine miracle), and of course Nintendo - and even Nintendo has dabbled in UE4 with Yoshi's Crafted World. Lunchbox seems to be pretty good so idc if they stay with that, but GF has constantly struggled with tech, so perhaps the tools are the problem (in addition to deadlines).
 
With the thing about Creatures using Unity for multiple projects, on top of BDSP also using it, I wonder if Nintendo (or at least Game Freak) is going to eventually convert to outsourced engines as well. SE has almost given up on Luminous Engine (Forspoken is the only one using it atm) and fully committed to Unreal. RGG is considering Unreal and ATLUS has already made that jump. The only major holdouts in Japan I can think of atm are Sonic Team, FromSoft, Capcom (who will probably never convert, because RE is less of an engine and more of a divine miracle), and of course Nintendo - and even Nintendo has dabbled in UE4 with Yoshi's Crafted World. Lunchbox seems to be pretty good so idc if they stay with that, but GF has constantly struggled with tech, so perhaps the tools are the problem (in addition to deadlines).
Yoshi's Crafted World being UE4 isn't that big of a surprise, it wasn't developed by a Nintendo-owned studio after all. I'm curious what Retro is working with, though.
 
With the thing about Creatures using Unity for multiple projects, on top of BDSP also using it, I wonder if Nintendo (or at least Game Freak) is going to eventually convert to outsourced engines as well. SE has almost given up on Luminous Engine (Forspoken is the only one using it atm) and fully committed to Unreal. RGG is considering Unreal and ATLUS has already made that jump. The only major holdouts in Japan I can think of atm are Sonic Team, FromSoft, Capcom (who will probably never convert, because RE is less of an engine and more of a divine miracle), and of course Nintendo - and even Nintendo has dabbled in UE4 with Yoshi's Crafted World. Lunchbox seems to be pretty good so idc if they stay with that, but GF has constantly struggled with tech, so perhaps the tools are the problem (in addition to deadlines).
I think that thanks to documentation of these outsourced engines and its availability, it makes it easier to hire talent and theoretically speed up some dev time. I dont think Nintendo or Game Freak will do that anytime soon. From GF side, they have a ton of 3d pokemon models (ILCA did BDSP) that they have slowly have been injecting into their games so I would think its easier with their current engine or engines (Arceus/Scarlet seem less cartoony in comparison to SwSh). And for Nintendo their seem to be more experimental with their games so having a similar engine, that is not their own, across studios (Good-Feel is not owned by Nintendo) may not gel, idk
 
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With the thing about Creatures using Unity for multiple projects, on top of BDSP also using it, I wonder if Nintendo (or at least Game Freak) is going to eventually convert to outsourced engines as well. SE has almost given up on Luminous Engine (Forspoken is the only one using it atm) and fully committed to Unreal. RGG is considering Unreal and ATLUS has already made that jump. The only major holdouts in Japan I can think of atm are Sonic Team, FromSoft, Capcom (who will probably never convert, because RE is less of an engine and more of a divine miracle), and of course Nintendo - and even Nintendo has dabbled in UE4 with Yoshi's Crafted World. Lunchbox seems to be pretty good so idc if they stay with that, but GF has constantly struggled with tech, so perhaps the tools are the problem (in addition to deadlines).
outside of using Unity from mobile games, Nintendo hasn't used an external engine for their games, and an external company like Creatures isn't a sign of Nintendo going either way
 
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game freak also will not drop their in-house engine
"The mission of the R&D department is to create pictures for the next title, and to design and rebuild the base of the library. There are more than 1,000 models in the "Pokemon" series, all with different shapes. There is no engine in the world that can handle models with so many different shapes. That's why we make our own. "
 
game freak also will not drop their in-house engine
"The mission of the R&D department is to create pictures for the next title, and to design and rebuild the base of the library. There are more than 1,000 models in the "Pokemon" series, all with different shapes. There is no engine in the world that can handle models with so many different shapes. That's why we make our own. "
and they hiring for 50 different positions,including leads and directors,plus procedual and a lot of tech-art related stuff,must be preparing for drake pokemon

Its called RUDE if im not mistaken and it stands for "Retro Universal Design Engine"
according to interviews even the 2002 iteration could do some things that even some modern engines cant,no wonder they still use it
 
