Summary
Of all the major hardware-developing video game companies, Nintendo is especially renowned for developing its exclusive titles in-house. However, from its portable systems to home console hardware, the ‘Big N’ has often approached select studios to develop some of the best installments in their legacy franchise’s history.
From genre-diverging soft reboots of dormant yet successful franchises and Nintendo-funded sequels to collaborative projects, these outsourced Nintendo games have continually gone on to become astronomically successful.
While the 1996 release ofPokemon’sinaugural titles is often touted as having prolonged the life of Nintendo’s Game Boy, Nintendo hardware has since become synonymous with the franchise. Nearly 30 years on, and Game Freak’s monster-catching entry-level RPG property has become"the highest-grossing media franchise of all time"— although the Nintendo-exclusive video game software now only accounts for"a small proportion of the franchise’s overall revenue."
DespitePokemon’s seemingly unrivaled success on Nintendo platforms, withPokemon ScarletandPokemon Violetreaching great heightsfor the creature-catching franchise on the Nintendo Switch, Nintendo’s role in the creation of software for the series is restricted to its physical"manufacture and sale.“This leaves the original creators Game Freak, and joint subsidiary Creatures Inc., to handle the series' planning & development and the"development of CG models and motion"respectively.
Considering Fox McCloud’s place within Nintendo’sgallery of most renowned characters, and hisStar Foxseries being held so close to franchise creator Shigeru Miyamoto, the fact that the franchise has seen so many third-party collaborators in the creation of its installments is arguably quite obscure. From Rare Ltd’s creation ofStar Fox Adventuresin 2002 and Q-Games' portable titleStar Fox Commandto PlatinumGames' collaboration on 2016’sStar Fox Zero,the series has seen many of its major titles created out-of-house.
However, arguably the most player-revered ofStar Fox’s externally-developed installments is the 2005Namco-developed return-to-rootsStar Fox: Assault.Created before the home of Pac-Man’s 2006 merger with Japanese toy manufacturer Bandai, Namco’s mix of developers across its multiple properties —fromKlonoatoAce Combat— contributed in creating seemingly one of the series' most praised yet overlooked titles.
With an overt NSFW tone and seemingly gratuitous bloody hack and slash combat, PlatinumGames’Bayonettaseries was once upon a time not only a cross-platform title, but one that explicitly avoided Nintendo hardware. However, with the collaborative endeavor that wasBayonetta 2’sdevelopment, the bespectacled angel-killer has since become known as one of Nintendo’s most outlandish contemporary properties.
As SEGA, PlatinumGames' original publisher for theBayonettaseries, retreated from the property, Nintendo positioned itself as"a strong, cooperative partner that was willing to create and grow"theBayonettaIP. This close relationship resulted in the property being revived for another installment, with multiple sequels finding a home across generations of Nintendo consoles alongside spin-off titles and evenBayonetta’s inclusion in Nintendo’s tight-knit roster of Super Smash Bros. fighters.
Despite Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s renown as the developers of theSuper Monkey BallandYakuzaseries at SEGA, the 25-year-old team’s acclaimed titles alongside SEGA and Nintendo’s unique working relationship seemingly resulted in Nintendo’s reveredF-Zeroracing franchise being handed to them.
The end product of this collaboration was 2003’s GameCube titleF-Zero GX, an installment in Nintendo’s legacy racing series that has been"universally considered one of the best and most difficult in the series.“Beyond that, the team went on to produceF-Zero AX— an arcade counterpart of the revered GameCube title. Yet the high bar set by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s installment has resulted in the series going effectively dormant with Nintendo themselves not knowing how best to improve on the entry, believing that"careful consideration is needed to produce"a revival of the franchise.
While Next Level Games has since been brought under Nintendo’s umbrella of developers, the Vancouver-based studio created video games for nearly 20 years before Nintendo’s involvement. Despite not being held in-house, the developers of Next Level Games created many Nintendo software products before the 2021 acquisition. From Nintendo sports titles likeSuper Mario StrikersandPunch Out!!to 3D FPS titles likeMetroid Prime: Federation Force, Next Level Games has been a close collaborator with Nintendo for decades.
However, it seems as though their critically revered focus on developing everyLuigi’s Mansioninstallment since its inaugural 2001 title — includingthe Nintendo Switch breakout hitLuigi’s Mansion 3— was what forced Nintendo’s hand in procuring the studio. Specifically, in Nintendo’s acquisition notification for the 2021 purchase, Nintendo explicitly stated Next Level Games' specificity"in developing software titles for the Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo Switch systems, including titles in the critically acclaimedLuigi’s Mansionseries"as a reason for the acquisition.
Masahiro Sakurai may be a familiar face to many, considering his repeated placement at the forefront ofSuper Smash Bros.development, his creation of the character ofKirby, and the airing of his YouTube channelMasahiro Sakurai on Creating Games.However, despite all these Nintendo-focused accolades and accomplishments, he hasn’t ever explicitly worked for them.
Being the brainchild of Sakurai, Nintendo’s platform fighter franchiseSuper Smash Bros.has never been developed by Nintendo themselves. As such, although the series' earlier entries were created byKirbystudio HAL Laboratory, Sakurai’s private company SORA Ltd. and Bandai Namco collaborated to develop arguably the best entry in the franchise in 2018’sSuper Smash Bros. Ultimate.However,consideringSuper Smash Bros. Ultimate’s “tight fighting mechanics” being praised alongside its broad roster, its success could arguably have been just as great even without the property permissions and marketing power provided by Nintendo itself.
Despite beingultimately subsumed by Capcom in 2007,Resident Evil&Street Fighter 2producer Yoshiki Okamoto’s independent studio Flagship had a steady run of developing high-profile titles for multiple publishers. While Nintendo is notoriously reserved when presenting its properties to outside developers, Flagship’s work on theLegend of ZeldaandKirbyseries has resulted in some of the respective franchise’s most revered entries.
With 2004’s collaboration with Capcom resulting inThe Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap,Flagship’s original Game Boy Advance title provided a uniquely framed story in the early years of Hyrule that employed narrative ramifications and mechanical diversity that arguably influenced one of Nintendo’s biggest IPsmore than any other handheld offering.
As a Japanese video game company,Nintendo has been slow to collaborate with Western developers. However, it has found great success in the times when it has done so. From Rare’sDonkey Kong Countryseries on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System to Next Level Games' consistent output ofLuigi’s Mansiontitles, Nintendo has increasingly trusted its most influential properties to Western studios. Before contributing two commercially and critically acclaimed installments to theDonkey Kong Countryseries, Texas-based Retro Studios' first title was not just a soft-reboot of Nintendo’sMetroidfranchise, but one that adjusted Samus Aran’s perspective into a 3D First-Person Shooter.
While Jeff Spangenberg’s burgeoning studio ultimately struck gold on its first try, withMetroid Primebeing revered as"the best game of the GameCube era, as well as one of the best games of all time,“the developer continued to support Nintendo by creating two sequels in the next five years. However, despiteMetroid Prime 4: Beyond’s development originally being handed over to an internal developer, the title was ultimately handed back to Retro Studios after a prolonged development to"reach the standards"of an entry in the series, showing the degree of trust and respect that such a landmark title commands.
