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Post by nocturnal YL on Aug 3, 2009 15:02:06 GMT -5
Since the Site Feature board is supposed not to be off-topic, I'll post what's supposed to be a reply here. I kinda assumed they were owned by Nintendo since they are second party. Guess not... First of all, we'll take a look on what Nintendo "owns" here. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nintendo_developersThis is only for a general idea though. For example, INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS is not owned by Nintendo at all finalcially. It's listed as second party by the Japanese Wikipedia. INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS can be regarded as a de facto subsidiary, but legally it is not. And even "first party" as defined in this page does not guarantee a 100% ownership. Brownie Brown, Retro and Nintendo Software Technology are wholly-owned, but not Monolith (80%) and Project Sora (72%). Now, onto second party. Basically, second party developers are the ones that form actual partnerships with Nintendo. This does not grant Nintendo any full ownerships of titles they make, and it does not affect Nintendo at all when it comes to past games that Nintendo didn't even make. If you ask me, though, it'll be too complex to categorize developers like this. To me, anything within Nintendo EAD or Nintendo SPD would be Nintendo. Anything outside, including Nintendo Software Technology, would be second- or third-party. |
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Post by Fryguy64 on Aug 9, 2009 11:40:25 GMT -5
But NST is an in-house studio... Set up from scratch (not even an American studio bought up by Nintendo). Sure, they largely work with third-party licenses and ports, but what they produce is as much "Nintendo" as anything Nintendo EAD produces.
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Post by nocturnal YL on Aug 9, 2009 13:20:07 GMT -5
Well, if you have to say, Nintendo EAD does occasionally work on third party games too. But then again, this is just my way to see them.
I won't use this view of mine to confuse you with my subissions to NinDB =P
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Post by somemannerof on Aug 13, 2009 22:59:57 GMT -5
I don't feel like this warrants a whole new topic, so I'll just add it here:
Who owns Professor Layton, Nintendo or Level 5?
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Post by Leon on Aug 14, 2009 0:12:13 GMT -5
Level 5. Nintendo just publishes their games outside of Japan because Level 5 has no international publishing office.
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Post by somemannerof on Aug 14, 2009 1:34:53 GMT -5
OK, thanks.
Now I feel a bit disappointed that Nintendo doesn't have a Sherlock Holmes analogue. Oh well.
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Post by Fryguy64 on Aug 14, 2009 3:00:54 GMT -5
Well, they still have Kyle Hyde, or perhaps the Detective Club?
Sure, they're not whimsical and British... but then even Sherlock Holmes was a bipolar heroin junkie.
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Post by Koopaul on Aug 15, 2009 0:54:43 GMT -5
What I'm always wondering is who owns what IP.
That question rose up when Rare and Nintendo split. Its hard to know who would go to who if a company was sold, left, or bought by another company.
Like say HAL for some crazy reason left Nintendo, would Kirby still belong to them? Same goes for Pokemon and Game Freak.
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Post by Fryguy64 on Aug 15, 2009 3:46:33 GMT -5
Pokemon is mediated by a third party (the normal use of the term, rather than the videogame use) in the form of The Pokemon Company, so ownership is not restricted to an individual company.
Fact is, the rights to characters, music, development code, etc. usually sit with the developer, while publishing rights sit with Nintendo. So long as Nintendo holds those rights, both companies must agree to any future use of the characters. And, of course, this is usually unlikely, as Nintendo does like stockpiling IP in the event of a Smash Bros. or Captain Rainbow...
When Rare left, they could have refused access to their development rights, so we would never have seen Donkey Kong Country on GBC/GBA/VC. Of course, quibbling over such things would usually mean the lawyers get involved.
Instead, Rare and Nintendo worked out an agreement where all rights to content in all Donkey Kong and Star Fox projects Rare had worked on would be transferred to Nintendo, while all publishing rights to the rest of their catalogue would transfer back to Rare (or their new owners, Microsoft). Now Nintendo holds all the rights to all the characters Rare created in DKC and Star Fox, and Rare has reclaimed Banjo, JFG, etc.
Then you get Goldeneye... Nintendo had publishing rights to the game, Rare held development rights, and the IP owner for James Bond (Dansaq?) held the licensing rights. Why haven't we seen this yet? Because Dansaq transfers the license to new publishers, but it doesn't transfer development rights or publishing rights over the original game. So you have a lot of people involved:
- Dansaq (James Bond license holder)
- Rare (original game developer)
- Nintendo (original game publisher, presumably still hold some rights over the game)
- Microsoft (Rare's new owner)
- Activision (Current license holder for the James Bond license, I believe, after EA made such a big mess of it)
- To a smaller extent, Free Radical Design, consisting of most of the Goldeneye team. Would you really want to remove their involvement? More importantly... their likenesses are all in the game - were these contracted for future releases of the game?
A lot of people are going to have to be paid off if we're ever going to see that game remade or rereleased.
In short the world of IP rights is messy and not as clear cut as "company owns everything about x character".
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Post by Wildcat on Aug 15, 2009 23:38:04 GMT -5
Fry, that was a brilliant explanation of Goldeneye. I may want to use your post as evidence for an upcoming article I plan to write on why Goldeneye's Virtual Console chances are very dicey at best, if I may.
And Kyle Hyde is awesome. Ninty needs to get CING on a sequel, pronto!
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Post by Koopaul on Aug 20, 2009 0:35:53 GMT -5
So what would you predict would happen if in the unlikely event HAL left Nintendo? What would you predict the results be? Kirby goes to Nintendo, Lolo goes with HAL?
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Post by nocturnal YL on Aug 20, 2009 3:19:50 GMT -5
So what would you predict would happen if in the unlikely event HAL left Nintendo? What would you predict the results be? Kirby goes to Nintendo, Lolo goes with HAL? The result: Satoru Iwata will, in an instant, negotiate them back to Nintendo. That happened once before. IntSys left Nintendo with the original intent of really leaving (when they decided they're no longer called Nintendo RD1), but on the very day they left, Nintendo's heads negotiated them back (probably with some big money) and it all looked to outsiders as if they are merely leaving in name. I don't recall much of that story though. Rare left because Nintendo did not want them. And, in that case, you've seen it. Whatever Nintendo originally had will remain to Nintendo. But in HAL's case? Nintendo didn't even invent Smash Bros. This is what I imagine if they really leave (they won't). Smash Bros will be frozen forever, and Kirby will remain with HAL Lab. MOTHER (including the music), Picross, Shigesato Itoi's Bass Fishing, Common Sense Training all go to Nintendo and they'll stop making Pokémon games. |
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Post by Fryguy64 on Aug 20, 2009 5:13:53 GMT -5
If HAL ever left, Nintendo wouldn't ever give them Kirby. HAL would be limited to the small handful of franchises it worked on before signing up as a second party (including Adventures of Lolo).
But yeah, that will never happen.
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Post by Koopaul on Aug 20, 2009 13:54:20 GMT -5
Ah okay I got something else to ask... Boy am I annoying.
Ahem, on another forum we are making a Smash Bros fan game (uh-oh) and there's some difficulties understanding if certain characters are first or third party. Prof. Layton for example, would he be considered first or third party?
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Post by nocturnal YL on Aug 20, 2009 13:58:25 GMT -5
Third. Nintendo doesn't even made this character. They just published the game and this means nothing except the fact that they do the marketing part.
Just like what Marina from Mischief Makers is.
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I kinda assumed they were owned by Nintendo since they are second party. Guess not...
