Insane after a lifetime of watching gaming content on TH-cam this is the most Ive learned about the actual developers instead of everything being referred to as “Nintendo”
Yea i dont like that people refer to companies as if theyre this living entity. As if nintendo itself is alive and churns out games. Same with playstation etc.
I think something else important is that you need a Nintendo higher up to act as a sponsor for the series. The reason Metroid has gotten so many sequels despite a history of lacklustre sales is due in large part to Sakamoto’s enduring passion for it. And while people like Sakamoto and Miyamoto are important enough to the company they can survive backing a poor selling passion project like Metroid Other M or Star Fox Zero the same can’t be said of every lead developer there. Nobody wants to be remembered as the guy who made the company decide to sink a lot of money into developing a new F-Zero only for it to not sell well.
I feel like F-Zero wasn't exactly a passion project for anyone at Nintendo to begin with, which might be a bit problematic. I get the impression that the early games were primarily made to show off the systems technical capabilities kinda in a similar vain as PilotWings. A fast-paced Racing game with mode 7 at the SNES launch was certainly an eye-catcher and F-Zero X too pretty impressively ran at 60 FPS on the N64. So unless a big developer is really willing to make another F-Zero on mostly their own terms without Nintendo needing to provide a larger share of the budget (as F-Zero hasn't done that well in the past and probably also won't really with a new entry) it won't happen. That might be why Shinen (who made Fast Racing Neo/Rmx) aren't as well suited as they might seem, being a small dev, Nintendo might have to invest more than they like.
That's basically why Mega Man got so many games despite not selling a lot because Inafune back then could get them greenlit and it was part of the reason why we didn't get an original Mega Man game for 8 years
I don't know how we can speculate about F-Zero not selling when the last time it had a game the market was significantly more brutal to distribute games in. People said the same about Metroid as a series only for a non-prime entry to break previous records in no time flat. And F-zero gets asked for way more than Metroid does. Companies just exclusively invest in safe projects now.
I will say 2 things about the f-zero situation in addition: 1) in the 20-ish years since the last mainline fzero game, the racing game landscape has changed dramatically. antigrav, and even non licensed arcade racers, all but died out during the recession. it's been 10 years since the last new wipeout game, which i would count as the nearest thing to a direct rival. Chances are there's still that stigma of racing games being poor sellers hanging around, which definitely still lingers in the AAA space and I imagine nintendo don't want any sort of competition to Mario Kart if something else comes up. 2) In that time, the studios that have had experience with racing games typically folded into other larger studios, like with playground/turn10 for forza, codemasters -> EA with the remainder of the uk racing game scene, and now outside of simracing or smaller indie titles. outside of the guys that made grip, redout and fast racing neo that have some kind of experience under their belt, there's not really many places to choose from. shinen are probably the closest you're going to get if you're looking for an exclusively nintendo racer of that style
@@OverruledDood yes but even metroid dread which is the top selling metroid only sold about 3 millions. That's such a small amount of numbers for a "nintendo big league". Also, by your logic, why doesn't Nintendo remake mother 3 instead. It's definitely been asked far more over F zero. The problem is that they can't gauge who actually would buy the game and whos just clamorimg for a new f-zero just cuz everyone else is. Plus, F zeros biggest competitor would be mario kart so why would nintendo compete with themselves.
I like this third party collaboration and shared ownership system Nintendo has going with other studios. I know a lot of people get excited when a studio gets bought out by one of the big three but I think this method is healthier for the industry in general as it gives developers opportunity AND independence.
It's a case by case basis. Opportunity and independence can count for something, but a developer is only ever paid once for their work, while the publisher (Nintendo) profits for years or decades later with re-releases, stashing their games in their Nintendo vault, or if they don't have full ownership of the game, ensuring it doesn't get released elsewhere like Bayonetta 2/Astral Chain (Platinum Games would REALLY like to have a game of their own they could re-release on future systems for quick cash). The main reason why development studios can't grow is due to a lack of financial backing. It's also why they go bankrupt like Alpha Dream, despite making a decently profitable franchise for over a decade. The way Microsoft does it is totally different from what we grew up knowing of these acquisitions. The games are contractually obligated to come out for Game Pass (Xbox and Windows PC), but there's no exclusivity deal, they can release anywhere else on the same day. And many developers we've heard from that worked with them (Cuphead, Psychonauts 2, etc) seem to cite the deal as the main reason why the game could even release. The only issue with the Microsoft model is that nobody else has "Microsoft money" to be throwing around on charity cases.
@@ZappBranniglenn OK there's a lot to unpack there. What you are saying about contract work is correct in that they only get paid for the job however in these cases specifically for Nintendo & friends, the studios share ownership of the IP. Kirby, Pokemon, the platinum IP's, they both gain from the merchandise and so forth. Sure both parties need to agree going forward on a new entry but as we recently saw with Platinum, Nintendo was willing to make a deal to give full ownership of Wonderful 101 in exchange for Nintendo to fully own Astral Chain. These third parties have bargaining chips along with their freedom. Very few companies will do what Nintendo does, most will gain full ownership of the IP from the start and I often feel that hurts the brand in the long run, just look at how most movie studios handle their franchises. As for the story of Alpha Dream, their fate was the result of poor business decisions. They were planning on making a mobile game not affiliated with Nintendo and that venture cost them unfortunately. Either way those were Alpha dreams choices and responsibilities not every studio will make the right ones.
@@NoxideActive alphadream was also in a hiring spring back in 2018, looking for anyone who have experienced on mobile, switch, and ps4 field. But because of bowser inside story remake on 3ds so late and mobile game flop badly. With thier last game they co-develop was mario and sonic 2020 Tokyo Olympics game's.
@@blinxman4956 they are likely no longer there in business, because the CEO is no longer there, thier names are no longer in the business buildings signs, and thier website is an error.
Another thing that's important is that any EPD team could break their typical niche and tackle something new. This is how Splatoon happened. And it's similar to how the Mario Kart Team made ARMS, and how Nintendo EAD made Donkey Kong Jungle Beat back in the GameCube era. It's unlikely to see a dormant series tackled by one of these teams, but it's not impossible. And of course, if they have the people and resources, they could always make a new EPD team as well (this probably wouldn't happen unless they _really_ wanna push for something. Something that's worth doing some restructuring over).
In both cases, they were trying something new and that's the philosophy behind Nintendo's systems. There are a couple of truly staple series like Mario Party and 2d Mario that get iteration after iteration despite not a whole of major changes because they're more sure sales but everything else has to be new in some way. Mario will always get more versions of itself but something like F-Zero was made and done because there's nothing Nintendo wants to build on. New series are one thing but a dormant series? I would say those are objectively harder unless they reach a very strong stride their first go-around.
@@Zontar82 Splatoon was originally just a game mechanics concept with no ideas for what the characters or game itself would be. The original player characters were rabbits because the devs thought it would be easy to indicate the direction the faced on the map. They were also told if they couldn't come up with anything that it could always just be made into a Mario game. So yeah, F-Zero and Splatoon do have some stuff in common. The big difference is that Splatoon struck out absolutely huge. The fact that Splatoon is from EPD IS a hindrance at times. Animal Crossing and Splatoon share a lot of the same devs. Its why neither game gets updates at the same time and have ~2 years of updates/extra content releases.
I’ve realized this for a while now how little Nintendo themselves actually make. The vast majority of their software is made by studios they either own or have a stake in.
With the other in house games just being smaller multiplayer games, Nintendo essentially just make mainline Mario and Zelda, which makes sense. Studios only ever develop one game at a time like FromSoft making Elden Ring, or Bethesda making Starfield, but here we have Nintendo making and releasing Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey simultaneously. Those are both massive games and is already a serious output from Nintendo as is.
It makes you realize that Nintendo is not this monolithic entity but is continuous with the fabric of the industry as a whole. It's just harder to see that as a consumer because of Nintendo's branding and exclusivity. Explicitly, it's Nintendo in a race with the other console developers. Implicitly, there are developers from all over the place who come and go; as though it were really a collaboration but they have compete anyway for the sake of keeping the books.
MercurySteam is in a really interesting position. Nordisk Games division purchased 40% of the studio a few years ago and they could wind up being bought out by them in the future. I'm not sure if Nordisk would allow future collaborations if that happens so if Nintendo is serious about their budding relationship with MercurySteam this could mean there might be business drama happening behind the scenes in the future.
@@NoxideActive according to ex employees, Mercury steam caused a lot of trouble for Nintendo during dreads development. Nintendo probably won't work with them again I imagine
@@novustalks7525 Retro Studios has also caused Nintendo a lot of problems on several developments, but specially during Prime 1's. And Nintendo's solution back then was to buy them. You never know, Dread was a quality game, brought in a lot of good will for the franchise, and instantly became the best selling game in the series. That might be worth the headache for Nintendo.
This was a great video, it’s a good way to inform those on how each Nintendo series is actually worked on. I keep seeing people hating on X franchise because they “robbed” Nintendo’s attention from series that need a new entry, when in reality different franchises are worked by different studios.
Yeah. I remember a month or two ago when people were hating on both Xenoblade and Fire Emblem and saying that they were both getting in the way of other games for other franchises being made.
@@dantelawrence4676 part of that probably also had to do with the “generic anime artstyle” complaints, and that other Nintendo IPs just had more “unique” artstyles and they prefer the gameplay of those ones (because JRPGs bad amirite?)
@@jomaq9233 To be fair, Fire Emblem and Xenoblade tic most, if not all the boxes off the stereotypical JRPG checklist on a surface level. Some of it comes from anti-weebs who will always think two nukes wasn't enough, but if I didn't know anything about the franchises or the developers, I'd probably brush off FE as another boring SRPG but with dating sim elements and Xenoblade as another boring sci-fantasy RPG with a focus on chicks with big tits that turn into swords, those wacky Japanese, amirite. Those are highly inaccurate, but first impressions and all that. Then again, I haven't owned an Nintendo console in a hot minute, so I really have no skin in the game outside of what I see online.
@@EbonySaints you could theoretically always boil down any Nintendo franchise to its most unflattering first impressions though (Mario is just “boringly simplistic jumpy game for babies” amirite?) People are also somehow okay with Metroid tho despite being way less “cartoony” and more realistic tho, and thus, not fitting in with Nintendo’s usual franchise identity (also Zelda can be considered “anime” now, but because it’s “mainstream”, it’s okay?)
@@EbonySaints there’s also the matter of not just Nintendo fans dunking on them, but also other JRPG fans comparing them to more relatively mainstream games *coughs in Final Fantasy/Persona* I think another factor for XC2’s more negative reputation compared to XC1 (besides the increased focus on “generic anime tropes”) is the differing attention that the “mainstream” JRPGs that released around the same time as those games got: -Xenoblade 1 released around the same time as the Final Fantasy 13 games, so it was easy to see why Xenoblade 1 could somewhat catch on with FF fans disappointed with 13 (FF13 hate was really, really intense back then) -Xenoblade 2, on the other hand, released at around the same time as Persona 5, and people just wouldn’t shut up about how much of a “masterpiece” that game was, resulting in XC2 looking “inferior” in comparison (opinions have somewhat shifted on P5 since then, at least, depending on how much of an SMT fan you are lol)
Now that you say it, it's been a long time since they've gotten another game from the Ice Climbers, so it would actually be pretty cool if we'd eventually get another!
One interesting addendum to this great video: in April 2022 Furukawa purchased a land lot next to Nintendo's HQ in order to build an expansion of Nintendo's internal development capabilities in the long term, it is expected to be completed in 2028 and be over 13 floors tall. This will likely result in new internal teams that can take care of legacy IPs without a current team/TP partner (like Mario & Luigi, or Kid Icarus) or come up with brand new ones.
I think people need to realize devs are people too. If they don’t feel like doing a game of a certain franchise that’s fine. When they feel like it or have a new idea for a new game, they’ll do it. They shouldn’t rush it (insert Mitamoto quote). Very nice of you to spread awareness of why many of these franchises lay dormant, Jon! Also it’s “Doesn’t”, not “Don’t”
I remember when some people were angry at Retro Studios for making DKC instead of Metroid, because clearly they shouldnt work on anything else am I right?
I draw sci-fi stuff and after one or two things I want to try to something different but people keep asking to make more of the same. Casual fans just don't understand the concept of burning out and how a developer will just not be able to do stuff that he or she doesn't want to do.
Wow, this really puts into perspective just how organized a company like Nintendo with so many large IPs has to be. It’s like a puzzle of different development teams so that way they can have a multitude and a year’s worth of projects ready to go. It’s a really smart approach and works very well. This doesn’t even include second party teams Nintendo has exclusives from outside of their own company like Game Freak, Sakurai’s team, and Platinum. The volume of properties they have is overwhelming when you put that into perspective. Any company is going to have some dead, unused IPs and while it would be nice to see them more, I totally understand not wanting to spend development resources and go through the effort of finding a team for a project that’s not going to do much for them, unless it’s the passion project of some developer. Nintendo makes games full of charm and people with passion behind them, but at the end of the day, they’re a corporation with a method behind what they do.