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With the thing about Creatures using Unity for multiple projects, on top of BDSP also using it, I wonder if Nintendo (or at least Game Freak) is going to eventually convert to outsourced engines as well. SE has almost given up on Luminous Engine (Forspoken is the only one using it atm) and fully committed to Unreal. RGG is considering Unreal and ATLUS has already made that jump. The only major holdouts in Japan I can think of atm are Sonic Team, FromSoft, Capcom (who will probably never convert, because RE is less of an engine and more of a divine miracle), and of course Nintendo - and even Nintendo has dabbled in UE4 with Yoshi's Crafted World. Lunchbox seems to be pretty good so idc if they stay with that, but GF has constantly struggled with tech, so perhaps the tools are the problem (in addition to deadlines).
I think Nintendo and Capcom have the same aim; full adoption of a single proprietary engine for the sake of efficiency and a smoother production pipeline. That is especially crucial for Nintendo to aim for considering the fluid nature of EPD; staff move around from project to project and if they are all on the same framework it just makes the process all the easier.

Adoption of LunchPack on Wii U was slow; Nintendo Land was the showcase title not just for the Game Pad but for the capabilities of the engine (sharing a codename with it); and from there it took a couple years for it to see further use (as most titles were already well into production beforehand), with Splatoon and Super Mario Maker.

On Switch we’ve seen the majority of EPD projects adopt it outside of ports and rare exceptions; Brain Training and Big Brain Academy are co-developed with indieszero, Jump Rope Challenge was a tiny WFH production made in Unity, Tears of the Kingdom will likely be using the same engine as its Wii U predecessor, and Odyssey continued Tokyo’s use of their proprietary engine ‘Al’, used since 3D Land (which was built off the Galaxy games, which were built off Sunshine…). We’ve now seen evidence from the 3D All-Stars launcher files that Tokyo are adopting LunchPack too, though; so I imagine both their 2D and 3D projects will likely be using LunchPack.

Nintendo_Engine.png
 
Yoshi's Crafted World being UE4 isn't that big of a surprise, it wasn't developed by a Nintendo-owned studio after all. I'm curious what Retro is working with, though.
Its called RUDE if im not mistaken and it stands for "Retro Universal Design Engine"
according to interviews even the 2002 iteration could do some things that even some modern engines cant,no wonder they still use it
In an interview about Tropical Freeze, Michael Kelbaugh said-

However, levels in Returns and Tropical Freeze are much, much larger and more detailed. And I’ll share this with you; we used the Metroid Prime engine and tools to develop Returns, so technically, the lessons learned on Metroid Prime were directly applied.

-kind of implying that TF wasn’t the same tools and engine. This would line up with the fan level editor for Metroid Prime works on Country Returns but not Tropical Freeze.

Similarly, Michael Wikan, the lead designer on all three Prime games said -

The biggest issue is [that Retro Studios] no longer has functional editor tools to work with the Prime code base, so everything has to be "brute force" hard coded.

-for which he got a lot of fan hate as a “former employee who knows nothing about Retro now.” I’m not entirely sure what Wikan means here, but it seems like RUDE was dropped or radically overhauled after DK:CR
 
In an interview about Tropical Freeze, Michael Kelbaugh said-



-kind of implying that TF wasn’t the same tools and engine. This would line up with the fan level editor for Metroid Prime works on Country Returns but not Tropical Freeze.

Similarly, Michael Wikan, the lead designer on all three Prime games said -



-for which he got a lot of fan hate as a “former employee who knows nothing about Retro now.” I’m not entirely sure what Wikan means here, but it seems like RUDE was dropped or radically overhauled after DK:CR
Yeah i def imagine it isnt the same engine for the trilogy. IDK if its still RUDE idk 2.0 or if they changed to a new engine.


As for the Wikan thing, it was absolutely depressing, especially with how sweet and well meaning he was in Kiwitalkz.
 
I thought Ringfit and BOTW shared an engine? And since the same team makes ARMS and MK, dont they also share an engine?
Nope and nope. BotW and Ring Fit sharing an engine was speculation that popped up right after the gameplay reveal, based on some similar looking environment assets; not anything concrete. Mario Kart 8 is a port of a Wii U game (which used its own propriatary engine just like previous Mario Kart games) and ARMS was built from the ground up for Switch after LunchPack was established; I imagine the next console Mario Kart will move over to LunchPack too. Mario Kart Tour on mobile uses Unity, for reference.
 
In an interview about Tropical Freeze, Michael Kelbaugh said-



-kind of implying that TF wasn’t the same tools and engine. This would line up with the fan level editor for Metroid Prime works on Country Returns but not Tropical Freeze.

