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Forums - Nintendo - Does Nintendo have distinct studios?

JUG on 07 March 2010
Sempuukyaku said:
RVDondaPC said:

I'm not a big Nintendo fan so I dont know certain things about them since I don't follow their games much but I was just wondering about their development process. With Sony their studios are very distinct. You know a game is a naughty dog game, a team ICO game, Santa Monica Studios game, etc. But with Nintendo it seems that every game is just mentioned as a nintendo developed game not a distinct studio within Nintendo. So my question is do they have distinct studios or are they just one giant studio that has many projects and people move around from project to project? 

 

Nintendo has distinct studios AND internal divisions. Not to mention their second-party studios who develop exclusively for Nintendo platforms.

 

Internal divisions:

EAD (Entertainment Analysis and Development)

EAD 1, EAD 2, EAD 3 , EAD 4, EAD Tokyo

 

SPD (Software Planning and Development)

SPD1, SPD2, SPD3

 

SDD (Software Design and Development)

 

NSD (Network Service Development)

 

NST (Nintendo Software Technology)

 

 

Development Studios:

 

Retro Studios

ND Cube

Project Sora

Brownie Brown

Monolith Soft

 

Second-Party studios:

Intelligent Systems

HAL Laboratory

The Pokemon Company

Creatures Inc.

iQue Ltd.

 

 

The internal divisions are the rockstars of the company. They do the Marios, Zeldas, Wii Fits, Wii Sports, etc etc. The second party studios do awesome stuff like Pokemon, Smash Bros, Kirby, etc. The first party studios are ok. Retro is AWESOME, and Project Sora has potential to be awesome. Also Brownie Brown has done some cool stuff like Professor Layton.

 

Intelligent systems is actually an internal, first party studio.

Also, someone above said Retro is 2nd party. That's not true. Retro is 100% owned by Nintendo, so 1st party.



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Wyrdness on 07 March 2010

True, Retro are first party as Nintendo fully owns that studio, Intelligent Systems are a first party team they used to be called Nintendo R&D1 before in the early 90s.



woopah on 07 March 2010

when it says it is developed by nintendo it usually refers to an EAD or SPD team. But they hardly distinguish between each one.

at the moment

EAD1: last made wii fit plus but have probably been working on an unannounced major game since mario kart wii. we have no idea what they are doing

EAD2: last made wii sport resort, probably doing the vitallity sensor game

EAD3: zedla team, made spirit tracks and now working on zelda wii

EAD4: just finished NSMBW, now starting full production on pikmin 3

EAD Tokyo: making Galaxy 2

SPD1: working with team ninja on other M


@maxwell

Next level games are a 3rd party developer, they are completely independant form nintnedo just like monster games and headstrong



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c03n3nj0 on 07 March 2010

Intelligent Systems is climbing up my favorites

But, the EAD stuff is confusing for me, they're all similar -_-



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Mr Khan on 07 March 2010
O-D-C said:
ya Nintendo has a lot of studios

Nintendo R&D 1-5
Nintendo EAD
NST
Brownie Brown
Intelligent Systems

and many more

R&D was dissolved as of the 2004 restructuring, replaced by Nintendo SPD to a certain extent (at least, that's where Sakamoto and his staff went)

 

Some games Nintendo won't say which studio they're from specifically, especially the games made by EAD, you have to sift through yourself whether its an EAD1, 2, 3, 4, or EAD Tokyo game, but otherwise it's rather obvious.

 

The only difference is that Nintendo's wholly-owned studios with distinct names generally aren't making the top-tier stuff, in the sense that far more gamers probably know who Naughty Dog and Turn 10 are than Retro Studios (sadly enough, since Retro made the best game of all time)



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trestres on 07 March 2010

Here's the answer http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=44028&page=1&str=110647146#



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Sempuukyaku on 07 March 2010
JUG said:
Sempuukyaku said:
RVDondaPC said:

I'm not a big Nintendo fan so I dont know certain things about them since I don't follow their games much but I was just wondering about their development process. With Sony their studios are very distinct. You know a game is a naughty dog game, a team ICO game, Santa Monica Studios game, etc. But with Nintendo it seems that every game is just mentioned as a nintendo developed game not a distinct studio within Nintendo. So my question is do they have distinct studios or are they just one giant studio that has many projects and people move around from project to project? 

 

Nintendo has distinct studios AND internal divisions. Not to mention their second-party studios who develop exclusively for Nintendo platforms.

 

Internal divisions:

EAD (Entertainment Analysis and Development)

EAD 1, EAD 2, EAD 3 , EAD 4, EAD Tokyo

 

SPD (Software Planning and Development)

SPD1, SPD2, SPD3

 

SDD (Software Design and Development)

 

NSD (Network Service Development)

 

NST (Nintendo Software Technology)

 

 

Development Studios:

 

Retro Studios

ND Cube

Project Sora

Brownie Brown

Monolith Soft

 

Second-Party studios:

Intelligent Systems

HAL Laboratory

The Pokemon Company

Creatures Inc.

iQue Ltd.

 

 

The internal divisions are the rockstars of the company. They do the Marios, Zeldas, Wii Fits, Wii Sports, etc etc. The second party studios do awesome stuff like Pokemon, Smash Bros, Kirby, etc. The first party studios are ok. Retro is AWESOME, and Project Sora has potential to be awesome. Also Brownie Brown has done some cool stuff like Professor Layton.

 

Intelligent systems is actually an internal, first party studio.

Also, someone above said Retro is 2nd party. That's not true. Retro is 100% owned by Nintendo, so 1st party.

 

Ah, good catch. Thanks.