Intsys and EPD/SRD programmers were using Unity for mobile games. If anything the core FE team worked on unity first for FE Heroes so maybe they continued that model.
EPD programmers including the leads on Pikmin 4 - used Unreal 4 and Nintendo even hired Unreal 4 programmers for unspecified work. I’m not sure why Unreal 4 was used in Pikmin 4 but I don’t think it was a subcontractors decision solely especially since Nintendo has used outsourced code in their first party games and engines before.
The list is of EPD games. Sure IS makes WW, but its EPD led, same thing with Metroid Dread. Also Retro and NLG arent there either. And they also use their own engines.Small complaint then, but technically Monolith Soft is owned by Nintendo under an effective 96.7% share since 2013? Wouldn't they count?
I mean it doesn't really matter much overall because all of their titles (if i remember correctly) use Monolith Soft's own engine made for Xenoblade X, so XC2 and 3 would fall under Misc - Propritary, but still.
Fair enough. I just thought there was some odd inclusions, such as NST, that confused me about some of the omissions. Other than that, aight, good list.The list is of EPD games. Sure IS makes WW, but its EPD led, same thing with Metroid Dread. Also Retro and NLG arent there either. And they also use their own engines.
Monolith, like Next Level Games or Retro Studios, are companies that all existed before they were owned by Nintendo. It's logical and even useful for Nintendo that these companies should retain their know-how and skills - it's an added value. The case of NST is not comparable. NST was founded by Nintendo, and is basically something like EPD America. So if all the EPD teams are working with Module System, it makes sense for NST to do it, but not Monolith.Small complaint then, but technically Monolith Soft is owned by Nintendo under an effective 96.7% share since 2013? Wouldn't they count?
I mean it doesn't really matter much overall because all of their titles (if i remember correctly) use Monolith Soft's own engine made for Xenoblade X, so XC2 and 3 would fall under Misc - Propritary, but still.
I understand that the use of standardized game engines is a reaction to the evolution of the industry and the increasing complexity of development. Unity and Unreal Engine save time. We've seen this with Good Feel too. However, in the case of IS, I find it very strange indeed, given how much technological know-how is part of their own history. I'd be similarly surprised if one day a Kirby were developed with Unity, for the same historical reasons concerning HAL.It is odd that IntSys created Engage in Unity.
They used an in-house engine in Origami King, was that abandoned?
I read here that this engine change may have been the reason for delays in EPD 8 projects.So all of NST's previous projects were on ActionLibrary which is closely associated with EPD8. I wonder if this mean the next Mario 3D game will also switch to ModuleSystem.
EPD certainly is. NST probably just got caught up in that because they've been using EPD tech lately.Nintendo homogenizing engine use?
Bezel seems to specifically built for licensing to external studios. Nintendo doesn't appear to use it internally.It seems to me that the whole point of the Bezel Engine was to simplify development. As Nintendo has evolved with Nvidia's contribution, such an engine may no longer be necessary, and they can unify their tools to a certain extent. However, I hope that Retro, Monolith or NLG will continue to work on their own technology.
It's likely that ModuleSystem is partially based on BotW's engine. Seems to be a unification of EPD's Switch era tech.BOTW's on a different engine than TOTK?
The idea for it was that it'd make 3rd party development easier, with most confirmed uses coming from Nintendo's partner studios, and occasionally for "not at all related to Nintendo" games (iirc Vroom in the Night Sky uses it)Bezel seems to specifically built for licensing to external studios. Nintendo doesn't appear to use it internally.
Nippon Columbia use Bezel as well. Hell even NDCube's common supporter Will Co., Ltd. used it for Cuddly Forest Friends which Aksys localized just last year.The idea for it was that it'd make 3rd party development easier, with most confirmed uses coming from Nintendo's partner studios, and occasionally for "not at all related to Nintendo" games (iirc Vroom in the Night Sky uses it)
However, NDcube is a first-party studio and their games have almost exclusively used Bezel lately, so it has gotten some internal use
Seems to be. The name of the engine seems like a giveaway. And it explains why the FSR license was in Switch Sports. It's one of ModuleSystem's upscaling options, which we saw in TearsNintendo homogenizing engine use?