Similarly, Michael Wikan, the lead designer on all three Prime games said -



-for which he got a lot of fan hate as a “former employee who knows nothing about Retro now.” I’m not entirely sure what Wikan means here, but it seems like RUDE was dropped or radically overhauled after DK:CR


Zoid said is still the same engine,he recognized the camera system used in TF
 
Pretty soon NST will be over 100,i tracked 16 hires in the last 4 months and theres 9 job openings on taleo
After they made Bowser's Fury by themselves I'm really excited with what they'll come with next. Captain Toad 2 seems like the safest bet, but I wonder if we don't get a new kind of Mario spin off...
 
Where are we at with first-party games known about from official sources (leaks are a seperate discussion) but not actually shown off in any meaningful way?
  • Metroid Prime 4 - Retro Studios [Announced]
  • Detective Pikachu 2 - Creatures [Announced]
  • Unannounced Title (Metroid Prime HD) - Retro Studios [LinkedIn Listing]
  • Unannounced Pokemon Spin-Off - Creatures / Ambrella (?) [LinkedIn Listing]
  • Girls Mode - Syn Sophia [Job Recruitment, 2020]
  • 2D Action Game - Nintendo EPD Kyoto [Job Recruitment, 2019]
  • 2D Action Game - Nintendo EPD Tokyo [Job Recruitment, 2020]
  • 3D Action Game - Nintendo EPD Tokyo [Job Recruitment, 2019]
  • 3D Action Game Remaster - Bandai Namco [Job Recruitment, 2022]
  • Medieval / Stylish Action Game (Jet Dragon?) - Grezzo [Job Recruitment, 2021] (might not be Nintendo published)
Working on the assumption that Vanpool's port project was Return to Dream Land Deluxe. Sure would be nice to see any of these sometime next year.
  • Metroid Prime 4: I think it's either late 2023 or early 2024;
  • Metroid Prime Remastered: early 2023;
  • no idea what the new Pokémon spin off would be;
  • I thought Syn Sophia were the ones doing a new Style Savvy?
  • 2D Action game by EPD Kyoto: a new 2D Mario game. And an ambitious one - would think it would come early next year but it's already covered by TotK, maybe it ends up holiday instead;
  • 3D Action game by EPD Tokyo: definitely the next 3D Mario, I think it's gonna be the holiday 2023 game as Pokémon isn't likely for next year. If not, it's 2024;
  • 2D Action game by EPD Tokyo: Donkey Kong and I can't see when it would come. Would make sense as a summer 2023 release as 3D World and Tropical Freeze and Galaxy 2 and Returns came out very close to each other - the theme park and movie rumblings for 2024 might indicate it coming that year instead, also if it started development in 2020 it's possible it comes in 2024(Dread took 4 years, and they're developing it alongside a 3D Mario);
  • That game by Grezzo of the hirings I always took as a brand new 2D Zelda, but Jet Dragon is probably coming first. Also they're very efficient, can see them having another remaster in the works coming in 2023.
 
  • Metroid Prime 4: I think it's either late 2023 or early 2024;
  • Metroid Prime Remastered: early 2023;
  • no idea what the new Pokémon spin off would be;
  • I thought Syn Sophia were the ones doing a new Style Savvy?
  • 2D Action game by EPD Kyoto: a new 2D Mario game. And an ambitious one - would think it would come early next year but it's already covered by TotK, maybe it ends up holiday instead;
  • 3D Action game by EPD Tokyo: definitely the next 3D Mario, I think it's gonna be the holiday 2023 game as Pokémon isn't likely for next year. If not, it's 2024;
  • 2D Action game by EPD Tokyo: Donkey Kong and I can't see when it would come. Would make sense as a summer 2023 release as 3D World and Tropical Freeze and Galaxy 2 and Returns came out very close to each other - the theme park and movie rumblings for 2024 might indicate it coming that year instead, also if it started development in 2020 it's possible it comes in 2024(Dread took 4 years, and they're developing it alongside a 3D Mario);
  • That game by Grezzo of the hirings I always took as a brand new 2D Zelda, but Jet Dragon is probably coming first. Also they're very efficient, can see them having another remaster in the works coming in 2023.
These look reasonable to me but I’ve given up guessing Nintendo release dates. We know they’re willing to bank games for a very long time and that they’ve got stuff cooking (or even banked) that we don’t know about. They have control over their calendar in a way almost no one else does
 
These look reasonable to me but I’ve given up guessing Nintendo release dates. We know they’re willing to bank games for a very long time and that they’ve got stuff cooking (or even banked) that we don’t know about. They have control over their calendar in a way almost no one else does
Oh yeah they're completely unpredictable. They have MPR ready for a year and yet it wasn't even announced yet, while Pikmin 4 was even with no gameplay and probably being late in 2023. The 2D Mario/DK/3D Mario is another dilema I've given up on figuring out. For all we know they can make DK the big game of E3 next year and go radio silent with 2D Mario until three months before release. Or go on a weird route of having MPR and 4 in the same year. Or announcing something totally unexpected like a new Tomodachi Life or Nintendogs two months in advance (like Switch Sports this February).
 
