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

[ILikeFeet]

Animal Crossing mmo-lite

 

[Tentacle-tropes]

I agree to some extent as to why Nintendo has such dominance in Japan. However, look at some of their IPs such as Splatoon and Pikmin where it is heavily dominant on Japanese sales. Nintendo lost their footing with the Japanese market during the PS1/PS2 days. Sony post-PS3 took the market for granted. They saw that they had Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Kingdom Hearts, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, and a plethora of other AA Japanese 3rd party franchises as well as Monster Hunter in the PSP era. What changed is Nintendo began chipping away at their advantage while Sony was chasing after the western audience to compete against Microsoft. Nintendo was able to develop software that really resonated with a different audience and their classic fans with DS/Wii. When Nintendo had that large audience they slowly began repairing relationships convincing Japanese 3rd parties to develop titles for them that fit within the Nintendo ecosystem such as what resonated with NES and SNES fans as nostalgia was strong and Nintendo was cultivating that audience such as with NSMB. Nintendo started getting more significant remakes of classic FF and Jrpgs titles. They began targeting specific franchises that resonated with their brand and fit their ecosystem. DQ9 was a pivotal moment where you could feel a shift from the PS1/PS2 days. Then Nintendo was also able to secure Monster Hunter. Nintendo began investing into more JRPG franchises such as Fire Emblem and Xenoblade. They partnered and reached out to 3rd party developers to develop games utilizing their ip such as KT with Metroid: Other M, Pokémon Conquest, Hyrule Warriors. Namco with SSB and Kid Icarus and even SE with Mario spin-offs giving some more traditional Japanese gaming sensibilities and influence to their franchises. They invested quite a bit in working with Level 5 which paid off in dividends during the DS/3DS era with a number of multimillion selling franchises in Japan as well as helping develop DQ9. Created a region exclusive Animal Crossing movie that aired in theatres. From the DS/Wii era, 3DS era, and Switch era they were able to gain a complete monopoly on the market. Meanwhile the franchises that Sony felt they had secured which gave them such dominance over the Japanese market began waning. Mainline SE titles developed and headed by Nomura have drastically declined. Metal Gear Solid has concluded its arc and Kojima has yet to find similar success. Capcom and Namco have begun investing and developing less titles outside of a few of their staple franchises and most of those have started declining outside of RE and MH. Nintendo’s predominance in the market has grown so significantly that now most up and coming developers only want to work for Nintendo.

Pikmin & Splatoon are not heavily reliant upon Japan. While we wait for Pikmin 4 splits Pikmin 3 DX was 820k JP & 1.12m ROTW (courtesy of @Lelouch0612 at IB). Same goes for Splatoon with Splat3 having good splits between ROTW & JP. The only reason they seem like they are is due to how we get information from JP. And, in the case of Splatoon the country in general has taken a complete shine to it.
Sony didn’t take the market for granted so much as just abandoned it while viewing it as a content generator against MS. Sony not investing into the market has hurt JP 3rd parties as they have slowly eroded their mindshare; w/3rd parties further damaging that due to their own decisions. One of these key reasons was ignoring the clear market leader in Nintendo handhelds. Nintendo didn’t need to chip away at the market since they kinda were the market since the PS3 & then outlasting everyone to become the market in JP.

While the Japanese market is a significant market that has helped Nintendo dramatically and they shouldn’t stop trying to maintain their dominance in the market. In the long run, the market will decline due to population and economic reasons. I do think they could follow a similar strategy in expanding in the west and growing deeper and stronger roots. It helps further grow their resilience. Competitors aren’t ever going to cease trying to carve their niche in the market even at the expense of Nintendo. Obviously Nintendo’s franchises have maintained and grown in popularity so significantly the past few decades that they have existed that it would be hard to imagine a significant decline. Yet the Wii U wasn’t that long ago and now that they are pursuing the hybrid approach they can’t afford to have a Wii U, GameCube, N64, or Virtual Boy level setback.
I’m not saying Nintendo grow acquisition hungry but working on investing and expanding their existing western development scene so that they have a more secure and stable western gaming development infrastructure. One that is not nearly as volatile as it has been in the past. Nintendo as a company has realized its franchises and characters are significant sources of revenue to further increase avenues of profit. They can use their franchises to help sell merchandise, movies and theme parks and couples with increased popularity these other divisions will also increase their overall revenue as well as increased sales into their videogames.

What similar strategy of expanding would they even attempt since they only have 3 studios for which to expand. I don’t see them building a brand new building to house new devs nor attempt to build teams within NOA/NOE with the express purpose of making games. At that point it would have to be acquisition heavy which they probably won’t do & is generally against their preferred strategy of headhunting.
The WiiU wasn’t that long ago but at some point it becomes a worthless example to point too much like N64, GC, or VB. Nintendo would have to actively try to self sabotage themself to get in that position. I’ve said it before that people vastly overplay the combining of their two lines, since their one line is composed of a few revenue streams that can prop up a bad product.

Nintendo can’t survive solely on running every generation with the same franchises and expect for fan interest to remain the same. They need to continually explore different interpretations/twists with their existing franchises whether it be spin-offs, new gimmicks/evolutions in their new entries or complete reinventions of their existing franchises. No one can fully and accurately predict how the videogame industry will change in the next 5-10 years. However, having a diversified amount of resources appealing to different audiences can help ensure survability.

I mean your saying Nintendo can’t yet basically outline how they can do such a feat; so sounds like what they have been doing every gen. Nintendo already has a wide array of staple IPs that appeal to quite a broad range of audiences. In this case I’m not really sure what the issue is here nor how this relates back to their western development.

 

[TheMoon]

Nintendo can’t survive solely on running every generation with the same franchises and expect for fan interest to remain the same. They need to continually explore different interpretations/twists with their existing franchises whether it be spin-offs, new gimmicks/evolutions in their new entries or complete reinventions of their existing franchises. No one can fully and accurately predict how the videogame industry will change in the next 5-10 years. However, having a diversified amount of resources appealing to different audiences can help ensure survability.

which is exactly what they have more so than any other platform holder (MS is buying up so many studios with valuable IP to get close to that). You're essentially describing exactly what they have been doing and building their development and production efforts around for the past 20 years.