Breath of the Wild uses an engine called KingSystem that was clearly built for Zelda's use. Takuhiro Dohta was the engineering lead on Breath of the Wild. When Tears of the Kingdom came out, he seems to be the technical lead of a new EPD programming division.BOTW's on a different engine than TOTK?
ND Cube uses Bezel, if I'm not mistaken, but my point was that Bezel is no longer needed since the Switch, which supports Unity and Unreal without a hitch. So Nintendo can concentrate on a single engine. The fact that EPD games share the same technology is nothing new. This has always been the case with Mario and Zelda, for example.Bezel seems to specifically built for licensing to external studios. Nintendo doesn't appear to use it internally.
Bezel only really exists, at least in its current form, on the Switch. It or some successor to it is likely to continue existing for the foreseeable future. It fills a different niche than the engines used by most of Nintendo's internal studios.ND Cube uses Bezel, if I'm not mistaken, but my point was that Bezel is no longer needed since the Switch, which supports Unity and Unreal without a hitch. So Nintendo can concentrate on a single engine. The fact that EPD games share the same technology is nothing new. This has always been the case with Mario and Zelda, for example.
Bezel would still have use for smaller games while not needing to spend on licensing. I can see Bezel getting updates for Drake that aren't mesh shaders, ray tracing and the like. stuff like FSR and DLSS supportND Cube uses Bezel, if I'm not mistaken, but my point was that Bezel is no longer needed since the Switch, which supports Unity and Unreal without a hitch. So Nintendo can concentrate on a single engine. The fact that EPD games share the same technology is nothing new. This has always been the case with Mario and Zelda, for example.
Bezel only really exists, at least in its current form, on the Switch. It or some successor to it is likely to continue existing for the foreseeable future. It fills a different niche than the engines used by most of Nintendo's internal studios.
Bezel would still have use for smaller games while not needing to spend on licensing. I can see Bezel getting updates for Drake that aren't mesh shaders, ray tracing and the like. stuff like FSR and DLSS support
is this just for internal developed games? because i just noticed that fire emblem engage is missing and we know its on unity
Breath of the Wild uses an engine called KingSystem that was clearly built for Zelda's use. Takuhiro Dohta was the engineering lead on Breath of the Wild. When Tears of the Kingdom came out, he seems to be the technical lead of a new EPD programming division.
Best guess is that Nintendo decided to consolidate around one engine, and picked the Breath of the Wild engine to be the base. That new engine is called ModuleSystem, which sounds suspiciously like "more modular version of the KingSystem engine." With Splatoon 3, ToTK, Wonder all being big games from teams that don't usually share technology at this level, it seems likely that Nintendo is moving toward shared middleware.
Makes sense that you'd work from Breath of the Wild's engine, too. In terms of rendering features, it was maybe the most advanced of the Switch-era. It has an excellent physics engine. It supports really excellent asset streaming for open worlds. And the tooling appears to be quite mature as well.
The choice of engine has less to do with the "size" of the game and more the studio that's making it. The developers who use Bezel (including Intelligent Systems, who have a bafflingly wide spread of engines in use) have shown no signs of moving away from it. NST has been on EPD tech seemingly since they moved on from dogfooding Nintendo Web Framework, so it's only natural they'd move to the same tools that the rest of EPD appears to be moving to. Games like Yoshi's Crafted World, Pikmin 4, and the Mario RPG remake are from developers who don't entirely stick to the Nintendo ecosystem, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that they might use more generic tools.I think that seeing games like Yoshi Crafted World, Pikmin 4, Fire Emblem Engage or even the recent Mario RPG remake use standard external solutions indicates that this niche doesn't need an internal iteration of Bezel. I'm not even talking about the incomming Mario vs DK because NST is close to EPD Tokyo, but that said, this remake proves that even the "smaller games" don't need differentiated and specific tools anymore. Hence the name ModuleSystem ,I suppose.
This makes sense. I'm curious how high level an engine it is - it seems like Nintendo's engine solution was "bunch of middleware, assemble yourself" for a long time.From what I gather it's more a consolidation of both KingSystem and LunchPack into one unified EPD engine; dataminers initially mistook ModuleSystem for a newer itteration of LunchPack when it first appeared in Switch Sports, still some common libraries between them. A lot of easy to imagine benefits in bringing all of their internal tools together, yeah.