Great video Jon but unfortunately some of your facts in the timeline were a bit off. Nintendo R&D4 were going by EAD long before Iwata's restructuring in the early 2000s. The division was retitled and/or restructured under Yamauchi before the launch of the Super Famicom in 1989. The character Mr. EAD in F-Zero X is a reference to the studio's name. EAD also stands for Entertainment and Analysis Division...which you skipped over in the vid when noting the name change.😉
Yeah, I would've appreciated if he explained the acronyms or just said their full names at least in his first mention of each division. Furthermore, when I search for Nintendo EAD (through Google, by the way), a Wikipedia article appears saying that they were disbanded/defunct on September 16, 2015, yet Jon said that they're still making games. Nonetheless, regarding the EAD thing, Jon may have meant that the staff of EAD are still developing games within the newer division (NPD, Nintendo Entertainment & Planning Development).
This was great video that really enlightened me on how Nintendo develops their games. But it was kind of hard to keep up with all the divisions and their confusing names; I had to watch the parts twice to keep up. If it had like some kind visual aid, that showed the hierarchy of the company like an organization chart, that would have helped a lot!
Well there's also that currently ongoing war that got AW Reboot Camp delayed, considering what the Blue Moon Army, the invading antagonists of the first game represent.
@@CaptainJLinebeck that shouldn't be an excuse as to why they're delaying it indefinitely hell, if that were the case, they should've delisted the original GBA versions on the Wii U eShop as well, which they didn't just because there's an ongoing war IRL doesn't mean they have to delay a game that features war as a major theme if it's ok for Activision to release their CoD games every year, which is all about war in some way shape or form, then Advance Wars 1+2 Reboot Camp should've been released no matter what's going on IRL also, the Blue Moon Army is a PARODY of Russia, so that alone is enough to NOT force an indefinite delay of the remakes
@@martinde-serres8724 well Nintendo clearly thought different and considered that maybe releasing a game where in your words, a parody of Russia invades another country during when actual Russia started their invasion of Ukraine would be rather insensitive. Also a new game release is gonna have much more attention than VC games on a console that isn't used much nowadays. But then again I'm aware I'm asking gamers to be understanding of people other than themselves which I know is a foolish desire.
It should be mentioned, Nintendo Purchased part of Monolift around 2008 which was partially owned by Namco. This created a partnership with Namco. Namco made Smash 4, smash Ultimate, Pokken tournament, and Mario Kart 8. Nintendo would later buy out Namco's Shares in Monolift. Monolift would create a Office Kyoto to be closer to Nintendo. This office worked on Splatoon, Splatoon 2, Skyward sword, BOTW, amd Pokemon Snap.
Yes, but that was because Next Level were looking for someone to buy them. With the success of Luigi's Mansion 3 still fresh, Nintendo had to strike before someone else bought them.
@@Toonrick12Think about what would've happened if they'd done that with Rare way back when. On the one hand we might've gotten sequels to some of the best SNES/N64 games, on the other hand, i love the Retro Studios DKC games too much for that to have happened.
@@lucasdellamaggiore Bad news Rare said they runout out ideas for Banjo and Kazooie. As for Conker, Nintendo was uncomfortable promoting a game with mature content.
I was content with Mother ending at 3, not necessarily never being localized though… I just mean the series was so Shigesato Itoi in identity, and if he thinks it’s done, then it’s done.
Also the gameplay mechanics and vibes of EarthBound and Mother 3 have been done in other Japanese-style RPG’s. And Toby Fox is right that he shouldn’t take up any mantle even before he met Shigesato Itoi in person, even if Toby Fox has the hidden talent of handling a large-scale dev team. (He does handle a small team for the Deltarune series now)
Even though the series has ended there is no reason to not localize and port the games to make them easily available for everyone. Itoi himself is not against it as well.
honestly i do like the fact that nintendo doesnt really *buy* companies, it allows more creative freedom for those companies (HAL as a big example of this) and also because i think company buyout speculation is really weird
There are some companies I think Nintendo should buy, some even wanting to be bought by them like Rare. But as a whole I'm glad they aren't buying up everything. Maybe only do it if the company is in a bad place and needs it or they would go out of business
@@AlexaRobin21 They only really buy companies if the company is at high risk of either going bankrupt and dying, or being bought buy another company. If, for example, HAL was trying to find a larger company to buy them, Nintendo would do it. Otherwise, they wouldn't buy them because they will still develop games for Nintendo even if Nintendo doesn't buy them
Do any of you guys here know what happened after AlphaDream became bankrupt? I remember Nintendo wasn't interested in buying them. I wonder what those people work for now.
Nintendo should try giving their chances to more indie devs. It worked pretty well with Cadence of Hyrule, I'm sure there's a lot of very talented devs out there who would love to work on Nintendo IPs
If I knew how to code, I would jump at the chance to make a new game in ANY Nintendo franchise. I would gladly make a new Punch-Out, new F-Zero, I would even be willing to make a new Ice Climber or Excitebike. If only I could code…
@@superhappygamer1162 I think I may have found some successors. It Takes Two, is a multiplayer game where two characters must work together in order to progress that kinda reminds me of Ice Climber. For F-zero, There is Fast RMX on Hero mode, Redout 2, and the upcoming Aero GPX.
Do people really don’t understand why? It’s always going to be a “problem” to any company that has that many IPs. The only way this wouldn’t be an issue would be if said company only has like 5 IPs, but then you wouldn’t have the diversity of titles that Nintendo, Capcom, Square and other large publishers. It’s an even bigger problem for smaller companies like Falcom, Fromsoft and etc that lack the manpower, but have a crap ton of IPs because they have been around for so long and have amassed them since the 80s and 90s. There just simply isn’t enough time and resources to make everything that people want.
One thing they could do is have a game release every three to five years, and each release is a different IP they own. Until they run out of IPs and just redo the whole cycle.
This is literally it, and also the major problem that people dont see coming with all these acquisitions... all of the small franchises you like with these companies WILL die. When Xbox acquited Bethesda, Arkane instantly moved from a major studio within Bethesda to a minor studio within Xbox. That is a massive deal, now theres very little incentive business wise to actually fund Arkanes games. Theyll most like die out on favour of just taking the BGS and Doom/Wolfenstein part. Nintendo is the same. They make a million Mario and Zelda spin offs instead of spreading those resources to smaller franchises. It would be better for us all if they made more varied content, but that doesnt mean it would sell as well.
A lot of people seemed to not understand this during late June 2022, when Twitter and TH-cam were flooded with people mad about how Xenoblade and Fire Emblem were receiving too much support on the Switch. As a quick refresher, at the time Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes was about to release, a new original Fire Emblem was being rumored/"leaked", and Xenoblade 3 was about a month away and being pushed heavily by Nintendo. People were acting as though Fire Emblem and Xenoblade were taking away development time and resources from Zelda and Mario, despite Intelligent Systems' big thing is Fire Emblem, and pretty much Monolithsoft's *only* thing is Xenoblade. Unfortunately, there are a lot of toxic people out there who just don't seem to want to see franchises they don't care for doing well.
This was an interesting video. Its cool to learn more about the way Nintendo developed their old games and how it changed in their current processes. It's a shame that series like Donkey Kong, F-ZERO, and Star Fox Zero are essentially shackled to third party collaborations because of Nintendo's current management. At the same time, it is nice to learn why certain series seem to get such a huge priority over others. It can be easy to assume its just because Nintendo is focusing most of their resources into that game, but knowing its really because those games are lucky enough to have entire teams of Nintendo dedicated specifically to that makes a lot of sense. Personally, Punch-Out is the main neglected Nintendo IP that I REALLY want to see return. I adore that series and really want a new one to be made. I think it is definitely possible for Next Level Games to decide to revisit Punch-Out since its the last major Nintendo IP they've worked on in the past that hasn't had a new game yet, but at this point I'm really not so sure. Punch-Out is niche and, as stated in this video, it's been abandoned (outside of rereleases) for 13 years. I would love if we at least got a port of the Wii game. Runner-up for me is Donkey Kong; as amazing as Retro Studios' take on Donkey Kong Country has been, I don't see why there hasn't been a new game but handled by a different team. Especially baffling to me since, unlike Punch-Out, DK already gets a ton of stuff like merchandising, crossovers in other games, promotional content, being a character that's almost never excluded from Mario spin-offs...he just, for some reason, never gets a new game.
I think in the future, it could be very healthy for Nintendo to collaborate with Indies. They did it already with cadence of hyrule, I think indie devs can help revive some franchises that haven't seen new games in years. I can imagine the Hades devs working on a new Kid icarus game in that style.
agreed. Some of the older franchises might just not work well on a large scale with modern audiences. smaller developers often have good ideas on how to not reinvent the entire franchise but pick one state from its history and focus on modernising that as a retro flavored game. as an example starfox. SF1 - an arcadey points shooter with a strong mode 7 Artstyle. SF2 - tactical, choice oriented, free form SF64 - focuses on exploring levels to get different outcomes and paths SFA - centers a story line and offers more spectacle any one of these could still work with quality of life updates. Zero could've worked without the forced gimmick. Heck, it could still work if they rereleased the thing on switch.
They already have. Fast RMX, Good Job, Cadance of Hyrule, Snipperclips, Sushi Warrior, that ambulance game. Don’t think they have been huge sellers though.
@@magicjohnson3121 I think the point was specifically about bigger and well known Nintendo IPs being handled by indies in order to make smaller games. These won't sell massive amounts, but they keep the franchise alive and generate good press and good will amongst fans.
That's was incredibly interesting, despite following games for years I'd never heard a specific breakdown of the historical changes across Nintendo game development. Very cool
A big part of the problem is just how much more effort and manpower it takes to make a game nowadays. As someone with a bachelor's in Game Design (although I haven't gotten a job in the industry, I'm working a stupid warehouse job right now) I have a general idea of just how many people it takes to make a game. My sophomore year me and two others spent part of a semester making a 2D game with sprite graphics. I was able to the graphics alongside some of the coding, level design, sound design, ect. It wasn't as complete a game as would have been released in the '80s or early '90s, but give us a few more months of work and a year or two more of experience and it might have started to get there. My senior year I was part of a team of over 20 making one game for the whole year. I was like one of five on the narrative team. The design, art, and programming teams all had at least one more person than the narrative team, and the writing was one of the biggest parts of the game. And this game was still miles away from the manpower and time that a new Metroid or F-Zero game would take, and those franchise, though loved (Metroid is a personal favorite), have a history of not being the biggest of sellers. TLDR. Games went from needing teams of less of than ten to twenty people and maybe a year to needing teams of hundreds and multiple years to make, and that is a big portion of why we aren't seeing some of NIntendo's franchises like we used to.
Yea if the industry isn't simply delaying games waiting for PS5/XboxSX to pick up steam, then if simply the depth of detail has turned game development into something that needs more time and manpower
Like even prominent Indie teams need like 50 people minimum for their games. It’s also funny how people think developers are just going to make games they either don’t wanna make or have zero experience in. The Fire Emblem guys aren’t just going to make a good F-Zero or Star Fox with their lack of making those games. They also know they wouldn’t sell as well as their main IP no matter how many fans would say it would sell well. Most people are gonna hesitate at a studio they know has zero experience or credibility making a game of that genre. No one would trust Game Freak to make a Final Fantasy game. Even if the game comes out good all the marketing is for initial sales by the time people come around the games sales are a fraction of what they could’ve been making it a loss.
It’s always made me wonder why bigger development studios can’t make teams who can work on smaller projects that have more limited scopes. Indie games are doing that to great success, and it would make sense to me at least to diversify your portfolio rather than put all your eggs in one AAA/AAAA basket. With how much money and time it takes to make one big budget game, if a given studio takes even just two or three flops in a row, that spells the end of the company.
@@ozzi9816 Indie devs aren't on a timer, plus we don't know if Nintendo hasn't started doing that. Some indie titles are like 7 years in the making lol.
Bring back the Kyle Hyde (Hotel Dusk/Last Window) and Another Code/Trace Memory series. Cing did some amazing work with Nintendo, and it's so sad they went under. Now Nintendo just owns their assets and does nothing with them.
