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Deleted member 36622

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Can you link to anything I can read about this?

They never discuss these things openly, more an assumption there:

- The Rare thing was rumored back when Microsoft acquired the studio.

- Miyamoto said in 2013 he could have seen Retro handling more projects at the same time, but we never saw that happening. They worked on Tropical Freeze, after that there was a new game in development in 2014 and then who knows what happened?

https://nintendoeverything.com/miya...very-high-priority-for-new-potential-metroid/
 
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EAD Ninja

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It's still products shipped, and that's what pays the bills at the end of the day. Even if you removed all the co-development jobs (which you shouldn't because it's still productivity), Monolith Soft is shipping more games than Retro.

There's a huge difference between developing a game, compared to providing some work on someone else's game. A developer working on a game has to spend years prototyping things sometimes. An art team providing asset work to games already in production can't be measured on the same scale.

Yep, the reason why Project HAMMER was such a failure is because nobody could figure out how to make it fun.

That's clairvoyance more than anything on your part. No one but the team and NCL producers know how the game actually played. Ultimately, it seemed more like a marketing shift in games after the success of the Mii/Wii line that was selling gangbusters.
 

Stencil

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Oct 30, 2017
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I bought wargroove a few hours ago, no issues. Will it just not let you press the button?
It'll let me press the button but it always gives me a communication error afterwards. I've tried multiple games, everything loads fine leading up to it, it's just the purchasing that it won't allow.

Can I buy it online on a computer or anything to circumvent the purchase screen on eShop?
 

Chalphy

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Oct 27, 2017
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There's a huge difference between developing a game, compared to providing some work on someone else's game. A developer working on a game has to spend years prototyping things sometimes. An art team providing asset work to games already in production can't be measured on the same scale.
Retro hasn't released an original work since 2014, whereas Monolith Soft has released two large scale Xenoblade games in the same timeframe, and is already in pre-production for two other games. Monolith Soft has a pipeline that gets products out in a timely manner, Retro does not.
 

srtrestre

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AlienatedPerfumedAfricangroundhornbill-size_restricted.gif
 

Slam Tilt

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Deleted member 41183

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Based on the OP, here are my guesses for the projects we'll see from the unaccounted EPD groups:
  • EPD Group 2: Probably assisting with an upcoming Mario spin-off game or something
  • EPD Group 3: 2D Zelda (lock this one in)
  • EPD Group 4: More Labo Kits or other casual software
  • EPD Group 7: Tomodachi Life or Rhythm Heaven (maybe both?)
  • EPD Group 8: Next 3D Mario game; maybe a smaller title (like a 3D World port)
  • EPD Group 9: Mario Kart Tour (it isn't confirmed if they are working on this or not, but they probably are)
  • EPD Group 10: Pikmin 4 and Super Mario Maker 2

I could actually see 2D Zelda coming from a EPD/1-UP/Grezzo partnership again with the latter two doing most of the dev work according to EPD's design. Similar to how Tri Force Heroes was, but more put on the non-EPD dev houses than that game. I kinda imagine that the "2D Zelda" group is on the hypothetical thief game/new IP while the BotW team works on the next 3D Zelda.
 

Dark Cloud

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Oct 27, 2017
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Give me Captain Toad Treasure Tracker 2 now. The Switch version alone sold over 1 million. Very big success for that game. It had a lot of fun puzzles. I'd like to see more.
 
Jan 11, 2018
9,675
They never discuss these things openly, more an assumption there:

- The Rare thing was rumored back when Microsoft acquired the studio.

- Miyamoto said in 2013 he could have seen Retro handling more projects at the same time, but we never saw that happening. They worked on Tropical Freeze, after that there was a new game in development in 2014 and then who knows what happened?

https://nintendoeverything.com/miya...very-high-priority-for-new-potential-metroid/

This seemed more like wishful thinking on Miyamoto's part. Outside of the first Prime game I don't think he really worked with them very closely, maybe a bit on DKCR. Kelbaugh was quick to refute that Retro ever had the bandwidth to work on two major projects at once.

https://www.ign.com/articles/2013/06/13/e3-2013-nintendo-retro-discuss-future-of-metroid

"We're pretty much on one major project at a time. We do a game every two years or three years," Kelbaugh said. "In the first year of that, we have some extra bandwidth, so sometimes… We helped out with Mario Kart 7. We helped Monster Games do the 3DS version. Sometimes we'll have a little bit of extra bandwidth to help out other entities at Nintendo. We really feel strongly about helping out Nintendo as a whole, so if we have time, we'll do that. Do we have the bandwidth to do two major projects at once? I don't think so. A big project and a little project at the same time, we can do that."