Bezel would still have use for smaller games while not needing to spend on licensing. I can see Bezel getting updates for Drake that aren't mesh shaders, ray tracing and the like. stuff like FSR and DLSS support
I'm not sure. Bezel has some advantages. They're the only ones on the hook for support, and with Unity tanking and WB Games paying "maintain your own engine" costs anyway to keep Unreal 3 alive after Epic moved on, Nintendo might decide that having total control over their legacy library is worth it.I think that seeing games like Yoshi Crafted World, Pikmin 4, Fire Emblem Engage or even the recent Mario RPG remake use standard external solutions indicates that this niche doesn't need an internal iteration of Bezel.
Funny how Nintendo developed the Bezel Engine to make Switch development easier for third parties. But it seems that EPD is the one that made the most notable use of it, at least for co-developed/external projects seeing as they lent it to Intelligent Systems, ND Cube, Arika, and indiesZero.Nintendo PTD handles a lot of the technology. They are the developers of things like NintendoWare, Bezel Engine, NPLN, Emu/Porting Technology. I think that EPD internal adapts that PTD technology with some random bits of additional tech into their different respective game engines (ActionLibrary, ModuleSystem, Lunchpack, etc).
Because most 3rd-parties are scared shitless about the concept of Nintendo-exclusives. Really only Poisoft (Vroom in the Night Sky) and games published by Nippon Columbia use Bezel. Honestly surprised Takara Tomy haven't evidently used it as they've made numerous exclusives.Funny how Nintendo developed the Bezel Engine to make Switch development easier for third parties. But it seems that EPD is the one that made the most notable use of it, at least for co-developed/external projects seeing as they lent it to Intelligent Systems, ND Cube, Arika, and indiesZero.
why limit where you can release?Because most 3rd-parties are scared shitless about the concept of Nintendo-exclusives. Really only Poisoft (Vroom in the Night Sky) and games published by Nippon Columbia use Bezel. Honestly surprised Takara Tomy haven't evidently used it as they've made numerous exclusives.
Man imagine a Switch-exclusive Sonic game built with Bezel. Sigh, to dream.
I guess, but outside of Mario & Sonic Tokyo 2020, there hasn't been any real great examples of HE2's potential on Switch. Sega had zero problem with Nintendo-exclusive Sonic games in the past, but now have cold feet about the Switch with its 130 million+ install base, because of course.why limit where you can release?
and what would Sonic on Bezel even amount to? Hedgehog Engine/Frontier Engine is much more featured than any Bezel game shown.
what HE2 did on switch isn't as relevant as to what HE2 can do in general. there's no bezel engine game that comes close to Phantasy Star Online 2 or Sonic Frontier.I guess, but outside of Mario & Sonic Tokyo 2020, there hasn't been any real great examples of HE2's potential on Switch. Sega had zero problem with Nintendo-exclusive Sonic games in the past, but now have cold feet about the Switch with its 130 million+ install base, because of course.
It would absolutely matter as Switch ports of Sonic games have been shoddy if not an absolute embarrassment. Sure is a nice way to treat the audience most loyal to the franchise since it went 3rd-party over 20 years ago.what HE2 did on switch isn't as relevant as to what HE2 can do in general. there's no bezel engine game that comes close to Phantasy Star Online 2 or Sonic Frontier.
as for exclusivity, there's zero point to it. the games come to Nintendo and do best there regardless. being exclusive isn't going to make the sales jump by a significant amount
What about their fans who don't have a Switch, wouldn't they be upset if they couldn't play Sonic? Making the series Nintendo exclusive just doesn't make sense for a lot of reasons.It would absolutely matter as Switch ports of Sonic games have been shoddy if not an absolute embarrassment. Sure is a nice way to treat the audience most loyal to the franchise since it went 3rd-party over 20 years ago.
Plus Nintendo could offer vital marketing and promotion that could elevate the franchise to greater heights. Maybe even finally assist them to make something truly great.
I'm not sure Unity and Unreal are the best point of comparison. The situation is more that Nintendo works with a variety of internal and external studios that each have their own preferences, many of which have their own in house tech, while Bezel exists to fill in the gaps. The big Unity thing recently may add a bit of pressure to move to not-Unity, but they broadly seem to be willing to meet studios where they are, especially after this past year or so where Unity and Unreal started showing up a lot more in games they contracted out.This makes sense. I'm curious how high level an engine it is - it seems like Nintendo's engine solution was "bunch of middleware, assemble yourself" for a long time.