Yeah Hal has been attached to Nintendo since the early days of the Famicom when Hal founder Iwata was contracted to help develop a number of the early Famicom/NES games like Balloon fight, Pinball, etc. He also did the NES ports of Joust and Defender for Nintendo as part of the Atari NES deal that was dropped. But yeah Hal and Nintendo have been attached to one another since the beginning of Nintendo's entry into the home video game market
Amazing memories my friend !! Sound was so annoying, however we always loved it. Hahaha Retro always in our memories, I have opened a session for retro on my channel. They must never be forgotten and left behind. Keep them alive and thanks for sharing these precious arcade games. Eyes peeled for your next post
IIRC, Camelot literally pulled a Chibi-Robo when Dark Dawn came out and said "Golden Sun Fans! Please support Golden Sun! Tell us you're interested in this series!" But the support wasn't enough so now they're in Mario Sports Hell. So then the Golden Sun fans thought the best way to revive Golden Sun was to have Sakurai put Issac in Smash, thinking they could pull a Fire Emblem and advertise a forgotten series. Two issues with that idea: 1. Sakurai stated during 3DS/Wii U that he carefully considered franchises that were new or had fresh blood to be fighters. In Ultimate, K. Rool and Ridley may have been fan favorite picks, but they were still a part of the Donkey Kong and Metroid series, franchises that were going to have new entries regardless. 2. Pulling a Fire Emblem doesn't work because Fire Emblem was still going to have games made, they just weren't available outside Japan, so Marth and Roy just brought interest in a market that never handled it before. Meanwhile Golden Sun was just effectively dead, meaning if Issac was in Smash, there wouldn't be enough interest to revive the series anyway. The Chibi-Robo thing was how back in 2015/16 The Chibi-Robo team begged people to buy Zip Dash on 3DS, But the fanbase just didn't - because the game they were selling was a 2.5D Platformer not the 3D platformer on the GameCube.
@@Tobunari The problem is that Nintendo refuses to take Skip seriously, none of their games sold well. It's like Nintendo only uses them for small releases??? Not helping matters is that Skip lost Chibi Robo's creator.
I knew some of this but thanks for providing the full picture. I do QA testing for software and there's so much work for just a single project that it's amazing how it all comes together in the end. These games really do take magic at the high level with so many components coming together at the end of it all.
Would love to see Nintendo bring back Pilotwings, Waverace, 1080 Snowboarding & F-Zero, or at least lend them back out to third party studios as they did with F-Zero GX and Sega.
The problem is if an IP isn't making waves in sales, it's a waste of resources that would be far more important to place elsewhere. A 3rd party developer would need to be interested in the first place to bring back said IPs, if said games don't have good sales numbers either, it's a waste of development funds to even lend to a 3rd party if these titles are only bought by die hard fans, which is a speck of sales when they really need big numbers to see all the money back to make the game from a casual audience, so it's always seen as a large risk when the manpower really isn't there or even interested to make things happen.
Gotta really admire the amount of logistical coordination and organization Nintendo must have to keep track of their developers and IPs like this, and still be running as a cohesive brand.
I do feel it needs clarifying that EAD was a thing since Ice Hockey on the NES. What happened in 2003 was the formation of the first 5 EAD groups with EAD Tokyo formed shortly after. Also, Star Fox Command, 64 3D and Zero were EAD5 projects. No SPD staff were involved with those games. SPD also did have a good deal of internal development (See Brain Age 1-3, Daigasso Band Bros and Tomodachi Collection) what SPD lacked was the a team capable of the fidelity and complexity Sakamoto wanted for Metroid Dread
Great video with a lot I didn't know. I do wonder without the impact of the pandemic if Animal Crossing New Horizons would have gotten a lot more content than it actually got instead of dripfed features older games already had as standard like Kappn and Brewster and lacklustre holiday events?
Thank you so much for mentioning how x game being revealed doesn’t take away another potential series. My favourite two Nintendo series are Xenoblade and Fire Emblem so I get a lot of “Waste of time” remarks, which pains me when Monolith help with other franchises.
Yeah, that's messed up, Monolith have collaborated to make some of everyone's favorite Nintendo games like Mario Kart Wii, Smash Bros Brawl, Animal Crossing New Leaf/New Horizons and the Splatoon games and have been doing their damnest to push their passion project that is Xenoblade on the side. And now that it's finally reached the mainstream and has gained it's dedicated fanbase some people have the audacity to call it a waste of time, give me a break (and a topple, daze/launch and burst/smash).
@@Palasid11 What a relief then! It's good to know Sushi Striker was not only the perfectest videogame, but also is a big deal for the continuation of one of the biggest companies in the videogame industry ☺️. Surely the sequel is right arround the corner!
This was super interesting. As a big Kirby fan I knew about HAL being their own thing but not so much the rest tbh. I figured that if folks wanted an ip to return it was probably some resource situation like this.
John, I just wanna say i love these kinds of videos, i knew a lot of this info, but small tidbits such as the way in which the 11 groups in EPD are divided, or the fact that Monster Games developed Pilotwings Resort (one of my favourite games) are new to me. It's great to see such well developed videos
That's some top tier game journalism, finding deep game industry topics that most people don't know about and bringing them to light in a manner that's easy to understand and fun to watch, thus making the gaming community more informed and be able to talk about the industry in a more nuanced way. Absolutely great job Jon 👏👏👏👏👏
3:14 This is incorrect. Mele is popular specifically because of it's rushed development; it allowing small glitches to pass by testing which would later redefine the game.
@@MoonGhostDoodles Thats more PlayStation fans. Some of them sawed their PS4s in half because Spider Man came to PC, im literally not making that up (obviously most are normal people but still my god).
We got a mainline Metroid game, a Mario Strikers game and a Famicom Detective club remake. But there is always another dormant franchise to be revived. And when Nintendo revives them all, the first revival would need a sequel.
I think Smash Bros. is a big part of the reason, since it features characters from those dormant franchises alongside their active franchises. Another one is that F-Zero hasn't had a new game since the GameCube, and if I remember correctly Nintendo said something like they don't know how to add something new to the series, yet they put out a new Mario Kart for each console. Yet another one is that series tend to go dormant because of an entry crapping the bed, like Metroid: Other M with the questionable controls and awful story or Star Fox Zero with the forced motion controls and being yet another rehash of the general plot of the original and Star Fox 64. It'd be one thing if a series didn't have an entry for awhile because they didn't know how to top the previous game, like the gap between Super Metroid and Metroid Prime/Metroid Fusion, but if it's due to a game doing poorly because of obviously poor decisions, it deserves another chance before being shoved into a vault.
Nice video! Nintendo games have that distinct personality that makes it look like they are only one team, but they actually have lots of partners. Hal and Rare are among my favourite "allies" in the big n's history. They always influence their partners in a way that makes them feel like a family, or a "exclusive" club of sorts
Huh, this really cleared up a lot of questions I’ve had. Some of this I did know but a lot of it I don’t. Here’s the question that comes up for me: If each one of these studios are locked to one IP, doesn’t that mean that they are never allowed to be bored or burned out on a series? Seems very tricky set up to have.
@@amadeus.7436 HAL also helped make the first three Smash Bros, among many, many other games. Also, they are wholly independent from Nintendo. They could start making games for Sony tomorrow and Nintendo couldn’t do anything to stop them.
@@internetguy7319 I sure hope that’s the case. You don’t wanna have a CoD situation going on. One thing that saves Nintendo employees is that they tend to try new things even if they are “stuck” on the same IP. That helps… some.
It's one thing to understand why it is the way it is, but I feel there's a lot of great IPs that could be utlised well. It sounds like Nintendo may need to pass them onto partners, or have more dev teams for that. I suppose whenever works for them, but a better spread of 1st party IPs on the Systems the better to me at least.
Wow, I knew some of the big stuff like IS, HAL, and GameFreak, and many of the third party devs for various games, but a ton of that info was news to me. You taught me some wild things in a really simple, fast, and easy to understand way. Now if only I had a good enough memory to retain it.
Hoping for another Starfox game if only becuase the series deserves a better swansong than Starfox Zero. It's notable that was the last game that Miyamoto was 'hands-on' with. Maybe our hero 'lost it'.
@@lewisclark1122 Theres the problem, Nintendo is trying to implement motion controls on some of their games. However because StarFox is based on Arcade space shooters, so putting motion controls in Starfox is tricky. Still better than Skyward Sword. The other problem is that Starfox games are usually too short, so Miyamoto run out of ideas of how to evolve the series.
This was a wildly fascinating video. I noticed Nintendo had been working more with outside studios for things like Smash Bros., Xenoblade, Metroid, but I never realized just how many of their games had done that. And I also assumed Nintendo was pretty much running things 90% of the time, just pulling some people in occasionally. But it seems like Nintendo is functioning more similar to a publisher, checking in throughout the game’s development to make sure things are running smooth and aligning with the values they have assigned to their IP. It explains a lot about the release cycles for some of their IPs. (Like why Kirby gets far more releases) I also had no idea Nintendo had split into so many different groups, freaking 11 of them. I recalled EAD and that there was more than 1 of them, but I was apparent very far behind on that front lol. It’s not that uncommon for publishers to have multiple different studios focusing on different games and IPs, but Thwyre usually spread out far over the world. I guess I just find it so weird has so many different groups, but they’re likely all in Japan? Possibly in the same building? Very odd. You’ve given me a lot of cool stuff to research though. Thank you for the wonderful video!
Great breakdown, thanks for it. I wonder how their reinvestment in their company will impact this in the future? Will they open up more internal teams or just expand the ones they got? Does this give their other IPs a chance to get a game sooner than we thought?
Nintendo is gonna build a new development office so probably having more internal teams. In addition to that, other studios such as Retro Studios and Intelligent System are expanding too.
Awesome video! A lotta information in here that I didn’t know. I didn’t realize how many games that I thought were purely first party aren’t actually made by Nintendo!
9:28 i also want to add that Monolith Soft helped Nintendo in the development of her severals games such as Splatoon 2 e 3, the Legend of Zelda franchise begining from Skyward Sword e the Animal Crossing franchise begining for Animal Crossing New Leaf.
It's kind of weird that this video stemmed from people gatekeeping whether or not Zelda fans can point out the wait for the next game. Zelda fans are also fans of plenty of other dead/dormant franchises. While it would be nice if someone took the helm and made a meaningful, new entry, that doesn't mean people can't point out how long the development cycle has been for franchises that are still around.
It's the matter of purpose we already know Nintendo tends to be methodical when they are making the mainline games coupled with the fact that game development doesn't seem to be getting any faster. The whole thing stems from the grief these fans were giving games like Xenoblade 3 and Splatoon 3. So the post(headline) seemed negative.
@@OxygenC2 Add Kirby to that list because I've been seeing quite a bit of negativity over how hype the Kirby 30ths anniversary has been. People wondering why Nintendo keeps making so much Kirby when really it's just HAL'S thing
Very well researched and explained Jon, hopefully this video is used as a reference for annoying Twitter threads of bashing Nintendo for not making a new F-Zero game or something. It's sad these franchises aren't made in-house anymore but Iwata-san's decision to shift development focus might have saved a company that was struggling to make many 3D games each year, so many games with cut content, delays and crunch in that time like you mentioned. It's evident the decision worked wonders.
It just means they wouldn’t be able to milk their money makers like Mario and Zelda if they were constantly making new IP’s or working on lesser known titles. Probably would turn out like Sega.
@@magicjohnson3121 Nintendo always at least made one new IP every year tho. 2021 they made Buddy Mission Bond, while 2020 they made Good Job and The stretchers. It's funny that most people asked Nintendo for new IP but never bought the game
Here's to hoping someone will prove to Nintendo they can make a kick ass new Donkey Kong game, a 3D one, Retro can still run the 2D DK Games, but i would love to see the big guy return to a 3D platforming adventure, my vision of it is a blown up version of Bowser's fury, with multiple islands, each with their own different objectives and missions, the DK games take place on various islands anyway, so it would work really well. it would also be the ultimate DK fan service game, bringing EVERYONE back, King K. Rool, the kremlings, and Rambi would obviously return, but also Enguarde, Rattly, Squitter, Expresso, and the other animal buddies. The other kongs too, Wrinkly, Tiny, Lanky, Chunky, and sure, even Candy Kong.
This is a very informative video. Throughout my whole life, I assumed that HAL, IS, and GameFreak were owned by Nintendo because of their close relationship with the company and the games they make.
I felt the same way for these video game developers (excluding GameFreak, which makes the Pokémon video games - I knew for a long time that it wasn't owned by Nintendo); I always thought here that they were owned by Nintendo!
This needs to be pinned to every Nintendo/video game themed TH-cam channel. Since time immemorial, everyone's had their wishlist of dead franchises they'd want to see revived and they wonder why someone as big as Nintendo can't make it happen, and this is the comprehensive answer they've all been looking for. Despite the vast amount of resources Nintendo may have, they are not infinite. And when franchises of old now require teams several times larger than those classic titles did, staffing becomes a major hurdle in itself. That said... New F-Zero, Nintendo! Come on, make it happen!
