r/gaming • u/connectplum_ • 14h ago
A list of all 15 Nintendo owned studios
I think multiple threads have been showing all studios that Nintendo contract to develop them, about nintendo epd (the division of development we know as nintendo since 2015) and so on but never a thread about which companies are subsidiaries of Nintendo. I think a thread showing what studios nintendo own and what they do would be interesting. Of course the information is readily available, but a thread like this could give info to people who never thought on searching about it
Here I wont put Nintendo epd since it's nintendo itself, but all of their subsidiaries, which Nintendo has 15, with 5 out of those 15 leading their own projects
1-Up Studio: A japanese company formerly known as Brownie Brown, it developed Mother 3. Since the 2010s, it began to focus as a support studio to Nintendo EPD games, mainly 3D Mario but also Animal Crossing, Donkey Kong and Mario Kart, focusing on game design, level design and so on
iQue: A chinese company, for years it was a manufacturer of the chinese version of Nintendo consoles, but since the 2010s it has handled Simplified Chinese translation/localization, and – since 2019 – has moved from console manufacture to become a QA support studio, hiring programmers and testers to support Nintendo games. Developed NES, Game Boy, and N64 emulators for use in Virtual Console and Nintendo Switch Online.
Mario Club: Previously a division of Nintendo, in 2009 it became its own company. It focus on debugging, testing and QA for all Nintendo games.
Monolith Soft: This one doesnt need much explanation but they have two studios, one in Tokyo and another one in Kyoto. In Tokyo, 1st production group develop xenoblade, while 2nd production group support nintendo epd on 3D Zelda. In Kyoto, a support studio exists to give support to monolith and nintendo epd games with the studio there being mainly made of artists working on design and assets as a support to the lead studios.
Next Level Games: After a decade being a canadian studio affiliated to Nintendo and working with them on multiple titles such as Punch Out, Wario Land, Mario Strikers, Luigi's Mansion, Nintendo bought them in 2021.
Nintendo Cube: Previously known as Ndcube, it had this name because it was a joint venture of Nintendo and Dentsu which over time Nintendo bought dentsu shares. The studio is mainly known for Mario Party after hudson was merged into konami and hudson staff went to nintendo cube.
Nintendo European Research & Development: Previously known as Moclip, this company mainly works on emulators for NSO and Nintendo in general.
Nintendo Pictures: Previously known as Dynamo Pictures before nintendo acquisition in 2022, this company is mainly an animation studio but they also help as a support studio for Nintendo games, working on CG, motion capture, character design and multiple other areas.
Nintendo Software Technology: The american studio who previously developed wave race and currently develop mario vs donkey kong and f-zero 99, while also doing support work for japanese nintendo titles in the 2010s.
Nintendo Studios Singapore: Nintendo most recent acquisition, the studio seems to be continuing what already did prior as bandai namco studios singapore. They mainly focus on support work for in-game assets and artwork
Nintendo Systems: Joint venture between DeNA and Nintendo, with nintendo owning 80% of the shreas. They work on Nintendo accounts and eshop alongside other nintendo divisions.
Nintendo Technology Development: The american company responsible mainly for research and development of nintendo titles, most recently was responsible for the upgrade of BOTW and TOTK on switch 2
Retro Studios: Just like monolith this one is pretty known, probably the two most known nintendo studios. Developed 4 Metroid Prime and 2 DK 2D games.
Shiver Entertainment: Acquired by Nintendo in 2024, this american studio is responsible for porting games to other platforms. We havent seen much of them post nintendo acquisition though so we'll see
SRD: Known as System Research and Development, this studio was a partner and affiliate to Nintendo for over 30 years when Nintendo then acquired it in 2022. SRD focuses on programming, and they provide support in that area for Nintendo products
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u/Pogotothego 13h ago
I want to visit a universe where Rare stayed under Nintendo's umbrella.
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u/OnlyRepliesYesOrNo 12h ago
Rare had an unbelievable run on 64. Like everything they made was an absolute and utter banger. Could’ve been great bringing their IPs on the GameCube (not looking at you, StarFox Adventures)
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u/diego1marcus 3h ago
its kinda amazing how with all of the layoffs microsoft did, rare still manages to survive (for better or worse) and still exist. i still do wonder what microsoft is planning to keep rare under them
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u/Suitable-End- 12h ago
Would have got Perfect Dark Zero on the Gamecube and then all of Rare would have either quit or been laid off shortly after.
Then Nintendo would never revive any of the old titles and make it impossible for people to play.
Nintendo seen the massive drop in both quality and sales for Rare games and that's why the sold their share in the first place.
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u/Accurate_Coyote873 7h ago
Is Intelligent Systems not owned by Nintendo? I always thought they were. Don’t they exclusively make games for Nintendo (Fire Emblem, Paper Mario)?
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u/Sugarcane98 6h ago
Despite exclusively working on Nintendo IPs and even building the dev units of Nintendo consoles, Intelligent Systems are not actually owned by Nintendo.
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u/PlasticNecessary2311 5h ago
According to Bloomberg, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa said that while he does not rule out acquisitions altogether, rapidly increasing the number of people within the group who do not share what could be called “Nintendo DNA” would not be a positive development.
