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Aielyn on 28 January 2013
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JEMC said:
And how many studios have been bought by Nintendo? 3 (Rare, Retro and Monolith)?

I don't know with Monolith or Rare (which Nintendo "only" had the 49% of it) but when they bought Retro a lot of people were laid off because the studio was mismanaged and a lot of projects were cancelled, and years later 3 of the big heads of Retro also left the studio.

Besides, the fact that something hasn't happened before doesn't guarantee that it won't happen in the future.

HAL Laboratories was bought by Nintendo, too. It was an independent company, it developed the Kirby franchise before Nintendo bought them. Indeed, HAL Laboratories is more of an example of a studio bought by Nintendo than Retro is, because Retro was set up partially by Nintendo in the first place, whereas HAL started off as an actual independent studio.

And look at that - one of the two "big heads" of HAL ended up becoming the president of the entire company.

Meanwhile, according to the history section of the wikipedia entry for Retro, the layoffs occurred before Nintendo bought stock in Retro - the layoffs happened in 2001, and Nintendo bought Retro in 2002. The cancellations were of projects that Nintendo were funding already, and they were cancelled because they weren't good enough. Not sure who the third of the "big heads of Retro" is - there's Spangenberg, who was the original president, and Barcia, who Nintendo appointed to replace him after he (Spangenberg, that is) became derelict in his duties. Barcia was appointed from within Retro. Some ex-Retro employees blame Barcia's mismanagement for their departure (try to find one blaming Nintendo's 'meddling'). Barcia was replaced by the current president, Kelbaugh.

And the fact that it hasn't happened before means that you shouldn't assume that it is guaranteed to happen in the future. You're the one claiming that Nintendo buying a studio would necessarily result in the studio falling apart due to Nintendo imposing their philosophies on the studio. The mere fact that one time it failed to happen is enough to disprove your assertion - I don't need to disprove every case, I need only provide a single counterexample.

The fact that there's no example of it actually happening is the more important one, though. Rare didn't fall apart under Nintendo. Retro didn't fall apart under Nintendo. Monolith Soft doesn't appear to have fallen apart under Nintendo. HAL Labs certainly didn't fall apart under Nintendo.