 

[Chaotic Neutral]

I hope Donkey Kong is four dimensional and then nobody is happy.

the fourth dimension is banana

 

[LordByron28]

Pikmin & Splatoon are not heavily reliant upon Japan. While we wait for Pikmin 4 splits Pikmin 3 DX was 820k JP & 1.12m ROTW (courtesy of @Lelouch0612 at IB). Same goes for Splatoon with Splat3 having good splits between ROTW & JP. The only reason they seem like they are is due to how we get information from JP. And, in the case of Splatoon the country in general has taken a complete shine to it.
Sony didn’t take the market for granted so much as just abandoned it while viewing it as a content generator against MS. Sony not investing into the market has hurt JP 3rd parties as they have slowly eroded their mindshare; w/3rd parties further damaging that due to their own decisions. One of these key reasons was ignoring the clear market leader in Nintendo handhelds. Nintendo didn’t need to chip away at the market since they kinda were the market since the PS3 & then outlasting everyone to become the market in JP.

What similar strategy of expanding would they even attempt since they only have 3 studios for which to expand. I don’t see them building a brand new building to house new devs nor attempt to build teams within NOA/NOE with the express purpose of making games. At that point it would have to be acquisition heavy which they probably won’t do & is generally against their preferred strategy of headhunting.
The WiiU wasn’t that long ago but at some point it becomes a worthless example to point too much like N64, GC, or VB. Nintendo would have to actively try to self sabotage themself to get in that position. I’ve said it before that people vastly overplay the combining of their two lines, since their one line is composed of a few revenue streams that can prop up a bad product.

I mean your saying Nintendo can’t yet basically outline how they can do such a feat; so sounds like what they have been doing every gen. Nintendo already has a wide array of staple IPs that appeal to quite a broad range of audiences. In this case I’m not really sure what the issue is here nor how this relates back to their western development.

Compare the population of Japan versus the entire rest of the world. If you are getting 40-50% of your sales from one specific region then yes I would say it is reliant and dominant in one specific region. I’m simply saying that there is always room for growth within different regions or even developing franchises/IPs that have similar retention rates in other regions. There are clear genres and styles of games that appeal to different regions. They have made a concerted effort into developing, funding, and pursuing games made that appeal moreso to the Japanese demographic. Overall, a wise decision as they have gained close to a monopoly on the Japanese gaming market. While market realities of Nintendo handhelds did play a major factor that allowed Nintendo to have some leverage in negotiations. I’m skeptical if Nintendo didn’t offer to publish and market titles such as Dragon Quest, Monster Hunter, L5 and Platinum Games titles that they would’ve come to the system or invested as many resources to the platform. As well as let Sega use Mario for Mario vs Sonic sports spin-offs. Let Team Ninja make custom Warriors titles off of their IPs. Enlist K-T, Namco, and Platinum Games to help develop their games.

I’m unsure of building capacities but expanding team sizes of Retro, NCL, and NLG to tackle multiple projects at once as well as being able to provide development support to their western studios working on projects. Development teams such as EAD Tokyo, Zelda team, Sakurai, and Sakamoto utilize a variety of internal and external support studios to create their games. I’m just saying different development scenes can bring about new ideas and new representations that may resonate with different audiences.

which is exactly what they have more so than any other platform holder (MS is buying up so many studios with valuable IP to get close to that). You're essentially describing exactly what they have been doing and building their development and production efforts around for the past 20 years.

Again, I’m not saying they haven’t just that their efforts have been concentrated on the Japanese consumer. It’s worked out great for them and I don’t want them to stop. I just want them to put in a similar effort into their western gaming development side in terms of securing long term developers and getting those type of products. That way certain developers don’t turn their nose up at the thought of creating a cross platform title for a new flagship AAA title such as Resident Evil, Assassins Creed, GTA, Bioshock, Call of Duty, Madden, etc.

 

[Giancarlo]

Compare the population of Japan versus the entire rest of the world. If you are getting 40-50% of your sales from one specific region then yes I would say it is reliant and dominant in one specific region. I’m simply saying that there is always room for growth within different regions or even developing franchises/IPs that have similar retention rates in other regions. There are clear genres and styles of games that appeal to different regions. They have made a concerted effort into developing, funding, and pursuing games made that appeal moreso to the Japanese demographic. Overall, a wise decision as they have gained close to a monopoly on the Japanese gaming market. While market realities of Nintendo handhelds did play a major factor that allowed Nintendo to have some leverage in negotiations. I’m skeptical if Nintendo didn’t offer to publish and market titles such as Dragon Quest, Monster Hunter, L5 and Platinum Games titles that they would’ve come to the system or invested as many resources to the platform. As well as let Sega use Mario for Mario vs Sonic sports spin-offs. Let Team Ninja make custom Warriors titles off of their IPs. Enlist K-T, Namco, and Platinum Games to help develop their games.

I’m unsure of building capacities but expanding team sizes of Retro, NCL, and NLG to tackle multiple projects at once as well as being able to provide development support to their western studios working on projects. Development teams such as EAD Tokyo, Zelda team, Sakurai, and Sakamoto utilize a variety of internal and external support studios to create their games. I’m just saying different development scenes can bring about new ideas and new representations that may resonate with different audiences.