Haha noo rhe video just explained how fucking dead f-zero is. You will never ever see a new f-zero that game is dead as fuck and the only remains is captain falcos empty husk in smash and the blue falcon in mario kart
@Joshua Suh metroid still had other m, samus returns and federation force. And advance wars was and still is an intelligent system ip so that comparison does not work
I really appreciate Jon's level of research and professionalism in this video. It aggravates me when TH-camrs with no knowledge of Nintendo's R&D structure or business processes (aka RGT85 and Shesez) act like Nintendo personally has an axe to grind against them just because it won't work on an extremely niche IP that has no meaningful sales potential.
Why does it not have a "meaningful sales potential" Every game has potential if designed well and marketed right. Often times Nintendo does a terrible job at marketing a game for what it is and in turn missing the audience who would like it more.
Did you predict F-Zero 99 and that it was gonna be developed by Arika?? More than one year previous to its official announcement?? You're such an insider dude
This is a really useful video, Jon. I know Nintendo pretty well, but still didn’t know a lot of the detail you included here 👍 Really useful to include the history as well.
This is great and very informative. Would it be possible for you to make a similar video like this for SEGA. I wanna know how games like Origins got rushed, Higher ups seem to be to blame. Bit I'd like to know more than just basics.
Jon, you must get this all of the time on the way to the market or wherever...your voice is pretty much the ASMR version of the Kool Aid Man, you bust through the wall of anxiety, and say Hey! You're about to relax...and we do. Lol, great video.
Can someone explain why F-Zero is the default example for dormant franchises? There’s dozens more I can think of, several of which I feel more people talk about than F-Zero. Is it just because of Captain Falcon’s continued presence in Smash and how everything he says and does is a meme?
@@Rougealienpirate maybe the actual F-Zero fans want a proper gmae, pretty sure a lot of the smash fans that like him for memes want an action game instead.
@@gooeydude574 Wario Land got a game on Wii though, F-Zero hasn't been seen since the Game Boy Advance and its last entry didn't even release outside of Japan.
For the same reason, why David Zaslav is now getting rid of all the animated shows and films at Warners. They do not make them any money. Success is a life source for franchises, and if they can not print any money, there is no reason to keep them alive. No matter how good they are. Look at SEGA! Why do you think SEGA is still making Sonic games and using the brand for other types of media? Because it is a respected IP that stands for quality and fun? No! Because hardcore Sonic fans just buy everything with Sonic's name on it, but no one will buy a new Skies of Arcadia or Billy Hatcher game, no matter how good the quality of these games is.
Another thing people miss is that Nintendo also often publishes games for other publishers to bring their games outside of Japan. Square-Enix being to most prominent example with them publishing all the final fantasy 1+2, 4, 5, and 6 for the GBA, Dragon Quest VI, IX and XI definitve edition, Bravely Default and Copublished Octopath Traveler, Bravely Default series and Co-publishing Octopath Traveler, Triangle Strategy and the Live a Live remake.
I dont get why Nintendo won't just partner with SEGA for a new F-Zero game again They developed GX which is easily the best in the entire series, and both parties have a really strong working relationship with each other especially during the Switch era. It's like a no brainer at this point. I'd even take a GX remaster that comes with AX as well
@@GVG I guess Yakuza might be a factor in addition to their prioritization of other franchises like the Atlus stuff and their PC games, but I also don't really see how their audiences overlap in that regard given Yakuza is barely a presence on Nintendo consoles. I'm pretty sure it was just limited to that Yakuza 1+2 collection on Wii U which was Japan-only Even if Nagoshi isn't at SEGA anymore they could probably bring in some of the current staff or the Judgement team at least to supervise
@@GVG no its actually because we at Nintendo prefer safety first. Captain Falcon and the gang kept going above the speed limit and caused lots of damage and fatalities (which basically bankrupted us) so we took away their driver liscenses... please enjoy the safer mario car game for the Nintendo Switch family of systems instead :)
@@icedcapplord710 audience overlap doesn't matter if you don't have the available team to work on it, and they're currently busy with developing Yakuza 8. And as it was pointed out, the previous head and a lot of the people that worked on GX have left that studio and Sega and have moved on
One thing when comes to many of these Nintendo franchise is that most of them had Miyamoto involved they put so much trust on him since he basically their Walt Disney.
This answers a lot of questions, thanks Jon! I guess a good follow-up would be which properties are Nintendo 1st party vs 3rd party vs mixed (2nd party?).
-Comix Zone -Ristar -Panzer Dragoon II Remake (currently in limbo) -Vectorman -Toejam & Earl -Ecco the Dolphin -Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg -Nights into Dreams -The Ooze -Space Channel 5 -Classic Phantasy Star (Online doesn't count, we're talking I - IV) -Shenmue (especially after III) -Chu Chu Rocket -Alex Kidd -Gunstar Heroes -Samba De Amigo -Virtua Fighter -Wonder Boy -Many, MANY more Really, you should be asking this about Sega. Comparatively, Nintendo is firing on all cylinders.
@@azimulhoque1497 I get that with arlo and shesez they don't know what they got into now, but RGT85 started the whole thing. So he should be blame on the messed he created.
(Edited as half my original comment disappeared when it was submitted) Another aspect to take into account is Nintendo's approach to game development. They do not usually sit down and say "Let's make the next Mario game." They instead think to themselves, "This is the control interface of the current/next Nintendo console, what kind of gameplay can we design around it?" If after they come up with that gameplay concept they can attach it to an established IP, great, if not they may try to develop a new IP or shelve it for later. Remember that when Splatoon was first pitched all the dev team had was the concept of a shooter where you spray paint on the floor instead of shooting bullets at other players, and using the gyroscope to aim. After the game got approved the higher ups at Nintendo had proposed to make it a Mario sports title before the Splatoon devs came up with the idea of transforming squid kids. I think this is also why series like F-Zero have disappeared (that and Nintendo doesn't see the need for two racing games), and development on Pikmin 4 has stagnated.
Nintendo buying monolith soft was one of the best ideas, bringing a franchise that rivals final fantasy and reviving the jrpg genre as a whole, they also help with Nintendo games, speeding up release dates and bugging
Really cool video, but I wanna make a small correction in the role of MonolithSoft. They aren't actually just an asset team in the case of Zelda since BoTW, they also do design work and it seems they'll have a more prominent role in the sequel, considering they have made a ton more hirings and opened a whole new team for it. They are more like co-developers of Zelda rather than just an asset support studio.
I'm glad you made this video. I got really heated after everyone was hating in the Xenoblade direct because everyone was like why make xenoblade and not a new donkey kong and im like bro Monolith Soft chose to make this game its not like it steals resources or time. Idk it made me mad that people just assume stuff and feel like they should get the games they want.
These comments always feel so childish and entitled! I'm definitely not interested in all of Nintendo's IPs, but I will sure as hell be happy for people getting a new game in a series, even if I personally don't care. It's just so much nicer to embrace positivity, instead of being basically an embodiment of discontentment all the time xD
@@Anni_ka thank you, I've learned that toxic gamers are just entitled. They're always like we DESERVE a new donkey kong, why isn't THIS FEATURE in the game, THIS GAME ISNT UP TO MY STANDARD. Like bro real people made this game and not everything is catered to you. Yeah a direct or something might have a game you don't care about but others do care about it which is why they put it in the direct. It genuinely annoys me.
@@ShurikanBlade Yes yes yes! Definitely agree! Also, my favourite are the people that are like 'they just need to release xyz and it'll sell millions' or 'Nintendo is losing so much money by not releasing xyz/doing xyz'. I'm pretty sure Nintendo has the data, and just because you have nostalgia for this game, doesn't mean the many new people entering the hobby these days will care for it 🙄
I think most people's biggest problem wasn't that a Xenoblade was coming instead of a different franchise but rather during Nintendo's "E3" direct window, the only information we got was for xenoblade when there were plenty of games we knew so little about. It was especially weird for Zelda fans because of just how much Nintendo loves to show off Zelda in their "E3" directs and the fact that this was their last one before the game comes out
Thanks for making this video! Videos like this really do help people be more informed, sympathetic, and overall less gamer-ragey. By the way, sincerely: I LOVE how evocative the clickbaity title & thumbnail are. It really activated my almonds. "Yeah, why don't they do that?!" I was surprised & pleased with how gentle the video was.
![[Live สด] การออกรางวัลสลากกินแบ่งรัฐบาล งวดวันที่ 16 พฤศจิกายน 2567](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/wPd7VFfWHIA/mqdefault.jpg)
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Insane after a lifetime of watching gaming content on TH-cam this is the most Ive learned about the actual developers instead of everything being referred to as “Nintendo”
Yes it's an eye-opener.
Yea i dont like that people refer to companies as if theyre this living entity. As if nintendo itself is alive and churns out games. Same with playstation etc.
I do wish this were publicized more, especially by Nintendo themselves. It'd help them repel a lot of the blame they get when it comes to their duds.
@@bri4498 It's not really a "living entity" impression. It's more of a "hivemind in full control" impression.
@@CarbonRollerCaco Nintendo has zero blames for their so called duds
I think something else important is that you need a Nintendo higher up to act as a sponsor for the series. The reason Metroid has gotten so many sequels despite a history of lacklustre sales is due in large part to Sakamoto’s enduring passion for it. And while people like Sakamoto and Miyamoto are important enough to the company they can survive backing a poor selling passion project like Metroid Other M or Star Fox Zero the same can’t be said of every lead developer there. Nobody wants to be remembered as the guy who made the company decide to sink a lot of money into developing a new F-Zero only for it to not sell well.
I feel like F-Zero wasn't exactly a passion project for anyone at Nintendo to begin with, which might be a bit problematic. I get the impression that the early games were primarily made to show off the systems technical capabilities kinda in a similar vain as PilotWings. A fast-paced Racing game with mode 7 at the SNES launch was certainly an eye-catcher and F-Zero X too pretty impressively ran at 60 FPS on the N64. So unless a big developer is really willing to make another F-Zero on mostly their own terms without Nintendo needing to provide a larger share of the budget (as F-Zero hasn't done that well in the past and probably also won't really with a new entry) it won't happen. That might be why Shinen (who made Fast Racing Neo/Rmx) aren't as well suited as they might seem, being a small dev, Nintendo might have to invest more than they like.
That's basically why Mega Man got so many games despite not selling a lot because Inafune back then could get them greenlit and it was part of the reason why we didn't get an original Mega Man game for 8 years
I don't know how we can speculate about F-Zero not selling when the last time it had a game the market was significantly more brutal to distribute games in.
People said the same about Metroid as a series only for a non-prime entry to break previous records in no time flat. And F-zero gets asked for way more than Metroid does.
Companies just exclusively invest in safe projects now.
I will say 2 things about the f-zero situation in addition:
1) in the 20-ish years since the last mainline fzero game, the racing game landscape has changed dramatically. antigrav, and even non licensed arcade racers, all but died out during the recession. it's been 10 years since the last new wipeout game, which i would count as the nearest thing to a direct rival. Chances are there's still that stigma of racing games being poor sellers hanging around, which definitely still lingers in the AAA space and I imagine nintendo don't want any sort of competition to Mario Kart if something else comes up.
2) In that time, the studios that have had experience with racing games typically folded into other larger studios, like with playground/turn10 for forza, codemasters -> EA with the remainder of the uk racing game scene, and now outside of simracing or smaller indie titles. outside of the guys that made grip, redout and fast racing neo that have some kind of experience under their belt, there's not really many places to choose from. shinen are probably the closest you're going to get if you're looking for an exclusively nintendo racer of that style
@@OverruledDood yes but even metroid dread which is the top selling metroid only sold about 3 millions. That's such a small amount of numbers for a "nintendo big league". Also, by your logic, why doesn't Nintendo remake mother 3 instead. It's definitely been asked far more over F zero. The problem is that they can't gauge who actually would buy the game and whos just clamorimg for a new f-zero just cuz everyone else is. Plus, F zeros biggest competitor would be mario kart so why would nintendo compete with themselves.
I like this third party collaboration and shared ownership system Nintendo has going with other studios. I know a lot of people get excited when a studio gets bought out by one of the big three but I think this method is healthier for the industry in general as it gives developers opportunity AND independence.
It works out well when you have a franchise that sells well
It's a case by case basis. Opportunity and independence can count for something, but a developer is only ever paid once for their work, while the publisher (Nintendo) profits for years or decades later with re-releases, stashing their games in their Nintendo vault, or if they don't have full ownership of the game, ensuring it doesn't get released elsewhere like Bayonetta 2/Astral Chain (Platinum Games would REALLY like to have a game of their own they could re-release on future systems for quick cash). The main reason why development studios can't grow is due to a lack of financial backing. It's also why they go bankrupt like Alpha Dream, despite making a decently profitable franchise for over a decade.
The way Microsoft does it is totally different from what we grew up knowing of these acquisitions. The games are contractually obligated to come out for Game Pass (Xbox and Windows PC), but there's no exclusivity deal, they can release anywhere else on the same day. And many developers we've heard from that worked with them (Cuphead, Psychonauts 2, etc) seem to cite the deal as the main reason why the game could even release. The only issue with the Microsoft model is that nobody else has "Microsoft money" to be throwing around on charity cases.
