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Nintendo is acquiring a game studio in Singapore – the first such case where the studio is not based in Japan, North America, or Europe.
They shared this press release:
Nintendo Co., Ltd. (HQ: Kyoto, Japan; President and Representative Director: Shuntaro Furukawa; hereinafter “Nintendo”) hereby announces that it has entered into a share transfer agreement with Bandai Namco Studios Inc. (HQ: Koto-ku, Tokyo; President: Daisuke Uchiyama) to acquire shares of Bandai Namco Studios Singapore Pte. Ltd. (HQ: Singapore; CEO: Makoto Ishii; hereinafter “BNSS”) for the purpose of strengthening its development structure.
As a result of this acquisition of shares, BNSS will become a subsidiary of Nintendo and will continue its development operations under the new name Nintendo Studios Singapore Pte. Ltd.
The press release also says that Bandai Namco Studios Singapore has already been working on the Splatoon franchise for Nintendo.
OatmealDome explained that the studio also worked on Tekken, Ace Combat, and Soulcalibur, and was rumored to have worked on Metroid Prime 4.
Why Did Nintendo Pick Up This Studio?
Nintendo actually said they would start buying game studios in their latest financial report. As part of their strategy to use their cash reserves to strengthen their business, Nintendo said this:
We will work to strengthen the internal game development organization within the Nintendo group.
This includes initiatives such as acquiring development companies to make them subsidiaries and augmenting our development facilities, and the construction of Corporate Headquarters Development Center, Building No. 2 (tentative name).
This may only be the first of many acquisitions that Nintendo will be doing in the coming months, or even years. This is a relatively safe acquisition, since it’s a studio that Nintendo was already working with.
We have known for some time that Nintendo has been outsourcing some of their development work to Bandai Namco. No less than Kirby Air Riders was co-developed with Namco.
But there is one thing that makes this somewhat groundbreaking.
A More Global Nintendo
This will be the first game developer/studio Nintendo owns outside of Japan or the West. We did review their current subsidiaries to verify this.
In Japan, Nintendo acquired Monolith Soft and SRD, and also co-founded other companies such as 1-Up Studio.
Next Level Games is based in Vancouver, NERD in Paris, NST in Washington, and Retro Studios in Texas. Most recently, Shiver Entertainment, which Nintendo acquired from Embracer, is based in Florida.
Of course, Nintendo has been doing business and working with game studios around the world before this already. But they had been more conservative than other game companies when it came to global expansion.
This change was long overdue for Nintendo. They have stayed comparatively lean in the past by outsourcing their development work, but that also means they may have lost out on partners that closed.
They don’t need to buy big game studios like Activision and Bungie to propel this expansion. On the contrary, it may make more sense to find unknown studios to elevate, and teach them how to make games the Nintendo way.