Again, I’m not saying they haven’t just that their efforts have been concentrated on the Japanese consumer. It’s worked out great for them and I don’t want them to stop. I just want them to put in a similar effort into their western gaming development side in terms of securing long term developers and getting those type of products. That way certain developers don’t turn their nose up at the thought of creating a cross platform title for a new flagship AAA title such as Resident Evil, Assassins Creed, GTA, Bioshock, Call of Duty, Madden, etc.

it would be excelent if Nintendo is able to expand it western studios, to the point they could do two large scale games at the same time, kinda like Monolith Soft that can develop two scale games at ounce

 

[Tentacle-tropes]

Compare the population of Japan versus the entire rest of the world. If you are getting 40-50% of your sales from one specific region then yes I would say it is reliant and dominant in one specific region. I’m simply saying that there is always room for growth within different regions or even developing franchises/IPs that have similar retention rates in other regions. There are clear genres and styles of games that appeal to different regions. They have made a concerted effort into developing, funding, and pursuing games made that appeal moreso to the Japanese demographic. Overall, a wise decision as they have gained close to a monopoly on the Japanese gaming market. While market realities of Nintendo handhelds did play a major factor that allowed Nintendo to have some leverage in negotiations. I’m skeptical if Nintendo didn’t offer to publish and market titles such as Dragon Quest, Monster Hunter, L5 and Platinum Games titles that they would’ve come to the system or invested as many resources to the platform. As well as let Sega use Mario for Mario vs Sonic sports spin-offs. Let Team Ninja make custom Warriors titles off of their IPs. Enlist K-T, Namco, and Platinum Games to help develop their games.

That’s frankly not how that works in anyway you think it does. If these games were reliant upon JP then 70-80% of their sales should be coming from this region alone while being unable to grow in regions outside it’s dependent. We see this in something like DQ which is wholly reliant upon JP since westward sales have been mediocre.
I’m really not getting this point of funding globally appealing software when that is all Nintendo does for the most part; they just don’t make games specifically for the Japanese & call it a day. You can count the fingers for which Nintendo has made games specifically for certain regions like AW.
Looking at the mentioned entities:

• P* is being hired to make games so either they are there or not
• L5 is a complete mess without the sweetheart deal they had with Nintendo
• KT figured out there is an audience for their wares
• Bandai still doesn’t bring games to the system
• Sega’s console product strategy is a complete mess at times
• DQ is wholly reliant upon JP as shown a by the DQ11 mess
• MH pre-World still needed JP with Nintendo sweetening the deal with overseas growth. Post-World Capcom still makes portable MH + they love bringing their back catalogue everywhere

Ultimately companies seeing their products selling with a robust consumer base will get the wheels spinning then a marketing or publisher deal or licensing out characters or having them make games. That & having a will to do so as well.

I’m unsure of building capacities but expanding team sizes of Retro, NCL, and NLG to tackle multiple projects at once as well as being able to provide development support to their western studios working on projects. Development teams such as EAD Tokyo, Zelda team, Sakurai, and Sakamoto utilize a variety of internal and external support studios to create their games. I’m just saying different development scenes can bring about new ideas and new representations that may resonate with different audiences.

While they could expand I think both Retro & NST need to actually ship products consistently before I can trust them with multiple products at once. From what I’ve seen of credits they do support their western studios with external & internal studios. I get what your trying to say but I’m not really seeing the issue of not expanding their western teams back to the glory days.

 

[Supreme Overlord]

Things we currently know about Princess Peach will star as the main character in a brand new game (temp.):

1. Princess Peach will star as the main character.
2. It is a brand new game.
3. It has a theatre/stage play aesthetic.
4. It releases next year.

Hopefully we'll know more by the end of the week, though.

5. The title is temporary (unless that detail changes)

 

[LordByron28]

That’s frankly not how that works in anyway you think it does. If these games were reliant upon JP then 70-80% of their sales should be coming from this region alone while being unable to grow in regions outside it’s dependent. We see this in something like DQ which is wholly reliant upon JP since westward sales have been mediocre.
I’m really not getting this point of funding globally appealing software when that is all Nintendo does for the most part; they just don’t make games specifically for the Japanese & call it a day. You can count the fingers for which Nintendo has made games specifically for certain regions like AW.
Looking at the mentioned entities:

• P* is being hired to make games so either they are there or not
• L5 is a complete mess without the sweetheart deal they had with Nintendo
• KT figured out there is an audience for their wares
• Bandai still doesn’t bring games to the system
• Sega’s console product strategy is a complete mess at times
• DQ is wholly reliant upon JP as shown a by the DQ11 mess
• MH pre-World still needed JP with Nintendo sweetening the deal with overseas growth. Post-World Capcom still makes portable MH + they love bringing their back catalogue everywhere

Ultimately companies seeing their products selling with a robust consumer base will get the wheels spinning then a marketing or publisher deal or licensing out characters or having them make games. That & having a will to do so as well.

While they could expand I think both Retro & NST need to actually ship products consistently before I can trust them with multiple products at once. From what I’ve seen of credits they do support their western studios with external & internal studios. I get what your trying to say but I’m not really seeing the issue of not expanding their western teams back to the glory days.

The benefit that I see is that the original DKC series was enjoyed and regarded as a better entry than Mario’s platforming SNES entries. I don’t personally agree with that assessment but it is/was an opinion shared amongst a lot of people. Tropical Freeze is regarded by a wide array of people ,myself included, as the greatest 2D platformer created. The N64 Banjo Kazooie titles are still held in high regard 20+ years later with the characters still being fondly remembered as evidenced by SSB DLC sales. Goldeneye 007 was a cult classic that resulted in a significant uptick in sales for the N64 and contributed in many ways to the rise in popularity of Console Shooters such as Halo and Call of Duty. Metroid Prime is still hailed as one of the best games ever created producing a notable following and the best selling iteration of 3D Metroid in notable comparison to Metroid: Other M which was a much more Japanese influenced and designed product with the largest marketing and development budget ever given for a Metroid title.