@@ZappBranniglenn Doesn't Nintendo fully own Astral Chain now if I am not mistaken
@@ZappBranniglenn OK there's a lot to unpack there.
What you are saying about contract work is correct in that they only get paid for the job however in these cases specifically for Nintendo & friends, the studios share ownership of the IP. Kirby, Pokemon, the platinum IP's, they both gain from the merchandise and so forth. Sure both parties need to agree going forward on a new entry but as we recently saw with Platinum, Nintendo was willing to make a deal to give full ownership of Wonderful 101 in exchange for Nintendo to fully own Astral Chain. These third parties have bargaining chips along with their freedom. Very few companies will do what Nintendo does, most will gain full ownership of the IP from the start and I often feel that hurts the brand in the long run, just look at how most movie studios handle their franchises.
As for the story of Alpha Dream, their fate was the result of poor business decisions. They were planning on making a mobile game not affiliated with Nintendo and that venture cost them unfortunately. Either way those were Alpha dreams choices and responsibilities not every studio will make the right ones.
@@NoxideActive alphadream was also in a hiring spring back in 2018, looking for anyone who have experienced on mobile, switch, and ps4 field. But because of bowser inside story remake on 3ds so late and mobile game flop badly. With thier last game they co-develop was mario and sonic 2020 Tokyo Olympics game's.
Can't forget about AlphaDream, the brilliant team behind Mario & Luigi, who also made a few games of their own on the GBA. Rest in peace.
That one still hurts
And Skip who developed Chibi-Robo as they're rumours that they've gone bankrupt.
Never heard of that game lmao
Yeah, I loved the Mario & Luigi games
@@blinxman4956 they are likely no longer there in business, because the CEO is no longer there, thier names are no longer in the business buildings signs, and thier website is an error.
Thanks for the reminder Jon that I forgot to feed Captain Falcon his daily meal today. The boy must be starving down in the Nintendo Dungeon
😂😂
My god that's sad
@@TheSpeedfoever No need to worry, we have Ness from Earthbound to accompany him :)
@@theshyguymaster59 just in case of smash bros 6 happening in the future .
Hope he's eating the finest quality bird seed and bread crumbs
This is such a clear and in depth video about Nintendo and their collaborators. Thank you
Another thing that's important is that any EPD team could break their typical niche and tackle something new. This is how Splatoon happened. And it's similar to how the Mario Kart Team made ARMS, and how Nintendo EAD made Donkey Kong Jungle Beat back in the GameCube era.
It's unlikely to see a dormant series tackled by one of these teams, but it's not impossible.
And of course, if they have the people and resources, they could always make a new EPD team as well (this probably wouldn't happen unless they _really_ wanna push for something. Something that's worth doing some restructuring over).
In both cases, they were trying something new and that's the philosophy behind Nintendo's systems. There are a couple of truly staple series like Mario Party and 2d Mario that get iteration after iteration despite not a whole of major changes because they're more sure sales but everything else has to be new in some way. Mario will always get more versions of itself but something like F-Zero was made and done because there's nothing Nintendo wants to build on. New series are one thing but a dormant series? I would say those are objectively harder unless they reach a very strong stride their first go-around.
Jungle beat is fuckin trash though.
are you really comparing fzero to fucking splatoon? really?
@@Zontar82 Splatoon was originally just a game mechanics concept with no ideas for what the characters or game itself would be. The original player characters were rabbits because the devs thought it would be easy to indicate the direction the faced on the map. They were also told if they couldn't come up with anything that it could always just be made into a Mario game.
So yeah, F-Zero and Splatoon do have some stuff in common. The big difference is that Splatoon struck out absolutely huge.
The fact that Splatoon is from EPD IS a hindrance at times. Animal Crossing and Splatoon share a lot of the same devs. Its why neither game gets updates at the same time and have ~2 years of updates/extra content releases.
I’ve realized this for a while now how little Nintendo themselves actually make. The vast majority of their software is made by studios they either own or have a stake in.
for a sec I read this as "Nintendo themselves actually makes (money)"
and I was about to be like hell no LOL
Tis' sad isn't it?
With the other in house games just being smaller multiplayer games, Nintendo essentially just make mainline Mario and Zelda, which makes sense. Studios only ever develop one game at a time like FromSoft making Elden Ring, or Bethesda making Starfield, but here we have Nintendo making and releasing Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey simultaneously. Those are both massive games and is already a serious output from Nintendo as is.
It makes you realize that Nintendo is not this monolithic entity but is continuous with the fabric of the industry as a whole. It's just harder to see that as a consumer because of Nintendo's branding and exclusivity.
Explicitly, it's Nintendo in a race with the other console developers. Implicitly, there are developers from all over the place who come and go; as though it were really a collaboration but they have compete anyway for the sake of keeping the books.
@@James-wn4fc Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, Splatoon - how can you just ignore some of their biggest franchises?
I love Nintendo sci-fi and really hope they find partners to develop Star Fox and F-Zero. So glad we got Retro and MercurySteam covering Metroid.
MercurySteam is in a really interesting position. Nordisk Games division purchased 40% of the studio a few years ago and they could wind up being bought out by them in the future. I'm not sure if Nordisk would allow future collaborations if that happens so if Nintendo is serious about their budding relationship with MercurySteam this could mean there might be business drama happening behind the scenes in the future.
@@NoxideActive according to ex employees, Mercury steam caused a lot of trouble for Nintendo during dreads development. Nintendo probably won't work with them again I imagine
*cries in Custom Robo*
@@novustalks7525 Retro Studios has also caused Nintendo a lot of problems on several developments, but specially during Prime 1's. And Nintendo's solution back then was to buy them. You never know, Dread was a quality game, brought in a lot of good will for the franchise, and instantly became the best selling game in the series. That might be worth the headache for Nintendo.
@@Nk3ATR maybe
13:02 after the September 2023 Direct, Jon was bang on
This was a great video, it’s a good way to inform those on how each Nintendo series is actually worked on.
I keep seeing people hating on X franchise because they “robbed” Nintendo’s attention from series that need a new entry, when in reality different franchises are worked by different studios.
Yeah. I remember a month or two ago when people were hating on both Xenoblade and Fire Emblem and saying that they were both getting in the way of other games for other franchises being made.
@@dantelawrence4676 part of that probably also had to do with the “generic anime artstyle” complaints, and that other Nintendo IPs just had more “unique” artstyles and they prefer the gameplay of those ones (because JRPGs bad amirite?)
@@jomaq9233 To be fair, Fire Emblem and Xenoblade tic most, if not all the boxes off the stereotypical JRPG checklist on a surface level. Some of it comes from anti-weebs who will always think two nukes wasn't enough, but if I didn't know anything about the franchises or the developers, I'd probably brush off FE as another boring SRPG but with dating sim elements and Xenoblade as another boring sci-fantasy RPG with a focus on chicks with big tits that turn into swords, those wacky Japanese, amirite. Those are highly inaccurate, but first impressions and all that.
Then again, I haven't owned an Nintendo console in a hot minute, so I really have no skin in the game outside of what I see online.
@@EbonySaints you could theoretically always boil down any Nintendo franchise to its most unflattering first impressions though (Mario is just “boringly simplistic jumpy game for babies” amirite?)
People are also somehow okay with Metroid tho despite being way less “cartoony” and more realistic tho, and thus, not fitting in with Nintendo’s usual franchise identity (also Zelda can be considered “anime” now, but because it’s “mainstream”, it’s okay?)
@@EbonySaints there’s also the matter of not just Nintendo fans dunking on them, but also other JRPG fans comparing them to more relatively mainstream games *coughs in Final Fantasy/Persona*
I think another factor for XC2’s more negative reputation compared to XC1 (besides the increased focus on “generic anime tropes”) is the differing attention that the “mainstream” JRPGs that released around the same time as those games got:
-Xenoblade 1 released around the same time as the Final Fantasy 13 games, so it was easy to see why Xenoblade 1 could somewhat catch on with FF fans disappointed with 13 (FF13 hate was really, really intense back then)
-Xenoblade 2, on the other hand, released at around the same time as Persona 5, and people just wouldn’t shut up about how much of a “masterpiece” that game was, resulting in XC2 looking “inferior” in comparison (opinions have somewhat shifted on P5 since then, at least, depending on how much of an SMT fan you are lol)
Why Nintendo doesn’t make a sequel for that one person who really likes Ice Climbers
I hope one day to be a great dev, own my own studio and pitch Nintendo my Ice Climber idea that I've had and been refining since childhood.
Now that you say it, it's been a long time since they've gotten another game from the Ice Climbers, so it would actually be pretty cool if we'd eventually get another!
That one person? There’s two Ice Climbers. One person can demand all they want but two will make waves.
@@bugonboris6681 Ice Climbers on the NES was not a great game. It was the first Co-op game, but that's it.
@@orangeslash1667 Thats why it needs a sequel, duh
One interesting addendum to this great video: in April 2022 Furukawa purchased a land lot next to Nintendo's HQ in order to build an expansion of Nintendo's internal development capabilities in the long term, it is expected to be completed in 2028 and be over 13 floors tall. This will likely result in new internal teams that can take care of legacy IPs without a current team/TP partner (like Mario & Luigi, or Kid Icarus) or come up with brand new ones.
I think people need to realize devs are people too. If they don’t feel like doing a game of a certain franchise that’s fine. When they feel like it or have a new idea for a new game, they’ll do it. They shouldn’t rush it (insert Mitamoto quote).
Very nice of you to spread awareness of why many of these franchises lay dormant, Jon!
Also it’s “Doesn’t”, not “Don’t”
If I had to guess, it could be leaning in on a Nintendon’t joke, but at that point I think it would just be one word.
I never said that though...
-Shigeru Miyamoto, 2022
I remember when some people were angry at Retro Studios for making DKC instead of Metroid, because clearly they shouldnt work on anything else am I right?
@@shigerumiyamoto9612 Don't you have a child to take care of right now? Mrs. Bowser?
I draw sci-fi stuff and after one or two things I want to try to something different but people keep asking to make more of the same.
Casual fans just don't understand the concept of burning out and how a developer will just not be able to do stuff that he or she doesn't want to do.
Wow, this really puts into perspective just how organized a company like Nintendo with so many large IPs has to be. It’s like a puzzle of different development teams so that way they can have a multitude and a year’s worth of projects ready to go. It’s a really smart approach and works very well. This doesn’t even include second party teams Nintendo has exclusives from outside of their own company like Game Freak, Sakurai’s team, and Platinum. The volume of properties they have is overwhelming when you put that into perspective. Any company is going to have some dead, unused IPs and while it would be nice to see them more, I totally understand not wanting to spend development resources and go through the effort of finding a team for a project that’s not going to do much for them, unless it’s the passion project of some developer. Nintendo makes games full of charm and people with passion behind them, but at the end of the day, they’re a corporation with a method behind what they do.
Great video Jon but unfortunately some of your facts in the timeline were a bit off. Nintendo R&D4 were going by EAD long before Iwata's restructuring in the early 2000s. The division was retitled and/or restructured under Yamauchi before the launch of the Super Famicom in 1989. The character Mr. EAD in F-Zero X is a reference to the studio's name.
EAD also stands for Entertainment and Analysis Division...which you skipped over in the vid when noting the name change.😉
sad to see misinformation spread because not enough people played F-Zero X 😔
Yeah, I would've appreciated if he explained the acronyms or just said their full names at least in his first mention of each division. Furthermore, when I search for Nintendo EAD (through Google, by the way), a Wikipedia article appears saying that they were disbanded/defunct on September 16, 2015, yet Jon said that they're still making games.
Nonetheless, regarding the EAD thing, Jon may have meant that the staff of EAD are still developing games within the newer division (NPD, Nintendo Entertainment & Planning Development).
@@TimelessTimothy he mentioned that EAD and SPD merged in 2015 in the video
This was great video that really enlightened me on how Nintendo develops their games. But it was kind of hard to keep up with all the divisions and their confusing names; I had to watch the parts twice to keep up. If it had like some kind visual aid, that showed the hierarchy of the company like an organization chart, that would have helped a lot!
Fans: “Why don’t we have a new Advance Wars?”
IS: “We can’t make the war tanks kiss.”
Not with that attitude
Well there's also that currently ongoing war that got AW Reboot Camp delayed, considering what the Blue Moon Army, the invading antagonists of the first game represent.