In retrospect, it was pretty awesome when Retro actually did ship a game ever two or three years. On the bright side, they have expanded quite a bit since Tropical Freeze, up to around 130 employees now via Linkedin from only 70-80 a few years ago. I'm guessing they're going to need all hands on deck for MP4 though.
 

DecoReturns

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Oct 27, 2017
22,004
Ill end up buying Final Fantasy VII for 20 bucks because I'm an idiot.

Final Fantasy VII and IX are pretty expensive on PSN
 

ReyVGM

Author - NES Endings Compendium
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Oct 26, 2017
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I honestly think that if Wave Race is full new game with tons of great content then we will have a Switch sports as well. If not it and possibly pilotwings, 1080 will be incorporated into a type of resort.
Bandai Namco nearly done it with vacation but it lacked on gameplay! Nintendo knows a thing or two about that.

There isn't going to be a Wave Race. WR is the type of game (along with Pilotwings) that it's best to have it near the launch window. Releasing a WR this late is going to be a waste.
 

Deleted member 8593

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They never discuss these things openly, more an assumption there:

- The Rare thing was rumored back when Microsoft acquired the studio.

- Miyamoto said in 2013 he could have seen Retro handling more projects at the same time, but we never saw that happening. They worked on Tropical Freeze, after that there was a new game in development in 2014 and then who knows what happened?

https://nintendoeverything.com/miya...very-high-priority-for-new-potential-metroid/

Ah yes I remember that quote.

To be a fly on the wall at their offices and see what happened there during the last few years.
 
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EAD Ninja

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I never understood the fascination about "Retro handling two projects". Yes obviously they can handle DKC and a second failed pitch attempt, or an eshop game, or some assistance somewhere. That's all two projects.
 

karmitt

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I never understood the fascination about "Retro handling two projects". Yes obviously they can handle DKC and a second failed pitch attempt, or an eshop game, or some assistance somewhere. That's all two projects.

Retro has produced some fantastic games, and the idea of greater output from the studio is appealing. That's probably the whole of it - more Retro releases is better (assuming quality is maintained).
 

Chalphy

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Nintendo with those shadow dropped videos on a Friday.
 

Skittzo

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Oct 25, 2017
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Without knowing what Retro has been working on over the past 5 years it's hard to compare them to Monolithsoft in terms of hiring. It's always possible Nintendo asked them to develop something that would make heavy use of the Wii U gamepad and even if the game was coming along well the Wii U tanking killed that game. Or some other factor which was not related to their development capacity or quality.

Plus, according to LinkedIn they have been growing a lot over the past few years. 5 or 6 years ago they had something like 70 employees and now they have over 130 last I checked.
 

Handicapped Duck

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May 20, 2018
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It'll let me press the button but it always gives me a communication error afterwards. I've tried multiple games, everything loads fine leading up to it, it's just the purchasing that it won't allow.

Can I buy it online on a computer or anything to circumvent the purchase screen on eShop?
I thought I was the only one and felt crazy. It's weird how it won't go through to checkout after clicking purchase with Wargroove.
 
Jan 2, 2018
10,699
Can I ask you guys about your opinion on Mario Party? My brother gifted me his old N64 with a few games (Diddy Kong Racing, Ocarina of Time, Super Mario 64, Super Smash Bros., Wave Race, Blast Corps, Waialae Country Club and Pokémon Stadium) and now I'm thinking about which Mario Party I should get for it. If I remember correctly 1, 2 and 3 are good games, but which one is the best?
 
Oct 25, 2017
17,537
Can I ask you guys about your opinion on Mario Party? My brother gifted me his old N64 with a few games (Diddy Kong Racing, Ocarina of Time, Super Mario 64, Super Smash Bros., Wave Race, Blast Corps, Waialae Country Club and Pokémon Stadium) and now I'm thinking about which Mario Party I should get for it. If I remember correctly 1, 2 and 3 are good games, but which one is the best?
2 has the better boards and minigames.
 

Common Knowledge

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Give me Captain Toad Treasure Tracker 2 now. The Switch version alone sold over 1 million. Very big success for that game. It had a lot of fun puzzles. I'd like to see more.

Words cannot express my frustration when they announced those Odyssey bonus levels being on the 3DS/Switch port. Literally everything seemed to be shaping up for a brand new sequel based on Odyssey, with all of CT's appearances in that game. But no, just bonus fodder thrown onto a port. Completely asinine.
 

Deleted member 41183

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All this talk of the staff numbers of Retro/Monolith got me to pull numbers from Nintendo developers and frequent and/or exclusive/almost exclusive collaborators.

EPD: 850 ~ 900 (700ish in Kyoto, 150-200 in Tokyo)
Monolith Soft: 193 (as of end of January 2019)
Retro: ~130 (now, according to LinkedIn)
Nd Cube: 100 (linked pamphlet is from early 2018 - after Pocket Camp, but before SMP)
1UP Studio: 44 (Aug 2018) - as big as they've ever been as far as I can tell, even when they were Brownie Brown.

