Who knows which part it could be a team of selected individuals from various studios for all we know or all studios could of chipped in to help develop it, Nintendo are well capable of it the's no point looking at what they'd normally do because Nintendo have long stopped sticking to tradition, it would not surprise me if it was the internal EAD/SPD groups as each of these has several different large teams with in them.

Well, the broke protocol for Smash Brawl, but that was at Iwata's insistence.  He really moved heaven and earth to get that game made, and even publicly announced Sakurai's involvement before he'd spoken to him!

But really, I just don't know.  EAD's always had a sort of "anti-RPG" undertone to them, SPD/NSD/SDD are way too small, and most of the RPG associated teams Nintendo has their fingers seem too busy (Monolith) or too small (IntSys, B2B) to be on the game.  I remember people said similar thing about ASH (that Nintendo must be doing it) and we didn't find out until after release it was really Racjin.

ASH is not a Nintendo IP though it was only published by them it's a MW ip, Intelligent Systems are not too small to be on the game either they're a bigger studio then even Monolith with around 130 employees compared to Monolith's 85. Times change, if Nintendo were sticking to tradition we wouldn't even be seeing two new Jrpg IPs in the style and approach of TLS and Xenoblade from them right now, they know that they missed a big piece of the pie by ignoring rpgs outside the realms of Mario, Pokemon and their usual offering back during the PS1/N64 and PS2/GC eras as their rpgs weren't geared towards the FF/Star Ocean/Tales etc... crowd.

It's something they most likely want to correct as noted by Iwata stating he wants a FF like rpg in Nintendo's rank hence why he's forcing changes left right and centre at Nintendo. Other M, Galaxy 2 and S&P2 would of never happened if they stuck to their usual, I have to say Iwata is genius when it comes to running things and knows precisely what needs to be done and added, by adding a FF like RPG as well as another RPG with a different style to Nintendo's IPs he's making them more self sufficient in that they won't have to rely on third parties for such things.

Nintendo were burned when devs jumped ship in the PS1 era and FFVII and other rpgs hurt them hard by driving the PS1 forward, the MW collaboration may be a way of also training a team within Nintendo to handle RPGs so they don't always have to rely on Monolith who are a small studio compared to the likes of Square, L5 and Atlus. Now's a good time to learn as Jrpgs are on a low leaving room for someone to smash and grab a large chunk of the genre's followers as the only commercial competition is DQ and FF.

ing="2" bgcolor="#bbbbbb">

No, Nintendo holds rights over ASH, it's their IP.  Just like The Last Story.

Intelligent Systems' staff is split over 3 fulltime teams and they have a ton of support staff that work on various things with other groups (including hardware and engines/tools).  Monolith by comparison only has 2 internal teams, and one (Morizumi's team) tiny.

I know "things change", but there's pretty much nothing to support the idea that Nintendo's internally developing TLS.  EAD's recent history just doesn't support it and neither does Mistwalker's actually.  And really, Galaxy 2, Other M and S&P2 aren't really unheard of projects, they're all pretty similar to moves Nintendo has made in the past.

See FF12... Mass Effect... KOTOR...

What's "nice" got to do with it.  I'm sure they made money per sale.  It's not like Microsoft has a handheld.

The music on the teaser site reminds me of the Shenmue soundtrack.

does anyone else think they sound similar?

If someone else other then Nintendo was involved I'm sure we would of heard of it when the game was announced much like with the three way collaboration with Other M, as far as things go Nintendo revealed the project as Nintendo/MW they didn't do this 3 years ago with ASH and weren't as bothered with it as TLS, also I stand by my stance on IS, they do many things but they're still a bigger studio then Monolith, they can easily assemble a team to work on an rpg, most of Nintendo's studios and teams have people who handle engines/tools so whats your point, EAD alone have 200 programmers. Galaxy 2 is a second 3d Mario on the same platform show me where this was done before, Other M signals the start of large scale direct collaborations with third parties on the core installments of their main franchises it's like SE contracting someone to help developed FF with them, Namco and Capcom never worked with any Nintendo team when they did Starfox and a hand held Zelda game these would not have happened before and support the instance of a change. Only Square have really worked directly with Nintendo on Mario rpg and mind you it was Sakaguchi who lead that joint team.

If they can work directly with Team Ninja then I don't see how it's so hard to see them working directly with MW considering that Nintendo have worked directly with Sakaguchi before, Nintendo are adapting their approach, the only way I can see Iwata boasting so confidently about the game like he has done is if Nintendo themselves have had a hand in it's development.

Nintendo announced partnering with Team Ninja becuase they're an acclaimed studio. It's not like they advertise Star Fox games as "made with the help of Argonaught Software or Q-games." They're just the legwork programmers. In the same vein, it's not like Microsoft advertised Mistwalker games as being "made with the help of Artoon or Feelplus." Becuase those companies are just the leg work programmers.      

 Nintendo actually did aid Capcom in the making of the Oracle Zelda games. And Takaya Imamura, a designer for Nintendo for Star Fix did work with Q-games on Starfox DS.   

Any screenshots or official footage around yet? I need a proper display to warrant getting 'hype.'