@@CaptainJLinebeck that shouldn't be an excuse as to why they're delaying it indefinitely
hell, if that were the case, they should've delisted the original GBA versions on the Wii U eShop as well, which they didn't
just because there's an ongoing war IRL doesn't mean they have to delay a game that features war as a major theme
if it's ok for Activision to release their CoD games every year, which is all about war in some way shape or form, then Advance Wars 1+2 Reboot Camp should've been released no matter what's going on IRL
also, the Blue Moon Army is a PARODY of Russia, so that alone is enough to NOT force an indefinite delay of the remakes
@@martinde-serres8724 well Nintendo clearly thought different and considered that maybe releasing a game where in your words, a parody of Russia invades another country during when actual Russia started their invasion of Ukraine would be rather insensitive. Also a new game release is gonna have much more attention than VC games on a console that isn't used much nowadays.
But then again I'm aware I'm asking gamers to be understanding of people other than themselves which I know is a foolish desire.
You see, when the mama tank and daddy HIMARS love each other really much, they will hug each other so hard that their metal bodies ...
It should be mentioned, Nintendo Purchased part of Monolift around 2008 which was partially owned by Namco. This created a partnership with Namco. Namco made Smash 4, smash Ultimate, Pokken tournament, and Mario Kart 8. Nintendo would later buy out Namco's Shares in Monolift. Monolift would create a Office Kyoto to be closer to Nintendo. This office worked on Splatoon, Splatoon 2, Skyward sword, BOTW, amd Pokemon Snap.
They actually did buy out Next Level though recently, didn’t they? It seemed like a no-brainer after Strikers, Punch Out and Luigi’s Mansion.
Yes, but that was because Next Level were looking for someone to buy them. With the success of Luigi's Mansion 3 still fresh, Nintendo had to strike before someone else bought them.
@@Toonrick12Think about what would've happened if they'd done that with Rare way back when.
On the one hand we might've gotten sequels to some of the best SNES/N64 games, on the other hand, i love the Retro Studios DKC games too much for that to have happened.
@@lucasdellamaggiore Bad news Rare said they runout out ideas for Banjo and Kazooie.
As for Conker, Nintendo was uncomfortable promoting a game with mature content.
I was content with Mother ending at 3, not necessarily never being localized though… I just mean the series was so Shigesato Itoi in identity, and if he thinks it’s done, then it’s done.
Also the gameplay mechanics and vibes of EarthBound and Mother 3 have been done in other Japanese-style RPG’s. And Toby Fox is right that he shouldn’t take up any mantle even before he met Shigesato Itoi in person, even if Toby Fox has the hidden talent of handling a large-scale dev team. (He does handle a small team for the Deltarune series now)
I think you meant "content". Contempt means hate.
Even though the series has ended there is no reason to not localize and port the games to make them easily available for everyone. Itoi himself is not against it as well.
@@unison_moody we have the first 2 Earthbound games, we just need our own "Earthbound 3."
Content? Contempt is hate
honestly i do like the fact that nintendo doesnt really *buy* companies, it allows more creative freedom for those companies (HAL as a big example of this) and also because i think company buyout speculation is really weird
Nintendo does occasionally buy companies if they have a really strong relationship with them. Monolith Soft, Retro, Next Level Games.
There are some companies I think Nintendo should buy, some even wanting to be bought by them like Rare. But as a whole I'm glad they aren't buying up everything. Maybe only do it if the company is in a bad place and needs it or they would go out of business
@@AlexaRobin21 They only really buy companies if the company is at high risk of either going bankrupt and dying, or being bought buy another company. If, for example, HAL was trying to find a larger company to buy them, Nintendo would do it. Otherwise, they wouldn't buy them because they will still develop games for Nintendo even if Nintendo doesn't buy them
Do any of you guys here know what happened after AlphaDream became bankrupt? I remember Nintendo wasn't interested in buying them. I wonder what those people work for now.
@@Kiirabu197 Well they havent made a game in 3 years so its safe to say they are dead.
Nintendo should try giving their chances to more indie devs. It worked pretty well with Cadence of Hyrule, I'm sure there's a lot of very talented devs out there who would love to work on Nintendo IPs
I for one could knock another mass crossover with their stuff out of the park.
If I knew how to code, I would jump at the chance to make a new game in ANY Nintendo franchise. I would gladly make a new Punch-Out, new F-Zero, I would even be willing to make a new Ice Climber or Excitebike. If only I could code…
@@superhappygamer1162 I think I may have found some successors.
It Takes Two, is a multiplayer game where two characters must work together in order to progress that kinda reminds me of Ice Climber.
For F-zero, There is Fast RMX on Hero mode, Redout 2, and the upcoming Aero GPX.
They could care less.
Definitely true. There are indie games like pizza tower and bug fables that almost feel like spiritual successors to nintendo franchises.
Do people really don’t understand why? It’s always going to be a “problem” to any company that has that many IPs. The only way this wouldn’t be an issue would be if said company only has like 5 IPs, but then you wouldn’t have the diversity of titles that Nintendo, Capcom, Square and other large publishers. It’s an even bigger problem for smaller companies like Falcom, Fromsoft and etc that lack the manpower, but have a crap ton of IPs because they have been around for so long and have amassed them since the 80s and 90s. There just simply isn’t enough time and resources to make everything that people want.
One thing they could do is have a game release every three to five years, and each release is a different IP they own. Until they run out of IPs and just redo the whole cycle.
This is literally it, and also the major problem that people dont see coming with all these acquisitions... all of the small franchises you like with these companies WILL die. When Xbox acquited Bethesda, Arkane instantly moved from a major studio within Bethesda to a minor studio within Xbox. That is a massive deal, now theres very little incentive business wise to actually fund Arkanes games. Theyll most like die out on favour of just taking the BGS and Doom/Wolfenstein part.
Nintendo is the same. They make a million Mario and Zelda spin offs instead of spreading those resources to smaller franchises. It would be better for us all if they made more varied content, but that doesnt mean it would sell as well.
Sounds like companies getting to own too many IPs.
A lot of people seemed to not understand this during late June 2022, when Twitter and TH-cam were flooded with people mad about how Xenoblade and Fire Emblem were receiving too much support on the Switch. As a quick refresher, at the time Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes was about to release, a new original Fire Emblem was being rumored/"leaked", and Xenoblade 3 was about a month away and being pushed heavily by Nintendo. People were acting as though Fire Emblem and Xenoblade were taking away development time and resources from Zelda and Mario, despite Intelligent Systems' big thing is Fire Emblem, and pretty much Monolithsoft's *only* thing is Xenoblade. Unfortunately, there are a lot of toxic people out there who just don't seem to want to see franchises they don't care for doing well.
@@crystalcove99 also the fact that Xenoblade 3 came 5 years after 2.
This was an interesting video. Its cool to learn more about the way Nintendo developed their old games and how it changed in their current processes. It's a shame that series like Donkey Kong, F-ZERO, and Star Fox Zero are essentially shackled to third party collaborations because of Nintendo's current management. At the same time, it is nice to learn why certain series seem to get such a huge priority over others. It can be easy to assume its just because Nintendo is focusing most of their resources into that game, but knowing its really because those games are lucky enough to have entire teams of Nintendo dedicated specifically to that makes a lot of sense.
Personally, Punch-Out is the main neglected Nintendo IP that I REALLY want to see return. I adore that series and really want a new one to be made. I think it is definitely possible for Next Level Games to decide to revisit Punch-Out since its the last major Nintendo IP they've worked on in the past that hasn't had a new game yet, but at this point I'm really not so sure. Punch-Out is niche and, as stated in this video, it's been abandoned (outside of rereleases) for 13 years. I would love if we at least got a port of the Wii game. Runner-up for me is Donkey Kong; as amazing as Retro Studios' take on Donkey Kong Country has been, I don't see why there hasn't been a new game but handled by a different team. Especially baffling to me since, unlike Punch-Out, DK already gets a ton of stuff like merchandising, crossovers in other games, promotional content, being a character that's almost never excluded from Mario spin-offs...he just, for some reason, never gets a new game.
I think in the future, it could be very healthy for Nintendo to collaborate with Indies. They did it already with cadence of hyrule, I think indie devs can help revive some franchises that haven't seen new games in years. I can imagine the Hades devs working on a new Kid icarus game in that style.
agreed. Some of the older franchises might just not work well on a large scale with modern audiences. smaller developers often have good ideas on how to not reinvent the entire franchise but pick one state from its history and focus on modernising that as a retro flavored game.
as an example starfox.
SF1 - an arcadey points shooter with a strong mode 7 Artstyle.
SF2 - tactical, choice oriented, free form
SF64 - focuses on exploring levels to get different outcomes and paths
SFA - centers a story line and offers more spectacle
any one of these could still work with quality of life updates. Zero could've worked without the forced gimmick. Heck, it could still work if they rereleased the thing on switch.
They already have. Fast RMX, Good Job, Cadance of Hyrule, Snipperclips, Sushi Warrior, that ambulance game. Don’t think they have been huge sellers though.
@@magicjohnson3121 I think the point was specifically about bigger and well known Nintendo IPs being handled by indies in order to make smaller games. These won't sell massive amounts, but they keep the franchise alive and generate good press and good will amongst fans.
please no. indie devs make some of the worst games of all time
@@funnycat306 as do "Tripple A" studios...?
That's was incredibly interesting, despite following games for years I'd never heard a specific breakdown of the historical changes across Nintendo game development. Very cool
A big part of the problem is just how much more effort and manpower it takes to make a game nowadays. As someone with a bachelor's in Game Design (although I haven't gotten a job in the industry, I'm working a stupid warehouse job right now) I have a general idea of just how many people it takes to make a game. My sophomore year me and two others spent part of a semester making a 2D game with sprite graphics. I was able to the graphics alongside some of the coding, level design, sound design, ect. It wasn't as complete a game as would have been released in the '80s or early '90s, but give us a few more months of work and a year or two more of experience and it might have started to get there.
My senior year I was part of a team of over 20 making one game for the whole year. I was like one of five on the narrative team. The design, art, and programming teams all had at least one more person than the narrative team, and the writing was one of the biggest parts of the game. And this game was still miles away from the manpower and time that a new Metroid or F-Zero game would take, and those franchise, though loved (Metroid is a personal favorite), have a history of not being the biggest of sellers.
TLDR. Games went from needing teams of less of than ten to twenty people and maybe a year to needing teams of hundreds and multiple years to make, and that is a big portion of why we aren't seeing some of NIntendo's franchises like we used to.
Yea if the industry isn't simply delaying games waiting for PS5/XboxSX to pick up steam, then if simply the depth of detail has turned game development into something that needs more time and manpower
People certainly don't understand how complex development is
Like even prominent Indie teams need like 50 people minimum for their games. It’s also funny how people think developers are just going to make games they either don’t wanna make or have zero experience in. The Fire Emblem guys aren’t just going to make a good F-Zero or Star Fox with their lack of making those games. They also know they wouldn’t sell as well as their main IP no matter how many fans would say it would sell well. Most people are gonna hesitate at a studio they know has zero experience or credibility making a game of that genre. No one would trust Game Freak to make a Final Fantasy game. Even if the game comes out good all the marketing is for initial sales by the time people come around the games sales are a fraction of what they could’ve been making it a loss.
It’s always made me wonder why bigger development studios can’t make teams who can work on smaller projects that have more limited scopes. Indie games are doing that to great success, and it would make sense to me at least to diversify your portfolio rather than put all your eggs in one AAA/AAAA basket. With how much money and time it takes to make one big budget game, if a given studio takes even just two or three flops in a row, that spells the end of the company.
@@ozzi9816 Indie devs aren't on a timer, plus we don't know if Nintendo hasn't started doing that. Some indie titles are like 7 years in the making lol.
That was really well made. I never really considered what has to go on internally to make new games. Great work with this video
Bring back the Kyle Hyde (Hotel Dusk/Last Window) and Another Code/Trace Memory series. Cing did some amazing work with Nintendo, and it's so sad they went under. Now Nintendo just owns their assets and does nothing with them.
Wish granted!!!!!!!
Yeah Hal has been attached to Nintendo since the early days of the Famicom when Hal founder Iwata was contracted to help develop a number of the early Famicom/NES games like Balloon fight, Pinball, etc. He also did the NES ports of Joust and Defender for Nintendo as part of the Atari NES deal that was dropped. But yeah Hal and Nintendo have been attached to one another since the beginning of Nintendo's entry into the home video game market
This really was interesting. Good research was done. Organized, displayed and represented in a easy to understand manner.
Amazing memories my friend !! Sound was so annoying, however we always loved it. Hahaha
Retro always in our memories, I have opened a session for retro on my channel.
They must never be forgotten and left behind.
Keep them alive and thanks for sharing these precious arcade games.
Eyes peeled for your next post
I wish Golden Sun was bigger so Camelot would have more incentive to keep up with that series.
IIRC, Camelot literally pulled a Chibi-Robo when Dark Dawn came out and said "Golden Sun Fans! Please support Golden Sun! Tell us you're interested in this series!"
But the support wasn't enough so now they're in Mario Sports Hell.