These titles have contributed significantly to Nintendo’s legacy and prestige. There is a notable market that doesn’t purchase Nintendo consoles but find products like Prime and that style appealing as evidenced by PS/Xbox/PC gamers which would possibly be tempted in picking up the console of there were more titles like that available exclusively on the platform. In addition to that there are a large amount of kids in the west that play games such as Minecraft or smartphone games that would possibly ask their parents to buy a Switch if they found a game made more geared towards their sensibilities. DKC, DKCR, Banjo, Crash, and Spyro more appeal to western audience kids and have notable followings. While Nintendo products are appealing to a global market there are also plenty of gamers and children in particular that play videogames, just not Nintendo ones. We see based upon Dragon Quest, anime to videogame adaptation titles produced by Namco and L5 that there are kids that buy the Switch for those products not inherently Nintendo products. Obviously once kids purchase the title they begin to try other Nintendo products and potentially become lifelong fans. Similar to how Pokémon’s sales are not only driven by kids but long term fans that got into the games and became life long fans.

I use the term heavily reliant on Japan for series such as Splatoon to mean that they wouldn’t be nearly as relevant if they sold a similar proportion in Japan as they did in the west. Not to say that they would ever be considered bombs but likely wouldn’t get as much content, DLC and attention. Splatoon wouldn’t be at that mega hit status becoming one of Nintendo’s premier staple franchises.

 

[Tyrien]

Is there like a list of every nintendo development team and guesses as to what project they are working on??

 

[OctoSplattack]

Is there like a list of every nintendo development team and guesses as to what project they are working on??

The first post in this thread is updated every few months to list the most current projects of each production group.

EDIT: EPD1, EPD7, EPD8, Nd Cube, Next Level Games, and NST are missing in action right now. EPD1 oversees partner studios, so they're probably attached to whatever is coming next out of IntSys, HAL, and/or Game Freak. EPD7 is probably working on Metroid 6 and at least one other title. EPD8 is definitely working on the next 3D Mario and possibly a new Donkey Kong, and NST is probably helping with both. Nd Cube is most likely working on the next Mario Party or some other party title, since that's all they do. Next Level Games is probably on Luigi's Mansion 4 and maybe another title if they're big enough.

 

[TheMoon]

Is there like a list of every nintendo development team and guesses as to what project they are working on??

tfw someone just blatantly delcares they never bothered to look at a carefully curated OP that has the exact info they want

 

[Blue Monty]

Next Level Games is probably on Luigi's Mansion 4 and maybe another title if they're big enough.

They are also working on the LM2 remake, LM2+4 is all I would expect them working on right now outside maybe some pre-production of their next game after LM4

 

[Dark Cloud]

When was it confirmed they’re working on LM Dark Moon?

 

[TheMoon]

They are also working on the LM2 remake, LM2+4 is all I would expect them working on right now outside maybe some pre-production of their next game after LM4

It is not known who is developing the Luigi 2 port (it's not a remake). I wouldn't even assume they're working on an LM4 already but we discussed this already once this year.

 

[MondoMega]

Unfortunately not expecting the Direct to clear up any of the mystery developers for that trio of Mario games. Still sticking to my not-very-educated guesses of:

Princess Peach - Good-Feel (Feels more in-line with Good-Feel's Yoshi titles than Next Level's work. The Intelligent Systems speculation is an interesting hypothetical but I don't think it'll end up being right. Maybe EPD 1 did secretly restructure into an internal team, who knows.)
Luigi's Mansion 2 - Grezzo (I don't think Next Level are handling this themselves, and Grezzo worked on the 3DS rerelease of the first game; easy call from there.)
Super Mario RPG - Tose (really there's plenty of viable studios for this; I only pick them because they developed a few SE games recently.)

 

[Tentacle-tropes]

The benefit that I see is that the original DKC series was enjoyed and regarded as a better entry than Mario’s platforming SNES entries. I don’t personally agree with that assessment but it is/was an opinion shared amongst a lot of people. Tropical Freeze is regarded by a wide array of people ,myself included, as the greatest 2D platformer created. The N64 Banjo Kazooie titles are still held in high regard 20+ years later with the characters still being fondly remembered as evidenced by SSB DLC sales. Goldeneye 007 was a cult classic that resulted in a significant uptick in sales for the N64 and contributed in many ways to the rise in popularity of Console Shooters such as Halo and Call of Duty. Metroid Prime is still hailed as one of the best games ever created producing a notable following and the best selling iteration of 3D Metroid in notable comparison to Metroid: Other M which was a much more Japanese influenced and designed product with the largest marketing and development budget ever given for a Metroid title.

I get the premise but I’m not getting the comparison here nor really what is being argued. Like Other M would still be a bad product if it was more Western influenced & designed with the inability to outsell Prime. Even the sequels couldn’t do that. If the only benefit is being legacy & prestige then the company would have folded ages ago.

These titles have contributed significantly to Nintendo’s legacy and prestige. There is a notable market that doesn’t purchase Nintendo consoles but find products like Prime and that style appealing as evidenced by PS/Xbox/PC gamers which would possibly be tempted in picking up the console of there were more titles like that available exclusively on the platform. In addition to that there are a large amount of kids in the west that play games such as Minecraft or smartphone games that would possibly ask their parents to buy a Switch if they found a game made more geared towards their sensibilities. DKC, DKCR, Banjo, Crash, and Spyro more appeal to western audience kids and have notable followings. While Nintendo products are appealing to a global market there are also plenty of gamers and children in particular that play videogames, just not Nintendo ones. We see based upon Dragon Quest, anime to videogame adaptation titles produced by Namco and L5 that there are kids that buy the Switch for those products not inherently Nintendo products. Obviously once kids purchase the title they begin to try other Nintendo products and potentially become lifelong fans. Similar to how Pokémon’s sales are not only driven by kids but long term fans that got into the games and became life long fans.