I'm not sure. Bezel has some advantages. They're the only ones on the hook for support, and with Unity tanking and WB Games paying "maintain your own engine" costs anyway to keep Unreal 3 alive after Epic moved on, Nintendo might decide that having total control over their legacy library is worth it.
Bezel currently has first class support for both of Nintendo's internal network architectures (NEX and Pia), for the IR camera, and for HD rumble. I don't know what new hardware features Nintendo will put in the Successor, but Mario Party and WarioWare are kind of perfect candidates for "low to mid budget games that don't need extreme performance, but do need to support all the nooks and crannies of Nintendo hardware."
If ModuleSystem is Nintendo's internal answer to Unreal, it would make sense that they need an internal answer to Unity.
When Sega starts making games for Nintendo systems first (and give them a budget) like Primce of Persia Lost Crown, then it will improve. Their engine choice has nothing to do with any of this.It would absolutely matter as Switch ports of Sonic games have been shoddy if not an absolute embarrassment. Sure is a nice way to treat the audience most loyal to the franchise since it went 3rd-party over 20 years ago.
Plus Nintendo could offer vital marketing and promotion that could elevate the franchise to greater heights. Maybe even finally assist them to make something truly great.
That‘s the point./sWhat about their fans who don't have a Switch, wouldn't they be upset if they couldn't play Sonic? Making the series Nintendo exclusive just doesn't make sense for a lot of reasons.
one needs only to look at Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown as the perfect example for why exclusivity is entirely irrelevant to making a third party game run and perform well on Switch. It's entirely about focus, planning, and overall making smart decisions about the scope of your project. It always comes down to the "okay we got a game, now we need to figure out how to cram it onto the Switch" afterthought style of project planning. It's sad that Ubisoft is the only company that often ends up able to manage this properly and thus ends up with presumably beneficial partnership deals as well (Starlink, PoP TLC). PoP had a Nintendo co-marketing partnership btw, the whole nine-yards of lead platform support.It would absolutely matter as Switch ports of Sonic games have been shoddy if not an absolute embarrassment. Sure is a nice way to treat the audience most loyal to the franchise since it went 3rd-party over 20 years ago.
Plus Nintendo could offer vital marketing and promotion that could elevate the franchise to greater heights. Maybe even finally assist them to make something truly great.
Like, don't want to call someone a console warrior, but I don't see any other reason to be so obsessed with not only a game, but an entire series being exclusiveThat‘s the point./s
I don‘t like or want it, but the point of exclusivity is that people who like the series/game can‘t play it on another platform so they buy the platform it is on. Of course third party exclusivity is annoying, and I‘m not a fan of it.Like, don't want to call someone a console warrior, but I don't see any other reason to be so obsessed with not only a game, but an entire series being exclusive
If ModuleSystem can be used both for Tears of the Kingdom and for Mario versus Donkey Kong, then for me it means that it is able to be both unity and Unreal, to use your formulation.Bezel has some advantages. They're the only ones on the hook for support, and with Unity tanking and WB Games paying "maintain your own engine" costs anyway to keep Unreal 3 alive after Epic moved on, Nintendo might decide that having total control over their legacy library is worth it.
Bezel currently has first class support for both of Nintendo's internal network architectures (NEX and Pia), for the IR camera, and for HD rumble. I don't know what new hardware features Nintendo will put in the Successor, but Mario Party and WarioWare are kind of perfect candidates for "low to mid budget games that don't need extreme performance, but do need to support all the nooks and crannies of Nintendo hardware."
If ModuleSystem is Nintendo's internal answer to Unreal, it would make sense that they need an internal answer to Unity.
thank you for the clarification and thank you for the job, its always useful to use it whenever i need to explain to other people. Also I had no idea another code was done in unityIt started as just covering EPD games but people requested I include the other first-party (adjacent in the case of Pac-Man 99, wasn't published by Nintendo anywhere) uses of Bezel, so the criteria for inclusion hasn't ended up 100% consistent but they do exist.
Monolith, Retro and Next Level all seem to be sticking to their own tech for the time being so they'd just be unnecessarily bumping up the misc proprietary category anyway; and if I were covering absolutely everything published by Nintendo, Unity could justify a row of its own by now (BDSP, Engage, Mario RPG, Another Code, etc).