So then the Golden Sun fans thought the best way to revive Golden Sun was to have Sakurai put Issac in Smash, thinking they could pull a Fire Emblem and advertise a forgotten series. Two issues with that idea:
1. Sakurai stated during 3DS/Wii U that he carefully considered franchises that were new or had fresh blood to be fighters. In Ultimate, K. Rool and Ridley may have been fan favorite picks, but they were still a part of the Donkey Kong and Metroid series, franchises that were going to have new entries regardless.
2. Pulling a Fire Emblem doesn't work because Fire Emblem was still going to have games made, they just weren't available outside Japan, so Marth and Roy just brought interest in a market that never handled it before. Meanwhile Golden Sun was just effectively dead, meaning if Issac was in Smash, there wouldn't be enough interest to revive the series anyway.
The Chibi-Robo thing was how back in 2015/16 The Chibi-Robo team begged people to buy Zip Dash on 3DS, But the fanbase just didn't - because the game they were selling was a 2.5D Platformer not the 3D platformer on the GameCube.
@@Tobunari The problem is that Nintendo refuses to take Skip seriously, none of their games sold well. It's like Nintendo only uses them for small releases??? Not helping matters is that Skip lost Chibi Robo's creator.
You should make a video about the three companies that make up The Pokemon Company and what each contributes
I knew some of this but thanks for providing the full picture.
I do QA testing for software and there's so much work for just a single project that it's amazing how it all comes together in the end. These games really do take magic at the high level with so many components coming together at the end of it all.
Would love to see Nintendo bring back Pilotwings, Waverace, 1080 Snowboarding & F-Zero, or at least lend them back out to third party studios as they did with F-Zero GX and Sega.
The problem is if an IP isn't making waves in sales, it's a waste of resources that would be far more important to place elsewhere. A 3rd party developer would need to be interested in the first place to bring back said IPs, if said games don't have good sales numbers either, it's a waste of development funds to even lend to a 3rd party if these titles are only bought by die hard fans, which is a speck of sales when they really need big numbers to see all the money back to make the game from a casual audience, so it's always seen as a large risk when the manpower really isn't there or even interested to make things happen.
Gotta really admire the amount of logistical coordination and organization Nintendo must have to keep track of their developers and IPs like this, and still be running as a cohesive brand.
This is an extremely useful video and I would love to see similar videos on how other studios/companies work!
I do feel it needs clarifying that EAD was a thing since Ice Hockey on the NES. What happened in 2003 was the formation of the first 5 EAD groups with EAD Tokyo formed shortly after. Also, Star Fox Command, 64 3D and Zero were EAD5 projects. No SPD staff were involved with those games. SPD also did have a good deal of internal development (See Brain Age 1-3, Daigasso Band Bros and Tomodachi Collection) what SPD lacked was the a team capable of the fidelity and complexity Sakamoto wanted for Metroid Dread
This video is so incredibly well researched and explained. Great work Jon.
Great video with a lot I didn't know. I do wonder without the impact of the pandemic if Animal Crossing New Horizons would have gotten a lot more content than it actually got instead of dripfed features older games already had as standard like Kappn and Brewster and lacklustre holiday events?
New horizon since New stuff happened every month the "dripfed" made since your just being a rabid fan
Thank you so much for mentioning how x game being revealed doesn’t take away another potential series. My favourite two Nintendo series are Xenoblade and Fire Emblem so I get a lot of “Waste of time” remarks, which pains me when Monolith help with other franchises.
Yeah, that's messed up, Monolith have collaborated to make some of everyone's favorite Nintendo games like Mario Kart Wii, Smash Bros Brawl, Animal Crossing New Leaf/New Horizons and the Splatoon games and have been doing their damnest to push their passion project that is Xenoblade on the side.
And now that it's finally reached the mainstream and has gained it's dedicated fanbase some people have the audacity to call it a waste of time, give me a break (and a topple, daze/launch and burst/smash).
I would love to see a modern version of Master Blaster, a remaster in today's tech.
Enlightening. It's a pleasure to hear about stuff like this.
Good work, Jon.
6:07 i whised Nintendo give Good Feel a another chance to make another Wario Land on Switch, Wario Land Shake Dimension is amazing.
The problem was that we bought it and no one else did.
WHAT? Are you telling me Nintendo doesn't want to make a sequel to Sushi Strikers!? :(
Oh they want to, after all why have a multi-million dollar company if you can’t make Sushi Strikers. They just want the next game to be perfect.
@@Palasid11 sorry to be that guy, but we just really do not want to make a sequel to that game. Please understand!
@@Palasid11 What a relief then! It's good to know Sushi Striker was not only the perfectest videogame, but also is a big deal for the continuation of one of the biggest companies in the videogame industry ☺️.
Surely the sequel is right arround the corner!
@@shigerumiyamoto9612 NO MYAMOTO WHY!? Do you want Nintendo to go up in flames!? 😔
The industry... No, the WORLD needs a sequel to Sushi Strikers!
@@jowysw Idk man... I just want the world to bu----y Paper Mario Sticker Star for The Nintendo 3ds family of systems
This was super interesting. As a big Kirby fan I knew about HAL being their own thing but not so much the rest tbh. I figured that if folks wanted an ip to return it was probably some resource situation like this.
They sit on a number of IPs.
I would love to see another Eternal Darkness or F-Zero but it’s probably not going to happen.
Everytime you play Smash Bros and you are reminded of the multiple characters from franchises that are from long ago in the past.
John, I just wanna say i love these kinds of videos, i knew a lot of this info, but small tidbits such as the way in which the 11 groups in EPD are divided, or the fact that Monster Games developed Pilotwings Resort (one of my favourite games) are new to me. It's great to see such well developed videos
That's some top tier game journalism, finding deep game industry topics that most people don't know about and bringing them to light in a manner that's easy to understand and fun to watch, thus making the gaming community more informed and be able to talk about the industry in a more nuanced way. Absolutely great job Jon 👏👏👏👏👏
Wow this is really eye opening. Their internal teams make the bigger IP while the smaller IP needs an external team.
Nice video. Really liked the mention of Murasami Castle
I'm surprised AlphaDream and the Mario RPGs weren't mentioned; I for one hope that the Mario & Luigi series continues under another third party.
3:14 This is incorrect. Mele is popular specifically because of it's rushed development; it allowing small glitches to pass by testing which would later redefine the game.
I vastly prefer quality over quantity besides nearly every developer has dormant franchises, Nintendo just gets the most flak for it for some reason.
Because Nintendo fans have been too spoiled and some feel like they are owed the world
@@MoonGhostDoodles Thats more PlayStation fans. Some of them sawed their PS4s in half because Spider Man came to PC, im literally not making that up (obviously most are normal people but still my god).
We got a mainline Metroid game, a Mario Strikers game and a Famicom Detective club remake. But there is always another dormant franchise to be revived. And when Nintendo revives them all, the first revival would need a sequel.
@@EnigmaticGentleman Sure, every company has that kind of fan group. I just feel it’s a bit more noticeable with Nintendo
I think Smash Bros. is a big part of the reason, since it features characters from those dormant franchises alongside their active franchises.
Another one is that F-Zero hasn't had a new game since the GameCube, and if I remember correctly Nintendo said something like they don't know how to add something new to the series, yet they put out a new Mario Kart for each console.
Yet another one is that series tend to go dormant because of an entry crapping the bed, like Metroid: Other M with the questionable controls and awful story or Star Fox Zero with the forced motion controls and being yet another rehash of the general plot of the original and Star Fox 64. It'd be one thing if a series didn't have an entry for awhile because they didn't know how to top the previous game, like the gap between Super Metroid and Metroid Prime/Metroid Fusion, but if it's due to a game doing poorly because of obviously poor decisions, it deserves another chance before being shoved into a vault.
Nice video! Nintendo games have that distinct personality that makes it look like they are only one team, but they actually have lots of partners. Hal and Rare are among my favourite "allies" in the big n's history. They always influence their partners in a way that makes them feel like a family, or a "exclusive" club of sorts
Huh, this really cleared up a lot of questions I’ve had. Some of this I did know but a lot of it I don’t.
Here’s the question that comes up for me: If each one of these studios are locked to one IP, doesn’t that mean that they are never allowed to be bored or burned out on a series? Seems very tricky set up to have.
Studios have no brain, they can't get bored. I'd assume employees can just request a transfer, if probably not mid-development.
Nintendo has a sort of Steam-like model where employees can move and shift between projects. Of course, sometimes that isn't very in-etiquette.
@@amadeus.7436 HAL also helped make the first three Smash Bros, among many, many other games. Also, they are wholly independent from Nintendo. They could start making games for Sony tomorrow and Nintendo couldn’t do anything to stop them.
@@internetguy7319 I sure hope that’s the case. You don’t wanna have a CoD situation going on. One thing that saves Nintendo employees is that they tend to try new things even if they are “stuck” on the same IP. That helps… some.
@@amadeus.7436 I’m aware. The also did Part Time UFO ;-)
This was actually really cool and informative. Thanks for making this one Jon!
It's one thing to understand why it is the way it is, but I feel there's a lot of great IPs that could be utlised well. It sounds like Nintendo may need to pass them onto partners, or have more dev teams for that. I suppose whenever works for them, but a better spread of 1st party IPs on the Systems the better to me at least.
Wow, I knew some of the big stuff like IS, HAL, and GameFreak, and many of the third party devs for various games, but a ton of that info was news to me.
You taught me some wild things in a really simple, fast, and easy to understand way. Now if only I had a good enough memory to retain it.
Hopefully Starfox and F zero come back someday.
Still waiting for Star fox Grand Prix lmao
@@chanhjohnnguyen1867 me too :(
@@chanhjohnnguyen1867 I recommend Horizon chase turbo as a successor to F-zero, and Ex Zodiac as a successor to Star Fox.
Hoping for another Starfox game if only becuase the series deserves a better swansong than Starfox Zero.
It's notable that was the last game that Miyamoto was 'hands-on' with. Maybe our hero 'lost it'.
@@lewisclark1122 Theres the problem, Nintendo is trying to implement motion controls on some of their games. However because StarFox is based on Arcade space shooters, so putting motion controls in Starfox is tricky. Still better than Skyward Sword. The other problem is that Starfox games are usually too short, so Miyamoto run out of ideas of how to evolve the series.
This was a wildly fascinating video. I noticed Nintendo had been working more with outside studios for things like Smash Bros., Xenoblade, Metroid, but I never realized just how many of their games had done that. And I also assumed Nintendo was pretty much running things 90% of the time, just pulling some people in occasionally. But it seems like Nintendo is functioning more similar to a publisher, checking in throughout the game’s development to make sure things are running smooth and aligning with the values they have assigned to their IP. It explains a lot about the release cycles for some of their IPs. (Like why Kirby gets far more releases)
I also had no idea Nintendo had split into so many different groups, freaking 11 of them. I recalled EAD and that there was more than 1 of them, but I was apparent very far behind on that front lol. It’s not that uncommon for publishers to have multiple different studios focusing on different games and IPs, but Thwyre usually spread out far over the world. I guess I just find it so weird has so many different groups, but they’re likely all in Japan? Possibly in the same building? Very odd. You’ve given me a lot of cool stuff to research though. Thank you for the wonderful video!
Great breakdown, thanks for it. I wonder how their reinvestment in their company will impact this in the future? Will they open up more internal teams or just expand the ones they got? Does this give their other IPs a chance to get a game sooner than we thought?
Nintendo is gonna build a new development office so probably having more internal teams.
In addition to that, other studios such as Retro Studios and Intelligent System are expanding too.
Awesome video! A lotta information in here that I didn’t know. I didn’t realize how many games that I thought were purely first party aren’t actually made by Nintendo!
9:28 i also want to add that Monolith Soft helped Nintendo in the development of her severals games such as Splatoon 2 e 3, the Legend of Zelda franchise begining from Skyward Sword e the Animal Crossing franchise begining for Animal Crossing New Leaf.
Also helped with Smash bros
Randomly recommended to me, and this was an unbelievably fascinating watch for me.
I’m curious, have you ever covered the Shantae Series?
It's kind of weird that this video stemmed from people gatekeeping whether or not Zelda fans can point out the wait for the next game. Zelda fans are also fans of plenty of other dead/dormant franchises. While it would be nice if someone took the helm and made a meaningful, new entry, that doesn't mean people can't point out how long the development cycle has been for franchises that are still around.
It's the matter of purpose we already know Nintendo tends to be methodical when they are making the mainline games coupled with the fact that game development doesn't seem to be getting any faster. The whole thing stems from the grief these fans were giving games like Xenoblade 3 and Splatoon 3. So the post(headline) seemed negative.
Blame the new breed of Nintendo fans who got mad at Xenoblade and Fire Emblem for existing like RGT85, BeatEmUps, Ndakauba, Spawn Wave, etc.
