3 replies to this topic

[Jason Clement]

Did you know that some of your favorite Nintendo games of recent years were worked on by developers outside of Nintendo's own internal divisions?

The most famous examples that you might be aware about are The Legend of Zelda games such as Oracle of Ages, Oracle of Seasons, Minish Cap, and The Four Swords games, all of which were formed through a partnership with Capcom.

Grezzo also comes to mind, being responsible for last years 3DS remake, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (and having done a fantastic job too, I might add). It was also revealed that Skyward Sword's visuals were worked on by none other than Monolith Soft, the developer behind Xenoblade Chronicles, in a recent IGN interview with Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma.

Continuing on that same tangent, Aonuma told IGN that Nintendo will continue to rely on outside developers' help on certain games in the future. Naturally, there is also a lot of speculation about what Retro Studios is currently working on, and it's been strongly suggested that they may be working on a Zelda title, but Aonuma toned that theory down a bit with what he said, perhaps suggesting that they may be involved in some fashion with that particular project albeit to a lesser degree.

Personally, this news is exciting to me because I've felt that Nintendo never fully utilized the true potential of all their developers when it comes to making games, with many of the core franchises (like Mario and Zelda) still being developed by their own in-house developers such as the EAD and SPD groups.

If they open up development duties to more of their 2nd-party studios and perhaps even some third party developers, even in a limited aspect of the overall project, we could be seeing more quality titles like Skyward Sword and Mario Kart 7 (which Retro assisted in development with) in a shorter amount of time than in the past, which can only mean good things for us gamers.

What do you think? Would you like to see Nintendo utilize more of its developers or even third party developers on their core titles?

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[sirdan357]

I think they should definitely rely more on the third party studios. They can bring in new ideas and techniques that can get non-Nintendo fans interested in their games.

[Kezins]

I'm glad Nintendo is more willing to work with outside studios and 3rd party developers. This will enable them to put out more games and finish more projects on time. I hope they really work hard on Wii U titles. I am really looking forward to the system.

[Jordan Haygood]

Two heads are better than one. I think it's awesome that they're working with others to pump out such amazing games. Sometimes quantity does equal quality.