HAL: 153 (July 2018)
Intelligent Systems: 151 (Dec 2018)
Game Freak: 143 (2018)
SRD: 130 (2018 - incl. web development group)
Next Level: 115 (now, according to LinkedIn)
Good Feel: 108 (2018, incl. mobile division)
Grezzo: 62 (2018)
Alpha Dream: 46 (2018)
Camelot: 44 (2010, probably more now)
Genius Sonority: 22
 
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Deleted member 41183

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Shamelessly quoting myself coz I did not spend an hour Google translating and searching Wikipedia for this to get buried as the last post of a page.

All this talk of the staff numbers of Retro/Monolith got me to pull numbers from Nintendo developers and frequent and/or exclusive/almost exclusive collaborators.

EPD: 850 ~ 900 (700ish in Kyoto, 150-200 in Tokyo)
Monolith Soft: 193 (as of end of January 2019)
Retro: ~130 (now, according to LinkedIn)
Nd Cube: 100 (linked pamphlet is from early 2018 - after Pocket Camp, but before SMP)
1UP Studio: 44 (Aug 2018) - as big as they've ever been as far as I can tell, even when they were Brownie Brown.

HAL: 153 (July 2018)
Intelligent Systems: 151 (Dec 2018)
Game Freak: 143 (2018)
SRD: 130 (2018 - incl. web development group) - found a list of (some?) of what they've helped with.
Next Level: 115 (now, according to LinkedIn)
Good Feel: 108 (2018, incl. mobile division)
Grezzo: 62 (2018)
Alpha Dream: 46 (2018)
Camelot: 44 (2010, probably more now)
Genius Sonority: 22

Genius Sonority is a name I have not heard in a long time

They've been busy with Pokemon Shuffle (and Denpa Men) in recent years.
 

HeroR

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Dec 10, 2017
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Star fox is actually a great example of an IP Nintendo seemingly has no idea what to do with. From the SFZero which was essentially a half baked reboot to a 3rd party collaboration/cameo that felt pretty half assed. I'm curious and excited to see Star Fox GP (assuming it's real) but my confidence level for Nintendo to actually get the production values right is pretty low.

I do appreciate how Nintendo experiments with their main IP and honestly Skyward Sword might be my favourite Zelda game. In terms of design though it's a cinematic Metroid like without any voice acting. So in that regard it's a failed Zelda game because it isn't true to the core of the Zelda IP which is its open world nature. (Both OoT and Wind Walker were very much open world games despite the hardware limitations of the day

However the balance between experimenting with an older IP vs Keeping its core identity in tact vs creating New IPs has been a bit out of whack. IE splatoon would be much less exciting if it started Mario and Friends. Same as ARMS.

I think in 2018 Nintendo were overly safe in this regard and it showed.

I wouldn't call Let's Go that safe since it gambled on bringing the Let's Go crowd to a $300 console. And outside of ARMS, it wasn't like 2017 was filled with experimental titles. Even Breath of the Wild was relatively safe compared to PH and SS since it was an open world game in an era where almost everything is opened world.
 
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Oct 27, 2017
1,302
All this talk of the staff numbers of Retro/Monolith got me to pull numbers from Nintendo developers and frequent and/or exclusive/almost exclusive collaborators.

EPD: 850 ~ 900 (700ish in Kyoto, 150-200 in Tokyo)
Monolith Soft: 193 (as of end of January 2019)
Retro: ~130 (now, according to LinkedIn)
Nd Cube: 100 (linked pamphlet is from early 2018 - after Pocket Camp, but before SMP)
1UP Studio: 44 (Aug 2018) - as big as they've ever been as far as I can tell, even when they were Brownie Brown.

HAL: 153 (July 2018)
Intelligent Systems: 151 (Dec 2018)
Game Freak: 143 (2018)
SRD: 130 (2018 - incl. web development group)
Next Level: 115 (now, according to LinkedIn)
Good Feel: 108 (2018, incl. mobile division)
Grezzo: 62 (2018)
Alpha Dream: 46 (2018)
Camelot: 44 (2010, probably more now)
Genius Sonority: 22
Well done! It should be noted that IS and HAL are not only developing games for Nintendo. For example HAL helped with Switch OS development. So the actual game division is smaller.
 

Deleted member 41183

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Well done! It should be noted that IS and HAL are not only developing games for Nintendo. For example HAL helped with Switch OS development. So the actual game division is smaller.

Oh, that's true. And IS does, or did, the dev units?

