Yes. They need someone plugged into the western market who can make games suited towards our audience. Retro did this with Metroid Prime perfectly. They made a Metroid game better than Nintendo had, that really appealed to the west. Rare before them consistently churned out new IP's and revivals that the West loved.

Now Retro is delegated to making 2D plats :/, and Rare is gone. It's time to make a studio that fills the western gap that had been filled by those two companies.

Retro chose to develop Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze under thier own free will. Maybe they're already begining in a new Metroid for all we know.

I've always thought that a western EAD equivalent would be a good idea. Third Parties hardly support Nintendo at all, and this leads to droughts like the Wii U had early last year. More first party games are needed, so why not just fund more studios to work either on new IP's or resurrect some old ones? Or they could buy some studios, but I'm not sure which western studios would suit Nintendo's structure.

Wayfoward Technology, n-Space,and Epic games are likely canidates. Maybe support The Silicon Knights again for Eternal Darkness sequel.

They should have bought CING and could have got that studio for peanuts. Their games weren't the money makers, but they produced quality games with their own style and pacing.

I miss the CING-games on Nintendo consoles and handhelds! :(

http://www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/55751/features/cing-the-final-chapter/

They kinda do it already with studios like Next Level Games without outright owning them.

I whole heartedly think Nintendo needs more studios, but only if they can keep the real talent of whomever they buy under contract. If they can't attract more 3rd party devs then they need a greater number of 1st parties. Also, I wouldn't narrow it down to u.s. vs japan. Devs from all over the world should be eligible so long as the quality is there. I feel like it could be a great relationship if Nintendo reached out to light box interactive. I feel like that company is simply lacking resources. High voltage is another possibility, but I feel they need just a little more top tier talent in the art and story departments. Their concept art is always a lot better than their final product. Seems like that company has potential to be pretty good some day. (and yes I know they've been around forever)

Not I think what they really need is unity amongst their western and easter development teams. Yeah, the western portion could use some expanding which they have been doing as of late. BTW the Iwata asks about the NERD studio in France was interesting.

Back on topic, in Japan Nintendo is seen as almost a right of passage toward video game development. In the west, obviously not. So I would like to see something akin to them opening up a department in a college here in the west with branching networks through NA and EU to study abroad in their techniques, coding and designing philosophy.


Similar to how Judo/jujitsu schools spread their knowledge through instructor/Judoka lineage.

Yes, of course. They need at least two more. There should have been a killer game ready at launch and another ready for this past Christmas. They need studios making high-end unique games in addition to the Marios and Donkey Kongs. This should have been done years ago with the Wii cash.

They've expanded Monolith and Retro, which is good though. If those companies became like full-on publishing houses with 3 or 4 teams each, that would do the trick. Right now they're at the 1-2 project size, which isn't enough.

Nintendo currently has themselves (EAD, NST and SPD), 1Up Studios, Intelligent Systems, Monolith Soft, ND Cube, Creatures Inc, HAL Laboratory, and Retro Studios under their development belt. They can use some more help, preferably a Western developer, to cater to the audience here in America/Europe.