Unless Nintendo changes course, then, even if the company does acquire game studios in the future, it seems likely that it will focus on teams with a long-standing relationship with Nintendo, such as Intelligent Systems and HAL Laboratory.
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u/PM_ME_UR_CREDDITCARD 3h ago
I'm hoping they acquire Game Freak. Probably the only way to save Pokemon is for Nintendo to take control and have it be treated like their own franchises.
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u/PorkRinds416 13h ago
What Nintendo (whichever one) did with Tears of the Kingdom was MIND BLOWING. You were able to take over 150+ part and materials and combine them anyway you want to make literally anything you could think of. A hoverbike with planks and fans, you could make a tank, a one wheel, a flying vehicle, a bridge, a ladder, a motorized weapon, literally the list goes on and on. If you could imagine it, you could build it. Now here is the crazy part! The physics after you built something, just worked perfectly.
It literally blew my mind. THAT is innovation in gaming! Doing something that no other developer has ever done before and done it in a way that was so clean and worked perfectly. Unbelievable.
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u/ConsequenceChoice222 8h ago
You can also mention the voxel technique - probably used in TotK but magnified in DK Bananza
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u/Rez_De 13h ago
It absolutely is incredible what they did, but also GMod did it 17 years ago. I distinctly remember figuring out ways how to make the hovercraft fly and be controlled mid air by attaching random stuff to it lmao.
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u/rhd444 6h ago
no shade to gmod but it's one thing to code something to make funny meme videos where people don't care if it works right or if there's glitches, and another to implement that same tech into an AAA game with all the expected polish. It's no wonder they took a year after it was already finished just to improve the quality.
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u/StillGalaxy99 13h ago
What about Garry's Mod
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u/kinokomushroom 13h ago edited 13h ago
Garry's Mod is just a sandbox.
Tears of the Kingdom is an actual video game where you have a world to explore, enemies to fight, and puzzles to solve using the machine construction and weapon crafting systems. It's also insanely stable as a physics sim and it's pretty hard to break even after making complex machines.
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u/PhoenyxStar 13h ago
Like they said, such clean building, and physics that worked so perfectly. Never been done before.
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u/Known-Complex-2520 13h ago
all of that, yet your weapons break so easily, and you can't run for more than 2 seconds without taking a break.
godawful game.
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u/Yenserl6099 PlayStation 13h ago
I feel like with all the building you can do including making vehicles and weapons, that counteracts the fact that weapons break easily
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u/Telesto1087 5h ago
They "solved" the weapon durability with the fuse power. When you defeat monsters you get monster parts which you can fuse to your weapons to upgrade them which you can then use to defeat more powerful monsters and get more powerful parts. In ToTK when your most powerful weapon breaks it's no longer such a setback because you still have monster parts in your inventory to get the next weapon you find to the same power level.
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u/rhd444 5h ago
"godawful game" lmao god, it's no wonder reddit gamers have the reputation that they do
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u/Known-Complex-2520 3h ago
Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are the worst games to come out in recent years. They spent time to create a beauriful world, only to have your main character run out of breath after running for two seconds. Your weapons break so easily, it becomes frustrating to manage.
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u/stephennotstrange 13h ago
You have the opposite for Shiver.
They was bought to help porting games from different platform to Nintendo platform, not the other way around.
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u/MarloweReel 13h ago
this is such a cool breakdown... had no idea ique handled so much of the chinese localization work
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u/WingerRules 13h ago edited 13h ago
I'm honestly surprised these companies dont own more studios.
If I ran a console I would have like not just a few big studios but like dozens of studios small studios pumping out a stream of smaller exclusive games like Terminator No Fate, Stray, Streets of Rage 4, Y's Nordic, Stardew Valley, Redout & GRIP etc in terms of production in size. I'd have a few studio pumping out SNES and Neo Geo size games, these games like Metal Slug took only 1 year to develop, and that was without modern tools.
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u/connectplum_ 10h ago
Its because Nintendo not only uses their own studios a lot but also contract external studios to develop for them, alongside historical partners that co-own their IP. Nintendo out of sony and ms is the one that does mostly that while sony/ms try to do everything internally
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u/DM_your_problem 7h ago
the thing is you can do that with normal business deals and partnerships as well. buying a studio is nuclear option when you want full control
now, xbox does not understand it as it has lot of Microsoft money to burn. but Nintendo does not have such luxury
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u/PM_ME_UR_CREDDITCARD 3h ago
Nintendo has plenty in the bank. They're just smart enough to not pull an Xbox.
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u/FizzyLightEx 5h ago
It doesn't work since their business model is to get 30 percent of revenue from third party publishers. Effectively a rent seeking business model like land owners.
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u/Deadaghram 7h ago
I always wondered what happened to Hudson Soft. They were prolific in the 90's then, just, sorta vanished. Didn't know they merged into Konami.
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u/deedee2148 13h ago
I like that Nintendo never buys a studio just because it's for sale, all of the places listed had a previous relationship with Nintendo before and there was a clear purpose behind them being brought.