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I think Nintendo and Capcom have the same aim; full adoption of a single proprietary engine for the sake of efficiency and a smoother production pipeline. That is especially crucial for Nintendo to aim for considering the fluid nature of EPD; staff move around from project to project and if they are all on the same framework it just makes the process all the easier.

Adoption of LunchPack on Wii U was slow; Nintendo Land was the showcase title not just for the Game Pad but for the capabilities of the engine (sharing a codename with it); and from there it took a couple years for it to see further use (as most titles were already well into production beforehand), with Splatoon and Super Mario Maker.

On Switch we’ve seen the majority of EPD projects adopt it outside of ports and rare exceptions; Brain Training and Big Brain Academy are co-developed with indieszero, Jump Rope Challenge was a tiny WFH production made in Unity, Tears of the Kingdom will likely be using the same engine as its Wii U predecessor, and Odyssey continued Tokyo’s use of their proprietary engine ‘Al’, used since 3D Land (which was built off the Galaxy games, which were built off Sunshine…). We’ve now seen evidence from the 3D All-Stars launcher files that Tokyo are adopting LunchPack too, though; so I imagine both their 2D and 3D projects will likely be using LunchPack.

Nintendo_Engine.png
Not only for the bolded but it would provide flexibility as the more knowledge that is pooled & added onto; the wider range of games can be developed with it. We can see the problems with not doing this with EA & Frostbite.
 
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That ex-Hudson person joined the wrong division! NdCube is that-a-way! XD

Edit: in Obi-Wan's voice "Hello there!" I just discovered that Rocket Studio, home of ex-Hudson folks may have had stealth involvement on some NDCube stuff despite not being credited directly (but employees are).

Biggest bit is that the founder of Rocket Studio, an ex-Hudson person Takashi Takebe is credited in Island Tour, and another person, Tomoyuki Honda is credited on Culdcept Saga, which was worked on at Rocket Studio, then numerous NDCube games, and most recently on Chocobo's Dungeon: Every Buddy which was by Rocket Studio.

So Nintendo and NDCube really have pulled out all stops in gathering every Hudson-based dev/support dev they can think of; CAProduction and Will Co., Ltd supported many Hudson games back in the old days and of course now work on almost every NDCube game (CAP even getting to lead on Clubhouse Games), and again Rocket Studio being probably the other major ex-Hudson home I'm aware of.

Only other studio missing I guess is Natsume Atari as they worked on numerous Hudson games like a few Deca Sports games and Omega Five (remember that game?).
 
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I think Nintendo and Capcom have the same aim; full adoption of a single proprietary engine for the sake of efficiency and a smoother production pipeline. That is especially crucial for Nintendo to aim for considering the fluid nature of EPD; staff move around from project to project and if they are all on the same framework it just makes the process all the easier.

Adoption of LunchPack on Wii U was slow; Nintendo Land was the showcase title not just for the Game Pad but for the capabilities of the engine (sharing a codename with it); and from there it took a couple years for it to see further use (as most titles were already well into production beforehand), with Splatoon and Super Mario Maker.

On Switch we’ve seen the majority of EPD projects adopt it outside of ports and rare exceptions; Brain Training and Big Brain Academy are co-developed with indieszero, Jump Rope Challenge was a tiny WFH production made in Unity, Tears of the Kingdom will likely be using the same engine as its Wii U predecessor, and Odyssey continued Tokyo’s use of their proprietary engine ‘Al’, used since 3D Land (which was built off the Galaxy games, which were built off Sunshine…). We’ve now seen evidence from the 3D All-Stars launcher files that Tokyo are adopting LunchPack too, though; so I imagine both their 2D and 3D projects will likely be using LunchPack.

Nintendo_Engine.png
is lunchpack an official name ?
 
That ex-Hudson person joined the wrong division! NdCube is that-a-way! XD

Edit: in Obi-Wan's voice "Hello there!" I just discovered that Rocket Studio, home of ex-Hudson folks may have had stealth involvement on some NDCube stuff despite not being credited directly (but employees are).