And then HAL now has their mobile division

EDIT: Just realized I left of NST, but LinkedIn shows they have 11 employees and i want to believe that isn't true. NERD apparently has 42. And their own website: http://www.nerd.nintendo.com/
 
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jdstorm

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Jan 6, 2018
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I wouldn't call Let's Go that safe since it gambled on bringing the Let's Go crowd to a $300 console. And outside of ARMS, it wasn't like 2017 was filled with experimental titles. Even Breath of the Wild was relatively safe compared to PH and SS since it was an open world game in an era where almost everything is opened world.

I'd call let's go safe since it was a Pokémon Gen 1 remake and there was huge nostalgia there. If I was being overly candid I might even say that It's overly cautious nature hurt it's sales potential.

Either way I think one of the big lessons to learn from this generation is that supporting/championing Niche games across a wide variety of genres has been what has driven sales, not just the big Multiplats/Multiplayer titles that appeal to the broadest audience.

As for BotW I'd call it more smart then safe. It's back to basics approach completely understood the IP. It's safe because it worked not because it was inherently safe. There are a million ways BotW could be awful just by a few minor changes
 

ViperViking

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Jan 15, 2019
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I'd call let's go safe since it was a Pokémon Gen 1 remake and there was huge nostalgia there. If I was being overly candid I might even say that It's overly cautious nature hurt it's sales potential.

I would say that it sold pretty well. Not as well as gen 8 likely will later this year, but pretty well for it pretty much being a remake with simplified gameplay that came from some Go-type features.
 

Deleted member 8593

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I was honestly surprised when I found out that they had "only" 700 people in Kyoto but I guess I shouldn't be. They've always been very efficient with their resources (for the most part). I wish they could influence the growth of Camelot and AlphaDream so they could tackle larger projects but alas...
 

Datajoy

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I don't know why but I sort of doubt that Mercury Steam would be trusted with a fully new "Metroid 5" that moves the canon narrative forward. If they do make a new 2D game I could see it being a subtitled side story of some kind.
 

Deleted member 8593

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I don't know why but I sort of doubt that Mercury Steam would be trusted with a fully new "Metroid 5" that moves the canon narrative forward. If they do make a new 2D game I could see it being a subtitled side story of some kind.

That would be a first unless you consider Other M a "sidestory". It would be subtitled anyway, just like Fusion.
 

MondoMega

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I don't know why but I sort of doubt that Mercury Steam would be trusted with a fully new "Metroid 5" that moves the canon narrative forward. If they do make a new 2D game I could see it being a subtitled side story of some kind.
I dunno, they did use Samus Returns to tease (what i'm assuming will be) the plot for a future 2D Metroid game. As long as Sakamoto and Nintendo EPD are working with them (like they did with Samus Returns) I can't see why Mercury Steam wouldn't be trusted with it. Samus Returns should've proved that they are more than capable of making a good Metroid game.
 

ILikeFeet

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I was honestly surprised when I found out that they had "only" 700 people in Kyoto but I guess I shouldn't be. They've always been very efficient with their resources (for the most part). I wish they could influence the growth of Camelot and AlphaDream so they could tackle larger projects but alas...
They kinda are. AlphaDream is hiring people with current gen and unity experience right now for something
 

Deleted member 36622

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In retrospect, it was pretty awesome when Retro actually did ship a game ever two or three years. On the bright side, they have expanded quite a bit since Tropical Freeze, up to around 130 employees now via Linkedin from only 70-80 a few years ago. I'm guessing they're going to need all hands on deck for MP4 though.

On Metroid Prime 4 i really hope Tanabe and Nintendo will help them instead of just handling them an hot potato.
 

olobolger

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I dunno, they did use Samus Returns to tease (what i'm assuming will be) the plot for a future 2D Metroid game. As long as Sakamoto and Nintendo EPD are working with them (like they did with Samus Returns) I can't see why Mercury Steam wouldn't be trusted with it. Samus Returns should've proved that they are more than capable of making a good Metroid game.

Do you guys think there's any chance of getting a Switch port of Samus Returns?
 

Deleted member 36622

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Do you guys think there's any chance of getting a Switch port of Samus Returns?

I think Sakamoto and MercurySteam are working right now on a new 2.5D Metroid game for Switch (or a Fusion remake)

The collaboration worked really well and Sakamoto said in 2017 he wanted to keep working with them, plus there was that Wii U prototype they made, it's seems clear to me.
 

MaitreWakou

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Do you guys think there's any chance of getting a Switch port of Samus Returns?
Maybe, there's always a chance for everything, but not anytime soon imo. This year we should get Metroid Prime Trilogy HD (unless it has been delayed for a year or two because of the MP4 reboot, but I doubt it)
I also don't expect a lot of 3DS games to get ported to the Switch so there's that too. And apparently Samus Returns sold pretty well for a Metroid game releasing on 3DS after the Switch.
 
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