I’m trying to sort out what’s being talked about here:

• Games like Metroid appeal to a “notable” missing market if it was an FPS multiplayer game. The market that Metroid appeals to is more or less on the system with negligible impacts upon hardware adoption. Nintendo would need to fund multiple high level efforts possibly even replacing their current output to noticeably attract this market
• What are these sensibilities? DK in particular is a globally appealing title. I don’t think Nintendo is gonna go out of their way to attempt appealing to whatever these sensibilities are. Even then if they are attracted to Minecraft or smartphone games then Nintendo would be better off making a DK mobile game.
• This goes without saying but I’m not entirely sure why this is even here. The point of being a globally appealing title means that it also has a (hopeful) wide reaching base. A majority of Nintendo titles fall into this category & based upon Nintendo’s demographic breakdown, I don’t think they have to worry about finding new fans to become long term ones. Even if they didn’t necessarily get on their initially through 1st party like is typically how most people jump onto the Nintendo ecosystem

I use the term heavily reliant on Japan for series such as Splatoon to mean that they wouldn’t be nearly as relevant if they sold a similar proportion in Japan as they did in the west. Not to say that they would ever be considered bombs but likely wouldn’t get as much content, DLC and attention. Splatoon wouldn’t be at that mega hit status becoming one of Nintendo’s premier staple franchises.

Just because we get weekly numbers from JP & JP loves showing off how much they love Splatoon in general does not mean this series is heavily reliant upon JP.

Title	Total Sales (millions)	JP	ROTW
Splatoon	4.35	1.35	3
Splatoon 2	13.60	5.11	8.49
Splatoon 3	10.67	5.01	5.66

These are taken from Nintendo financials including numbers from InstallBase’s Nintendo software/hardware thread

The ROTW has been outselling JP since the beginning. I suspect Splat3 will follow in a similar vein. If JP was selling in proportion to the West then the games would still be a mega hit & a premier staple franchise for Nintendo; it would still get DLC, content, & attention.

 

[LordByron28]

I get the premise but I’m not getting the comparison here nor really what is being argued. Like Other M would still be a bad product if it was more Western influenced & designed with the inability to outsell Prime. Even the sequels couldn’t do that. If the only benefit is being legacy & prestige then the company would have folded ages ago.

I’m trying to sort out what’s being talked about here:

• Games like Metroid appeal to a “notable” missing market if it was an FPS multiplayer game. The market that Metroid appeals to is more or less on the system with negligible impacts upon hardware adoption. Nintendo would need to fund multiple high level efforts possibly even replacing their current output to noticeably attract this market
• What are these sensibilities? DK in particular is a globally appealing title. I don’t think Nintendo is gonna go out of their way to attempt appealing to whatever these sensibilities are. Even then if they are attracted to Minecraft or smartphone games then Nintendo would be better off making a DK mobile game.
• This goes without saying but I’m not entirely sure why this is even here. The point of being a globally appealing title means that it also has a (hopeful) wide reaching base. A majority of Nintendo titles fall into this category & based upon Nintendo’s demographic breakdown, I don’t think they have to worry about finding new fans to become long term ones. Even if they didn’t necessarily get on their initially through 1st party like is typically how most people jump onto the Nintendo ecosystem

Just because we get weekly numbers from JP & JP loves showing off how much they love Splatoon in general does not mean this series is heavily reliant upon JP.

Title	Total Sales (millions)	JP	ROTW
Splatoon	4.35	1.35	3
Splatoon 2	13.60	5.11	8.49
Splatoon 3	10.67	5.01	5.66

These are taken from Nintendo financials including numbers from InstallBase’s Nintendo software/hardware thread

The ROTW has been outselling JP since the beginning. I suspect Splat3 will follow in a similar vein. If JP was selling in proportion to the West then the games would still be a mega hit & a premier staple franchise for Nintendo; it would still get DLC, content, & attention.

- ok look at Disney they are a worldwide, global brand. That didn’t stop them from pursuing and working with Studio Ghibli in distributing, dubbing and localizing their films. Also some of their most recent output has spent considerable time working with and creating films designed to appeal to other cultures such as with Coco, Encanto, Moana, Raya & The Last Dragon, etc. Or Nickelodeon which funded and distributed Avatar:The Last Airbender which took heavy inspiration from Anime and Asian culture in general. Or The Power Rangers which originated from a popular Japanese manga and tv show that was heavily adapted and westernized to appeal to a larger market and make it into a global brand. Perhaps the most notable example is Nintendo partnering with Universal Studios with the Super Mario Bros Movie and theme park.

- I disagree with the prime comparison. We have seen series such as Bioshock, Dead Space, Mass Effedt and Hollow Knight sell incredibly well on the PS/Xbox audience. It doesn’t have to have a multiplayer shooter aspect to it. Other M on the premise of being a story heavy, action-adventure metroidvania doesn’t sound like it would be bad but it came down to execution and some questionable design choices. I really enjoyed Metroid:Other M and found it to have a lot of great ideas marred with some bad choices. The game should have allowed you to use the nunchucks first and foremost. Second off it lingered way too long on Samus’ internal monologue with repetitive dialogue and a bit too melodramatic and soap opera-esque drama. The premise and character development would’ve worked best as a prequel to the original Metroid rather than after Super Metroid. How Samus came across did not seem logical to what she had previously experienced in other titles.

- Donkey Kong Country and Returns series sold drastically better than DK94, DKJB, Donkey Konga, and Donkey Kong: King of Swing so one cannot simply chalk it up to DK just being a universally global icon. When I speak of sensibilities I am referring to art, dialogue, and some gameplay decisions. Many noted art design influence from Dreamworks, Warner Bros, and Pixar. Most of Rare’s titles had a very distinctive British sense of humor in their dialogue and influence from art direction to location names and design most notably seen in DKC, Banjo Kazooie, and Conker. It’s widely evidenced that these titles sold better in the Western market than it did in the Japanese market in comparison to other platforming series such as Kirby and Mario.

- Look at the attach rates of Splatoon. Switch has roughly sold 30 million in Japan and about 100 million for the RotW. About 1 in every 6 Switch owners own Splatoon in Japan. If we translated that attach rate to the rest of the world it would come out to roughly 16.7 copies sold RotW and would be selling over 20 million copies.