Biggest bit is that the founder of Rocket Studio, an ex-Hudson person Takashi Takebe is credited in Island Tour, and another person, Tomoyuki Honda is credited on Culdcept Saga, which was worked on at Rocket Studio, then numerous NDCube games, and most recently on Chocobo's Dungeon: Every Buddy which was by Rocket Studio.

So Nintendo and NDCube really have pulled out all stops in gathering every Hudson-based dev/support dev they can think of; CAProduction and Will Co., Ltd supported many Hudson games back in the old days and of course now work on almost every NDCube game (CAP even getting to lead on Clubhouse Games), and again Rocket Studio being probably the other major ex-Hudson home I'm aware of.

Only other studio missing I guess is Natsume Atari as they worked on numerous Hudson games like a few Deca Sports games and Omega Five (remember that game?).
Smileboom,Magnum enter and Toyste beach too, NDCUBE extended family is pretty big
 
Smileboom,Magnum enter and Toyste beach too, NDCUBE extended family is pretty big
As I said before, getting Hidetoshi Endo, who was the long-time President of Hudson to join Nintendo and revitalize NDCube was sheer genius. Dude had CONNECTIONS, basically gave Nintendo all but the keys to Hudson itself. I'd think if he'd been able, he'd have just sold Hudson to Nintendo entirely, but Konami likely was too big of a hurdle to overcome.
 
is lunchpack an official name ?
To my knowledge Nintendo have never acknowledged it themselves (unlike Bezel which was made to be available for other devs to use); but LunchPack is what it is referred to in the files of games running with it (and as I referenced in that post, Nintendo Land is ‘Lunch’).

I’d imagine that if they ever decided to market it they’d probably come up with a slightly different name, maybe make it part of a ‘NintnedoWare’ suite with Bezel; but I don’t think they have an interest in that.
 
As I said before, getting Hidetoshi Endo, who was the long-time President of Hudson to join Nintendo and revitalize NDCube was sheer genius. Dude had CONNECTIONS, basically gave Nintendo all but the keys to Hudson itself. I'd think if he'd been able, he'd have just sold Hudson to Nintendo entirely, but Konami likely was too big of a hurdle to overcome.

Not sure I understand this. Didn't Konami buy Hudson? If Hudson wanted to sell themselves to Nintendo... why did they sell themselves to Konami instead? Where's the hurdle?
 
Not sure I understand this. Didn't Konami buy Hudson? If Hudson wanted to sell themselves to Nintendo... why did they sell themselves to Konami instead? Where's the hurdle?
I assume he's suggesting that Endo was compelled by an internal pressure like a board or shareholders to take the Konami deal but I'm not sure if that could have even been the case hypothetically
 
I assume he's suggesting that Endo was compelled by an internal pressure like a board or shareholders to take the Konami deal but I'm not sure if that could have even been the case hypothetically

It's really strange. I don't think there's anything pointing to it.
 
It's really strange. I don't think there's anything pointing to it.
IIRC Konami started buying into Hudson in 2001 and then finally bought the full 100% in 2006. Endo seemingly left in 2008 (his last credit IIRC was Bomberman Blast on WiiWare which came out that year), and it's likely that things were already heading south as NDCube resurfaced in 2010, and not long after Konami killed off the company entirely.

It's possible if Konami hadn't yet bought Hudson fully, maybe Endo could've swayed the parties involved to sell Hudson's own stakes and Konami's stake in Hudson to Nintendo. It's all hypothetical obviously.
 
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To my knowledge Nintendo have never acknowledged it themselves (unlike Bezel which was made to be available for other devs to use); but LunchPack is what it is referred to in the files of games running with it (and as I referenced in that post, Nintendo Land is ‘Lunch’).

I’d imagine that if they ever decided to market it they’d probably come up with a slightly different name, maybe make it part of a ‘NintnedoWare’ suite with Bezel; but I don’t think they have an interest in that.
If they ever market it, Bento would be a perfect name. It “matches” Bezel, has continuity with LunchPack, and is just a perfect name for a modular game engine in general.
 
Anyone have a guess as to what he's up to? https://nintendo.fandom.com/wiki/Hiromasa_Shikata

Would love to figure out exactly what's going on, if anything, with 2D Zelda at Nintendo. Obviously we got Link's Awakening which was a remake, but for the guy who directed the last two original 2D Zelda games to not have any credits to his name at all for 7 years is a bit odd, right? I assume EPD just doesn't really have the bandwidth to work on 2D and 3D Zelda but that begs the question what do they have him doing.
 


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