Interesting Nintendo Co-Developments

This year, it wasn’t a surprise at all that Nintendo’s E3 showing was a let down. I’ve been soured by Nintendo’s decision making for years. They are making money, and can technically be considered successful, but they’ve lost any kind of favor with a majority of longtime gamers like myself. Now, before you think you’ve read this rant before, and that you think I am just going to bash these newer games, you’re wrong. I am here to unite BOTH sides. My question is; Why can’t Nintendo continue with the new AND maintain the classics? 

To start things off, lets look at some of the NEW developments from E3 2015:

• Nintendo announced Star Fox Zero, a new take and advancement on the Star Fox Formula from the SNES and N64. The game is being co-developed between Nintendo and Platinum Games.
• Nintendo announced Metroid Prime: Federation Force. The game is being developed with Next Level Games and overseen by Nintendo’s Yoshihito Ikebata and Ryuichi Nakada.
• Nintendo announced unique Amiibo’s will be compatible in the new Skylanders Superchargers. The game is developed by Vicarious Visions and is only a partnership for Activision’s game.

Here is some of the big news from E3 2014:

• Nintendo announced Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS. The game is developed by Bandai Namco Games.
• Nintendo announced Bayonetta 2. The game is developed by Platinum Games.

If you don’t see where I am going with this, A significant amount of Nintendo’s catalog of games over the last 5 years or so has been co-developments with partnerships from various 3rd party studios. Here’s a few more for you to keep in mind; Metroid: Other M by Koei Tecmo, Yoshi's Woolly World by Good-Feel, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze by Monster Games, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon by Next Level Games. It goes on and on… This is fine, the fact that 3rd parties are lending a hand is great even. New takes on classic Nintendo characters and games by fresh teams. They all haven’t been winners, but it’s helped pad their catalog and build a larger library of releases, right? 

Nintendo's current lineup for major releases over the next year. 13 titles on Wii U, only 4 developed by internal studios.

Not so much… Nintendo continues to put out a similar number of titles each year, but if a lot of these games are being farmed out to 3rd party studios, what are all the internal Nintendo R&D teams and 2nd parties doing? Where are any of the games these teams should be working on? If the internal groups are free from making these “unwanted” newer games, couldn’t these core teams still make the “main” or more traditional advancement on the classic series that us older fans love?

I am curious to know what the deal is. From what I know, Nintendo houses nearly a thousand developers and designers in its Kyoto and Tokyo offices, plus their second party groups like Intelligent Systems, Retro Studios, Monolith Soft and more. Shouldn’t it be possible to have a greater output of games of ALL styles if Nintendo is going to continue to expand its co-development deals with other studios? If Metroid Prime: Federation Force isn’t looking like the “core” Prime title you want it to be, why not have Retro Studios continue developing the next version of Metroid Prime? If HAL Laboratory isn’t working on Super Smash Bros., couldn’t they make the next big Kirby game now? If they aren’t developing games internally, where did all the developers go? You’ve got jobs for them, Nintendo. We could all be happy!

What do you think?

-Darren!
@darrenhupke

- -Darren Hupke @darrenhupke

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