- Nintendo’s whole pursuit of the Blue Ocean Market strategy is about pursuing wider markets that may not traditionally buy Nintendo products and expanding their reach. Every companies goal, especially a publicly traded one, should be about constant growth knowing that markets and trends can change quickly. I’m unsure why you are being so combative over me saying that they should continue doing what they are doing in Japan in and begin translating that success and approach to other larger markets.

 

[Nemesis24]

Unfortunately not expecting the Direct to clear up any of the mystery developers for that trio of Mario games. Still sticking to my not-very-educated guesses of:

Princess Peach - Good-Feel (Feels more in-line with Good-Feel's Yoshi titles than Next Level's work. The Intelligent Systems speculation is an interesting hypothetical but I don't think it'll end up being right. Maybe EPD 1 did secretly restructure into an internal team, who knows.)
Luigi's Mansion 2 - Grezzo (I don't think Next Level are handling this themselves, and Grezzo worked on the 3DS rerelease of the first game; easy call from there.)
Super Mario RPG - Tose (really there's plenty of viable studios for this; I only pick them because they developed a few SE games recently.)

yeah unfortunately we'll only learn about them when the game is out, as usual.

 

[Tentacle-tropes]

- ok look at Disney they are a worldwide, global brand. That didn’t stop them from pursuing and working with Studio Ghibli in distributing, dubbing and localizing their films. Also some of their most recent output has spent considerable time working with and creating films designed to appeal to other cultures such as with Coco, Encanto, Moana, Raya & The Last Dragon, etc. Or Nickelodeon which funded and distributed Avatar:The Last Airbender which took heavy inspiration from Anime and Asian culture in general. Or The Power Rangers which originated from a popular Japanese manga and tv show that was heavily adapted and westernized to appeal to a larger market and make it into a global brand. Perhaps the most notable example is Nintendo partnering with Universal Studios with the Super Mario Bros Movie and theme park.

This point is kinda all over the place
-Nintendo already helps distribute, market, & localize 3rd party content overseas. This is different then the point made about those 3rd parties not investing without doing such. From history we can saw that regardless of it Nintendo helped or not it was a crapshoot until recently due to being the entirety of the console market in JP.
-This is more difficult then you think if you expect Nintendo to do such. It would require either massively over expanding or being like Sony with most games lasting for 1-3 games. Otherwise Nintendo would need to work with partners which they already do. This mainly happens in the Indie space.
-Mario is very recognizable globally with the partnership’s aim to expand the brand. Both the theme park & movie kept virtually everything that people know about Mario from a visual, auditory, & design standpoint. This is unlike Super Sentai turning into Power Rangers.

- I disagree with the prime comparison. We have seen series such as Bioshock, Dead Space, Mass Effedt and Hollow Knight sell incredibly well on the PS/Xbox audience. It doesn’t have to have a multiplayer shooter aspect to it. Other M on the premise of being a story heavy, action-adventure metroidvania doesn’t sound like it would be bad but it came down to execution and some questionable design choices. I really enjoyed Metroid:Other M and found it to have a lot of great ideas marred with some bad choices. The game should have allowed you to use the nunchucks first and foremost. Second off it lingered way too long on Samus’ internal monologue with repetitive dialogue and a bit too melodramatic and soap opera-esque drama. The premise and character development would’ve worked best as a prequel to the original Metroid rather than after Super Metroid. How Samus came across did not seem logical to what she had previously experienced in other titles.

Your talking about Nintendo missing a major market which something like Metroid & other games like it would be able to fill. The audience for RPGs is mostly there barring certain sub genres. The only real major market that Nintendo could potentially siphon away from PS/Xbox/PC, create, or spur would be multiplayer FPS.

- Donkey Kong Country and Returns series sold drastically better than DK94, DKJB, Donkey Konga, and Donkey Kong: King of Swing so one cannot simply chalk it up to DK just being a universally global icon. When I speak of sensibilities I am referring to art, dialogue, and some gameplay decisions. Many noted art design influence from Dreamworks, Warner Bros, and Pixar. Most of Rare’s titles had a very distinctive British sense of humor in their dialogue and influence from art direction to location names and design most notably seen in DKC, Banjo Kazooie, and Conker. It’s widely evidenced that these titles sold better in the Western market than it did in the Japanese market in comparison to other platforming series such as Kirby and Mario.

The fact you are trying to discount DK being a global icon with mainline games selling vastly better then spin-offs is just absurd. This would be like saying Pokémon isn’t a global icon because the mainline games sell drastically better then the spin-offs.

• B&K I hope sold it more in the west considering it releases there first with the Japanese ports happening in 4 month time frames.
• Conker didn’t even release in JP until the Remake I think
• DKC definitely sold more in the west but as we see with TF it could approach certain Kirby releases in the future

- Look at the attach rates of Splatoon. Switch has roughly sold 30 million in Japan and about 100 million for the RotW. About 1 in every 6 Switch owners own Splatoon in Japan. If we translated that attach rate to the rest of the world it would come out to roughly 16.7 copies sold RotW and would be selling over 20 million copies.

This is not how sales nor attach rates work. We have data that is pretty clear both Splatoon & Pikmin, at least with 3DX, are not heavily reliant upon JP; a strong region for these IPs but not anything approaching DQ in terms of dependencies.

- Nintendo’s whole pursuit of the Blue Ocean Market strategy is about pursuing wider markets that may not traditionally buy Nintendo products and expanding their reach. Every companies goal, especially a publicly traded one, should be about constant growth knowing that markets and trends can change quickly. I’m unsure why you are being so combative over me saying that they should continue doing what they are doing in Japan in and begin translating that success and approach to other larger markets.

Nintendo is not pursuing a Blue Ocean anymore rather it’s more about growth of brand, IP, & overall consumers. The type of growth alluded is one of short-term while Nintendo typically looks long-term with their plans.
The issue I have is that Nintendo cannot replicate the success they found in JP elsewhere because it is a very unique situation requiring both 1st & 3rd parties to make sure grievous errors & inability to adapt to the market. Then essentially being the market for which other companies in the region cannot really ignore even though some still do.