@@OxygenC2 Add Kirby to that list because I've been seeing quite a bit of negativity over how hype the Kirby 30ths anniversary has been. People wondering why Nintendo keeps making so much Kirby when really it's just HAL'S thing
@@OxygenC2 Imagine being mad at Monolithsoft, the company that pretty much only makes Xenoblade games, for making a Xenoblade game.
@@crystalcove99 And all Xenoblade games are awesome
Props if you can follow along to this, this video really needed a chart.
Very well researched and explained Jon, hopefully this video is used as a reference for annoying Twitter threads of bashing Nintendo for not making a new F-Zero game or something. It's sad these franchises aren't made in-house anymore but Iwata-san's decision to shift development focus might have saved a company that was struggling to make many 3D games each year, so many games with cut content, delays and crunch in that time like you mentioned. It's evident the decision worked wonders.
The reference to Eva in the thumbnail is pretty funny too lmao
It just means they wouldn’t be able to milk their money makers like Mario and Zelda if they were constantly making new IP’s or working on lesser known titles. Probably would turn out like Sega.
@@magicjohnson3121 Nintendo always at least made one new IP every year tho. 2021 they made Buddy Mission Bond, while 2020 they made Good Job and The stretchers. It's funny that most people asked Nintendo for new IP but never bought the game
@@thieftheodore I've...literally never heard of those games.
@@ZeroKitsuneand all of those games featured in Nintendo Directs. Again Nintendo always make new IP but people rarely buy the games
Here's to hoping someone will prove to Nintendo they can make a kick ass new Donkey Kong game, a 3D one, Retro can still run the 2D DK Games, but i would love to see the big guy return to a 3D platforming adventure, my vision of it is a blown up version of Bowser's fury, with multiple islands, each with their own different objectives and missions, the DK games take place on various islands anyway, so it would work really well. it would also be the ultimate DK fan service game, bringing EVERYONE back, King K. Rool, the kremlings, and Rambi would obviously return, but also Enguarde, Rattly, Squitter, Expresso, and the other animal buddies. The other kongs too, Wrinkly, Tiny, Lanky, Chunky, and sure, even Candy Kong.
This is a very informative video. Throughout my whole life, I assumed that HAL, IS, and GameFreak were owned by Nintendo because of their close relationship with the company and the games they make.
I felt the same way for these video game developers (excluding GameFreak, which makes the Pokémon video games - I knew for a long time that it wasn't owned by Nintendo); I always thought here that they were owned by Nintendo!
More content like this would benefit a lot of people!
8:21 Thank you! I've been saying this for a long while for whenever people ask why the content stopped for New Horizons.
That does explain why they dumped a huge update to finish off the updates.
Great work Jon! Really interesting, clear, and useful video!
This needs to be pinned to every Nintendo/video game themed TH-cam channel.
Since time immemorial, everyone's had their wishlist of dead franchises they'd want to see revived and they wonder why someone as big as Nintendo can't make it happen, and this is the comprehensive answer they've all been looking for. Despite the vast amount of resources Nintendo may have, they are not infinite. And when franchises of old now require teams several times larger than those classic titles did, staffing becomes a major hurdle in itself.
That said...
New F-Zero, Nintendo! Come on, make it happen!
Nintendo isnt even that big in terms of developers. People like Ubisoft or something have more developers i think
Haha noo rhe video just explained how fucking dead f-zero is. You will never ever see a new f-zero that game is dead as fuck and the only remains is captain falcos empty husk in smash and the blue falcon in mario kart
@@themasterladisaster4336 I was very much saying that ironically. XD
@Joshua Suh metroid still had other m, samus returns and federation force. And advance wars was and still is an intelligent system ip so that comparison does not work
@Joshua Suh sure matey we both know rhat f zero is dead as fuck. If you want to cope like this be my guest
God this is so good. Excellent work John, and whoever else worked on this.
I really appreciate Jon's level of research and professionalism in this video. It aggravates me when TH-camrs with no knowledge of Nintendo's R&D structure or business processes (aka RGT85 and Shesez) act like Nintendo personally has an axe to grind against them just because it won't work on an extremely niche IP that has no meaningful sales potential.
Why does it not have a "meaningful sales potential"
Every game has potential if designed well and marketed right. Often times Nintendo does a terrible job at marketing a game for what it is and in turn missing the audience who would like it more.
Did you predict F-Zero 99 and that it was gonna be developed by Arika?? More than one year previous to its official announcement?? You're such an insider dude
This is a really useful video, Jon. I know Nintendo pretty well, but still didn’t know a lot of the detail you included here 👍 Really useful to include the history as well.
So if I want that Battleclash reboot I need to fund it myself. Got it.
This is great and very informative.
Would it be possible for you to make a similar video like this for SEGA.
I wanna know how games like Origins got rushed, Higher ups seem to be to blame.
Bit I'd like to know more than just basics.
Jon, you must get this all of the time on the way to the market or wherever...your voice is pretty much the ASMR version of the Kool Aid Man, you bust through the wall of anxiety, and say Hey! You're about to relax...and we do. Lol, great video.
Can someone explain why F-Zero is the default example for dormant franchises? There’s dozens more I can think of, several of which I feel more people talk about than F-Zero. Is it just because of Captain Falcon’s continued presence in Smash and how everything he says and does is a meme?
Yep they want him to have a proper game
@@Rougealienpirate maybe the actual F-Zero fans want a proper gmae, pretty sure a lot of the smash fans that like him for memes want an action game instead.
People don’t shut up about F-Zero but you rarely hear about Wario Land
@@gooeydude574 Wario Land got a game on Wii though, F-Zero hasn't been seen since the Game Boy Advance and its last entry didn't even release outside of Japan.
@@TheManofBrisk For F-Zero there are three options. Fast RMX on hero mode, Redout 2, and Aero GPX although the last is not out yet.
The Twitter thread to YT script turnaround is amazing, kudos John!
For the same reason, why David Zaslav is now getting rid of all the animated shows and films at Warners. They do not make them any money. Success is a life source for franchises, and if they can not print any money, there is no reason to keep them alive. No matter how good they are. Look at SEGA! Why do you think SEGA is still making Sonic games and using the brand for other types of media? Because it is a respected IP that stands for quality and fun? No! Because hardcore Sonic fans just buy everything with Sonic's name on it, but no one will buy a new Skies of Arcadia or Billy Hatcher game, no matter how good the quality of these games is.
Sega Saturn and Dreamcast had a lot of unique games but it didn’t save Sega.
Another thing people miss is that Nintendo also often publishes games for other publishers to bring their games outside of Japan. Square-Enix being to most prominent example with them publishing all the final fantasy 1+2, 4, 5, and 6 for the GBA, Dragon Quest VI, IX and XI definitve edition, Bravely Default and Copublished Octopath Traveler, Bravely Default series and Co-publishing Octopath Traveler, Triangle Strategy and the Live a Live remake.
I dont get why Nintendo won't just partner with SEGA for a new F-Zero game again
They developed GX which is easily the best in the entire series, and both parties have a really strong working relationship with each other especially during the Switch era. It's like a no brainer at this point. I'd even take a GX remaster that comes with AX as well
Big reason is likely the popularity of Yakuza and now Nagoshi's left Sega completely
@@GVG I guess Yakuza might be a factor in addition to their prioritization of other franchises like the Atlus stuff and their PC games, but I also don't really see how their audiences overlap in that regard given Yakuza is barely a presence on Nintendo consoles. I'm pretty sure it was just limited to that Yakuza 1+2 collection on Wii U which was Japan-only
Even if Nagoshi isn't at SEGA anymore they could probably bring in some of the current staff or the Judgement team at least to supervise
@@GVG no its actually because we at Nintendo prefer safety first. Captain Falcon and the gang kept going above the speed limit and caused lots of damage and fatalities (which basically bankrupted us) so we took away their driver liscenses... please enjoy the safer mario car game for the Nintendo Switch family of systems instead :)
@@icedcapplord710 I recommend Horizon chase turbo as a successor to F-zero.
@@icedcapplord710 audience overlap doesn't matter if you don't have the available team to work on it, and they're currently busy with developing Yakuza 8.
And as it was pointed out, the previous head and a lot of the people that worked on GX have left that studio and Sega and have moved on
One thing when comes to many of these Nintendo franchise is that most of them had Miyamoto involved they put so much trust on him since he basically their Walt Disney.
This answers a lot of questions, thanks Jon! I guess a good follow-up would be which properties are Nintendo 1st party vs 3rd party vs mixed (2nd party?).
-Comix Zone
-Ristar
-Panzer Dragoon II Remake (currently in limbo)
-Vectorman
-Toejam & Earl
-Ecco the Dolphin
-Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg
-Nights into Dreams
-The Ooze
-Space Channel 5
-Classic Phantasy Star (Online doesn't count, we're talking I - IV)
-Shenmue (especially after III)
-Chu Chu Rocket
-Alex Kidd
-Gunstar Heroes
-Samba De Amigo
-Virtua Fighter
-Wonder Boy
-Many, MANY more
Really, you should be asking this about Sega. Comparatively, Nintendo is firing on all cylinders.
The educational video for people that grew up with just a Nintendo 64 and also that guy who went on a rant about Intelligent Systems and Monolithsoft.
You means RGT85
@@johneskow6299 and arlo and shesez
@@azimulhoque1497 I get that with arlo and shesez they don't know what they got into now, but RGT85 started the whole thing. So he should be blame on the messed he created.
(Edited as half my original comment disappeared when it was submitted)
Another aspect to take into account is Nintendo's approach to game development. They do not usually sit down and say "Let's make the next Mario game." They instead think to themselves, "This is the control interface of the current/next Nintendo console, what kind of gameplay can we design around it?" If after they come up with that gameplay concept they can attach it to an established IP, great, if not they may try to develop a new IP or shelve it for later.
Remember that when Splatoon was first pitched all the dev team had was the concept of a shooter where you spray paint on the floor instead of shooting bullets at other players, and using the gyroscope to aim. After the game got approved the higher ups at Nintendo had proposed to make it a Mario sports title before the Splatoon devs came up with the idea of transforming squid kids. I think this is also why series like F-Zero have disappeared (that and Nintendo doesn't see the need for two racing games), and development on Pikmin 4 has stagnated.
which often results in cool projects but sadly ignores the fans desire for nostalgia.
Nintendo buying monolith soft was one of the best ideas, bringing a franchise that rivals final fantasy and reviving the jrpg genre as a whole, they also help with Nintendo games, speeding up release dates and bugging
Really cool video, but I wanna make a small correction in the role of MonolithSoft. They aren't actually just an asset team in the case of Zelda since BoTW, they also do design work and it seems they'll have a more prominent role in the sequel, considering they have made a ton more hirings and opened a whole new team for it. They are more like co-developers of Zelda rather than just an asset support studio.
I believe six of the thirteen lead game designers for Breath of the Wild were all Monolith Soft workers
I'm glad you made this video. I got really heated after everyone was hating in the Xenoblade direct because everyone was like why make xenoblade and not a new donkey kong and im like bro Monolith Soft chose to make this game its not like it steals resources or time. Idk it made me mad that people just assume stuff and feel like they should get the games they want.
These comments always feel so childish and entitled! I'm definitely not interested in all of Nintendo's IPs, but I will sure as hell be happy for people getting a new game in a series, even if I personally don't care. It's just so much nicer to embrace positivity, instead of being basically an embodiment of discontentment all the time xD
@@Anni_ka thank you, I've learned that toxic gamers are just entitled. They're always like we DESERVE a new donkey kong, why isn't THIS FEATURE in the game, THIS GAME ISNT UP TO MY STANDARD. Like bro real people made this game and not everything is catered to you. Yeah a direct or something might have a game you don't care about but others do care about it which is why they put it in the direct. It genuinely annoys me.
Do as we do. Make our own. Just don't tell Nintendo about it.
@@ShurikanBlade Yes yes yes! Definitely agree!
Also, my favourite are the people that are like 'they just need to release xyz and it'll sell millions' or 'Nintendo is losing so much money by not releasing xyz/doing xyz'. I'm pretty sure Nintendo has the data, and just because you have nostalgia for this game, doesn't mean the many new people entering the hobby these days will care for it 🙄
I think most people's biggest problem wasn't that a Xenoblade was coming instead of a different franchise but rather during Nintendo's "E3" direct window, the only information we got was for xenoblade when there were plenty of games we knew so little about.
It was especially weird for Zelda fans because of just how much Nintendo loves to show off Zelda in their "E3" directs and the fact that this was their last one before the game comes out
Also, WOW, this video is one of the most insightful and useful things about Nintendo I've ever seen. Great job!!
Fzero Gx wasn't even made by Nintendo it was made by Sega
Thanks for making this video! Videos like this really do help people be more informed, sympathetic, and overall less gamer-ragey.
By the way, sincerely: I LOVE how evocative the clickbaity title & thumbnail are. It really activated my almonds. "Yeah, why don't they do that?!" I was surprised & pleased with how gentle the video was.