Alright a day ago I wrote a thread about N-Space possibly having bit the bullet. This thread was based on articles on several prominent gaming sites. However today Gamasutra clears the air, the majority of N-Space has been let go leaving only a core team however their are still some staff left so N-Space is not actually closed.

Dan'O Leary founder of N-Space had this to say "After supporting 70-90 employees for several months without funding," "Friday's layoffs were unavoidable. I will be back in the office next week, along with our core team, to firm up a few of the many deals we are negotiating. If all goes as planned we’ll be calling people back before the end of the week."

So why exactly is one of Nintendo's biggest independant supporters hurting this bad? "The economy has robbed customers of disposable income, reducing the number of titles that purchased per year. Huge budget titles have to sell massive numbers to return a profit and the App Store has disrupted our industry in the same way iTunes changed consumer expectations for music." Its Apple's app store apparently

"People that used to buy many games every year now buy a few AAA titles, supplementing their need with games that are free or cost less than a pack of gum," O'Leary is obviously talking about those dollar to five dollar games found in the app store on all of Apple's latest handheld devices.

Apparently the big nail in N-Space's metaphorical coffin is the pullout of a major publisher and publishing deal. O'Leary claims N-Space will be shipping 7 titles this year. So what do you think about N-Spaces predicament? I for one am just glad to hear they aren't actually dead as earlier reported!

I'd say, blame social games. Cheap. Free. Addictive.

According to VGC laws of economic they obviously must have flopped on HD game development :D

They're actually mostly a handheld only team, I mean they do some nice things with the 3D on the DS despite limitations, and they put a lot of effort into online for their DS titles, sad to hear they're having issues too but their past few projects were born to fail from MUA2 to Star Wars BF Elite Squadron to Modern Warfare Mobilized.

Here is some more that n-Space said that isn't in Joecool7's post:

However, he admitted that the studio's primary development focus, the current Nintendo platforms, had become a challenge.

"The Wii and DS markets have nearly collapsed and 3DS is a brave new world the publishers are excited about but also very cautious to enter."

Source: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2010-10-11-n-space-denies-closure-but-admits-wii-ds-markets-nearly-collapsed

They do a lot of DS software, and the DS market has collapsed. I would say it's due to nothing driving the DS software market recently so people are losing interest in it. I've bought a tonne of DS games over it's lifetime yet the last one I bought was AAI: Miles Edgeworth, months ago (and I don't pirate). I know I'm not necessarily representative but if even a big DS fan like me has lost interest...

They work on projects for the DS for big publishers, they are finishing their projects for 2010 and have not received green light for new developments since some publishers don't know if they want the next edition of their games in DS or 3DS (those green lighted now will be released at the end of next year at least). They have several proposals on the table and are waiting for aproval of the big publishers, they are not without money but if they don't have anything approved soon they can't keep playing all their employees to do nothing.

Why the same topic again? This is getting annoying. Didnt you just have the same topic?

Spammer.

That's not very nice :P

hope N-Space pulls through, their DS titles arent all that bad