From what I gather it's more a consolidation of both KingSystem and LunchPack into one unified EPD engine; dataminers initially mistook ModuleSystem for a newer itteration of LunchPack when it first appeared in Switch Sports, still some common libraries between them. A lot of easy to imagine benefits in bringing all of their internal tools together, yeah.
well if the next 3D Mario is massive as some rumors sugest, Nintendo might need I-UP and Nintendo Software Tecnology to act as suport/co-developers, kinda like Monolith Soft on the 2 Legend of Zelda for Wii U/Switch(Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom)Is it likely that NST is gearing up to do bigger games? It would be cool, but I don't really get the sense right now that they're doing anything beyond small-scale and budget releases in-between assisting on Mario games alongside 1-Up.
We'll see who's in charge of Luigi's Mansion 2 HD, but if a project ended in late 2023/early 2024 at NLG, it would make a lot of sense for it to be this game. The timing seems too short for this to be a brand new game, and it might make sense to work on a remaster while preparing the next Luigi's Mansion opus, just as Retro worked on Prime Remaster while preparing Prime 4.Curious about how far along Next Level's next project is, given some recent depatures. The bottom one implies a few things about the sort of game they're working on.
Unrelated to Next Level; Jesse Spears has left Retro after nearly 20 years. Typically i'd avoid mentioning any names to not drive any unwanted attention towards them and their pages, but given how long Jesse has been at Retro, being one of the remaining faces from the original Prime trilogy era working on Prime 4, I think it's worth noting his leave.
At some point after Prime Remastered released he removed two cancelled projects from the above list (and the third mystery project became, well, Prime Remastered); can't imagine Nintendo is a fan of publicly acknowledging unreleased games, though it was probably just his own choice to clean up the list. Wonder what his depature means for how close Prime 4 is to wrapping up.
1UP Studio is always doing support for them anyhow. That's what they're there for.well if the next 3D Mario is massive as some rumors sugest, Nintendo might need I-UP and Nintendo Software Tecnology to act as suport/co-developers, kinda like Monolith Soft on the 2 Legend of Zelda for Wii U/Switch(Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom)
Well, yeah. Like I said, I don't really foresee NST heading up any projects much larger in scope than, say, Bowser's Fury. They'll continue in their role as a support studio for Mario projects and any future indie collaborations, while also pumping out small-scale, budget titles like F-Zero 99 and Mario vs. DK. There's value in having a studio dedicated to doing games with (relatively) quick turn-around times.well if the next 3D Mario is massive as some rumors sugest, Nintendo might need I-UP and Nintendo Software Tecnology to act as suport/co-developers, kinda like Monolith Soft on the 2 Legend of Zelda for Wii U/Switch(Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom)
Well, yeah. Like I said, I don't really foresee NST heading up any projects much larger in scope than, say, Bowser's Fury. They'll continue in their role as a support studio for Mario projects and any future indie collaborations, while also pumping out small-scale, budget titles like F-Zero 99 and Mario vs. DK. There's value in having a studio dedicated to doing games with (relatively) quick turn-around times.
well if the next 3D Mario is massive as some rumors sugest, Nintendo might need I-UP and Nintendo Software Tecnology to act as suport/co-developers, kinda like Monolith Soft on the 2 Legend of Zelda for Wii U/Switch(Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom)
I think it would be great if NST could work on a project that wasn't a remake and was their own game. It's a real waste that we haven't made more use of this resource in recent years, especially at a time when the need for development skills and resources has increased dramatically everywhere.Well, yeah. Like I said, I don't really foresee NST heading up any projects much larger in scope than, say, Bowser's Fury. They'll continue in their role as a support studio for Mario projects and any future indie collaborations, while also pumping out small-scale, budget titles like F-Zero 99 and Mario vs. DK. There's value in having a studio dedicated to doing games with (relatively) quick turn-around times.
Either Nintendo is completely insane, or the extent of NST's role is maybe exaggerated.Bowser's Fury was pretty excellent, and it seems like EPD was mostly in a supervisory role. It would be absolutely wild to give them that, get something that good, original, and well received, then send them back to purely a support role. It's the only mainline Mario experience primarily made outside of Kyoto.
If NST is only useful to Nintendo as a tech oriented support studio, the Bowser's Fury team should pull a Platinum and get out of there.