But yeah I think we should just end it here since we are not convincing the other

 

[LordByron28]

This point is kinda all over the place
-Nintendo already helps distribute, market, & localize 3rd party content overseas. This is different then the point made about those 3rd parties not investing without doing such. From history we can saw that regardless of it Nintendo helped or not it was a crapshoot until recently due to being the entirety of the console market in JP.
-This is more difficult then you think if you expect Nintendo to do such. It would require either massively over expanding or being like Sony with most games lasting for 1-3 games. Otherwise Nintendo would need to work with partners which they already do. This mainly happens in the Indie space.
-Mario is very recognizable globally with the partnership’s aim to expand the brand. Both the theme park & movie kept virtually everything that people know about Mario from a visual, auditory, & design standpoint. This is unlike Super Sentai turning into Power Rangers.

Your talking about Nintendo missing a major market which something like Metroid & other games like it would be able to fill. The audience for RPGs is mostly there barring certain sub genres. The only real major market that Nintendo could potentially siphon away from PS/Xbox/PC, create, or spur would be multiplayer FPS.

The fact you are trying to discount DK being a global icon with mainline games selling vastly better then spin-offs is just absurd. This would be like saying Pokémon isn’t a global icon because the mainline games sell drastically better then the spin-offs.

• B&K I hope sold it more in the west considering it releases there first with the Japanese ports happening in 4 month time frames.
• Conker didn’t even release in JP until the Remake I think
• DKC definitely sold more in the west but as we see with TF it could approach certain Kirby releases in the future

This is not how sales nor attach rates work. We have data that is pretty clear both Splatoon & Pikmin, at least with 3DX, are not heavily reliant upon JP; a strong region for these IPs but not anything approaching DQ in terms of dependencies.

Nintendo is not pursuing a Blue Ocean anymore rather it’s more about growth of brand, IP, & overall consumers. The type of growth alluded is one of short-term while Nintendo typically looks long-term with their plans.
The issue I have is that Nintendo cannot replicate the success they found in JP elsewhere because it is a very unique situation requiring both 1st & 3rd parties to make sure grievous errors & inability to adapt to the market. Then essentially being the market for which other companies in the region cannot really ignore even though some still do.

But yeah I think we should just end it here since we are not convincing the other

I agree to let things be since we’re not going to agree. I do want to clear up a few things just to reach a better understanding of some of the things I was saying. I acknowledge we are not going to agree and I’m just trying to clear up a few misunderstandings that I may not had been clear on.

Bioshock is a FPS that is single player driven not an rpg. Dead Space is a Survival Horror that is set in space and is a shooter. Both of those titles have clear Metroid Prime influence. Hollow Knight is a Metroidvania. The only RPG listed in that category was mass effect but I grouped that one in for the sci-fi space setting and weaponry as just being single player focused and doing well. I’m not sure where the RPG comment came from other than Mass Effect and WRPGs not being prevalent on Nintendo platforms. I’d say realistic sports and racing titles are also more popular in the west along the lines of 1080, Pilotwings, Wave Race, F-zero, and Excite especially when comparing to Madden, FIFA, NBA 2K, and Gran Turismo.

I want to emphasize my use of ‘just’ when discussing DK being a global brand. Meaning the success of DKC is not just because it was a DK game. If western developers are the only ones that made ‘mainline DK’ titles(outside of the arcade game where DK was the antagonist) doesn’t that only further prove my point? These were 5-10+ million sellers. There wouldn’t likely be a mainline vs. spin-off category if it wasn’t for Rare and Retro.

Also a large amount of Nintendo titles were localized much later in the west than in Japan but still were incredibly successful. Pokémon didn’t release at the same time globally until X/Y in 2013 and Fire Emblem not until Fates. Not to say localization doesn’t matter or have an impact.

 

[TheMoon]

Every companies goal, especially a publicly traded one, should be about constant growth knowing that markets and trends can change quickly. I’m unsure why you are being so combative over me saying that they should continue doing what they are doing in Japan in and begin translating that success and approach to other larger markets.

this is literally why the world is a burning pile of feces right now. NO. hard NO. this should NOT be every company's goal. every company's goal should be to create a long term sustainable business.

You also seem to have missed that their approach is not "focused on Japan", as they have repeatedly stated, their goal and audience is EVERYBODY. They are explicitly not making things primarily designed solely to appeal to one market or the other.

Your example of Disney distributing Ghibli is no different than Nintendo distributing and publishing and co-marketing ports of Skyrim and DOOM and things like this. Licensing out Mario to Ubi to make a goofy tactics game in France/Italy. 2D Metroid co-designed in Spain. In the past there were different partners doing other things.

 

[Adulfzen]

Is the Mario vs. Donkey Kong game made by NDCube ? It looks really similar to Mario Party Superstars lighting and rendering wise :

 

[BlackthornOrion]

Is the Mario vs. Donkey Kong game made by NDCube ? It looks really similar to Mario Party Superstars lighting and rendering wise :

Could it maybe just be that NST's using the same engine ND Cube uses for Mario Party? IIRC ND Cube uses Nintendo's Bezel engine, which is also used for things like WarioWare and the 99 games, so it wouldn't be that weird for NST to start using it.

 

[Adulfzen]

Could it maybe just be that NST's using the same engine ND Cube uses for Mario Party? IIRC ND Cube uses Nintendo's Bezel engine, which is also used for things like WarioWare and the 99 games, so it wouldn't be that weird for NST to start using it.

If they're not busy with assisting EPD Tokyo for the next 3D Mario then yeah I guess it's possible they're on it.

 

[Dark Cloud]

Anything new on who’s making Peach Showtime?

 

[lemonfresh]

Anything new on who’s making Peach Showtime?

What if its MonkEPD lol

 

[Skipper93653]

F-Zero 99 is NST.

