In an interview with Nikkei Business’s Editor in Chief and via VGC, President of Nintendo Shuntaro Furukawa stated that the company does not like to needlessly add studios to its roster of studios. Any studio that they would acquire will be carefully considered to make sure they have something to offer to Nintendo’s long and storied history. Furukawa further stated that it’s something that they heavily consider before going forward with an acquisition.
Nintendo does have a pretty consistent pattern when it comes to bringing on more studios though. Generally, they develop some sort of relationship with the studios to take. Almost like a vetting process. For instance, Nintendo recently acquired Next Level Games. They were the team behind the very successful Luigi’s Mansion 3 as well as Super Mario Strikers and Metroid Prime Federation Force to name a few. Some other examples would be Retro Studios who were behind the Metroid Prime Trilogy and the rebooted Donkey Kong Country games.
According to Fukuhara, “We [Nintendo] don’t think that simply expanding the scale of our business will really improve the value of the entertainment that Nintendo provides.” They’re a company that likes to pick and choose which development teams they bring on and are never in a rush to do so. They seemingly like to give teams a trial run before fully making such acquisitions. The studio they have acquired are all ones that have brought something special to the table and proved themselves. Nintendo very much has a quality over quantity mentality and that you have to respect.
Conversely, you can look at the actions of a company like Microsoft. Leading in the launch of the Xbox Series X/S, they announced a massive amount of studios they had acquired to fill the ranks of their development teams. Not to mention the acquisition of ZeniMax Media late last year that brought major studios like Bethesda and Arkane into the fold. Nintendo clearly takes a very different approach when it comes to scouting talent and thus far it has worked out pretty well for them.