 

[Charamiwa]

I am dying to know who is making Peach Showtime. I gotta say the intro really made me think of Luigi's Mansion 3 but I'm tired of speculating about it so I guess we're still waiting.

 

[Dark Cloud]

What if its MonkEPD lol

That would be wild. I got strong Luigi’s Mansion 3 vibes from the game. It feels like a Next Level Game

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

NST is now a real, major studio again instead of just support, baby.

 

[BooDestroyer]

Is there any word yet on what team is making PPS (Princess Peach Showtime)?

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

Is there any word yet on what team is making PPS (Princess Peach Showtime)?

The speculation is Good-Feel as it appears to have some slightly edited assets from Yoshi.

IS's Paper Mario team was also speculated, but they're more likely to be making the TTYD Remaster.

 

[Charamiwa]

F-Zero 99 is NST.

I was really impressed by the look of it, was really smooth and pretty while keeping the original style.

The speculation is Good-Feel as it appears to have some slightly edited assets from Yoshi.

IS's Paper Mario team was also speculated, but they're more likely to be making the TTYD Remaster.

I guess Good Feel could make sense. It has that 2D/3D hybrid not-quite-a-platformer style from Crafted World.

 

[Comic Obsessed]

Cool that NST are getting more projects.

Still disappointed that there are no Golden Sun remakes announced yet when they do frikking Another Code remakes (which are still good mind you). That being said, I'm cool if they're saving them for Switch 2 now.

 

[Onizuka]

But then, what about this list? I don't know where the source is from, the leak is from September 10, and it gets things right, but on the other hand there are others that have not appeared in the Direct...

It's very strange.
It seems very complicated to me to guess the things about the Direct... the list says that they are games focused on the first half of 2024, but FZero GX appears in December 2023.

How weird.

Under the image I leave the link to the tweet with the date of September 10.

 

[BooDestroyer]

The speculation is Good-Feel as it appears to have some slightly edited assets from Yoshi.

IS's Paper Mario team was also speculated, but they're more likely to be making the TTYD Remaster.

I feel that we should be past the point of speculation by now.

 

[Dardan Sandiego]

But then, what about this list? I don't know where the source is from, the leak is from September 10, and it gets things right, but on the other hand there are others that have not appeared in the Direct...

It's very strange.
It seems very complicated to me to guess the things about the Direct... the list says that they are games focused on the first half of 2024, but FZero GX appears in December 2023.

How weird.

Under the image I leave the link to the tweet with the date of September 10.

It gets things right because it was made after Pyoro tweeted or heavily hinted at stuff.

 

[Racalia]

Didn't this used to be a sticky thread? I always have to search now.

 

[MisterSpo]

It is kinda funny that we've got no answers on who's making Super Mario RPG, Luigi's Mansion 2 or Princess Peach Showtime and now there's Mario vs DK, Another Code, and Paper Mario as "who's the developer?!" games. Some of them more of a mystery than others.

I'd have assumed NST did Mario vs DK but they're on F ZERO 99.

 

[Dark Cloud]

It is kinda funny that we've got no answers on who's making Super Mario RPG, Luigi's Mansion 2 or Princess Peach Showtime and now there's Mario vs DK, Another Code, and Paper Mario as "who's the developer?!" games. Some of them more of a mystery than others.

I'd have assumed NST did Mario vs DK but they're on F ZERO 99.

We’re playing musical chairs and honestly I’m not a fan of how Nintendo does this. One thing I’ve loved about Sony is they give the devs their props when they announce a game. You know from the beginning who’s making it. With Nintendo you still might not know until the game releases.

 

[Blue Monty]

With Nintendo you still might not know until the game releases.

Until a rating board leaks it*

 

[Dardan Sandiego]

Nintendo probably saw all the discussions about first-, second- and third-party and was like nah, you figure this shit out yourselves.

 

[SirArthur]

Super curious on who is making Another Code. Cause FDC was MAGES but they I dont think they would have done a 3d game.

 

[Apopheniac]

NST being on F-Zero 99 means Arika's been off 99 duty. I guess they've all been drafted as Tekken support? Probably won't see much of them on Nintendo for a while.

 

[BlackthornOrion]

We’re playing musical chairs and honestly I’m not a fan of how Nintendo does this. One thing I’ve loved about Sony is they give the devs their props when they announce a game. You know from the beginning who’s making it. With Nintendo you still might not know until the game releases.

That is one thing I definitely think they could be better about. Who's making a game can be a big part of a game's identity and marketing, but aside from Retro and maybe MonolithSoft, Nintendo doesn't really leverage their studios as names in their own right and would rather people see it as "I dunno, it's all just Nintendo, isn't it". And good luck explaining how EPD breaks down to anyone not already at leat half-way obsessed with following this stuff.

And tbh this goes for externally-developed stuff too. If you check out the Contra thread, people are taking notice because they up-front said it was being made by Wayforward and that's a studio people recognize and like. Meanwhile iirc we had to find out Wayforward was doing the Advance Wars remake from a post-direct interview and the game itself doesn't even have any kind of logo or splash screen like most Wayforward games have. So if you aren't paying close attention, you'd really have no idea who made it.

 

[MetalLord]

Mario Vs Dk is nst too just confirmed from a instagram story
edit: the contractors worked on it for 1 year and it was finished two weeks ago

 

[Sim87]

I am dying to know who is making Peach Showtime. I gotta say the intro really made me think of Luigi's Mansion 3 but I'm tired of speculating about it so I guess we're still waiting.

I'm betting on TOSE.

 

[MisterSpo]

Mario Vs Dk is nst too just confirmed from a instagram story

NST more like NS TWO GAMES AM I RIGHT

 

[BlackthornOrion]

Mario Vs Dk is nst too just confirmed from a instagram story

Cool to see an NST comeback story. Not saying there aren't worse things than doing support on Mario games, but it'd just be nice having an NoA-based studio putting its own thumbprint on things again.