Post by Leon on Jun 21, 2012 21:52:29 GMT -5
Over the past few years, Nintendo has made some important partnerships with third parties, unlike any we have seen before. We've seen Nintendo working with Capcom for Monster Hunter 3, partnering with Square Enix and the Dragon Quest series; including licensing the Mario Universe for use in the long running Itagaki Street franchise. Other examples include putting Yoshi in the Snake Eater remake, and the Mega Mushroom appearing in Tekken for Wii U.
Perhaps the most significant of all these partnerships, is the relationship between Nintendo and Koei Tecmo.
I remember back in the days of the N64 and the Gamecube, Koei and Tecmo were virtually non existent on Nintendo platforms. Koei was developing it's games primarily for the PC and Playstation, whereas Tecmo was developing for SEGA and later Microsoft.
This relationship soon changed however, and we first see this with Nintendo and Tecmo collaborating over Fatal Frame 4. The game featured bonus costumes representing Luigi and Zero Suit Samus, but most thought this was typical Nintendo bonus content.
At the time, Fatal Frame 4 seemed like a one off game where Nintendo had financed the development of a third party game in exchange for exclusive rights of distribution. In fact, rumours of development issues and the final game featuring all sorts of bugs made many people assume that Nintendo and Tecmo's relationship had ended as quickly as it started.
Fast forward to the 2010 Fall Conference, and one of the games announced was a remake of Fatal Frame 2, once again being published by Nintendo. For over a year, nothing was shown about the game. Some people believed that it had been cancelled, others said it was moved to the PS3, and others figured that Nintendo had moved the project to Wii U. Yet despite all the rumours, Fatal Frame 2 reappeared this year, and is slated for release next week in Japan and Europe.
All right, you're probably thinking that this is all fine and dandy, and is similar to the situation with Dragon Quest. I thought so as well, but it gets more interesting.
When Tecmo got its first 3DS development kit, longtime Fatal Frame developer Keisuke Kikuchi drew up a plan for a Fatal Frame game, and delivered his proposal to Satoru Iwata, not the head of development at Tecmo. Under normal circumstances, a third party wouldn't send their proposal to Nintendo, but would handle that internally.
For a lot of people, this put up red flags about the relationship between Nintendo and Tecmo, and it gets even more interesting. New reports have confirmed that Nintendo has complete rights over the Spirit Camera IP, and is now officially co-owner of the Fatal Frame IP with Tecmo.
Fatal Frame has also become the new home of long time Nintendo developer Toru Osawa. You may not be familiar with his name, but you guys are all familiar with his games. When he first joined Nintendo in the 80's, he was in charge of developing Kid Icarus on his own until Yoshio Sakamoto and his team were finished with Metroid. Afterwards he became Sakamoto's right hand man, working on Famicom Detective Club, X, For the Frog the Bell Tolls, and Teleroboxer. Soon after, he was briefly transferred to EAD where he worked on Ocarina of Time as the senior director. After Ocarina, Osawa returned to the R&D division, but fell into obscurity, no longer working with Sakamoto on the Metroid or Wario series. Osawa kept busy working on some small scale GBA and DSiware games, but was no longer working on any major projects. It was only after Nintendo started working with Tecmo on the Fatal Frame series, did Osawa return to the limelight as a producer, but he still remains an illusive figure at the very secretive Nintendo.
More collaborations at Nintendo extended beyond the Fatal Frame series. This time Shigeru Miyamoto Takashi Tezuka, and Koji Kondo got in on the action. In 2009, Nintendo and the newly merged Koei Tecmo announced Samurai Warriors 3 exclusively for Wii. Announced with the game was a retelling of the NES classic Murasame's Mysterious Castle. All of the characters from Takamaru to Murasame were redesigned for the first time since the original game was released (excluding Takamaru's cameo in Captain Rainbow). The Murasame mode returned in the expansion pack Samurai Warriors 3 XL, but was naturally removed from the PS3 ports of SW3Z and SW3Z Empires.
The Murasame mode was supervised by Miyamoto and Tezuka, with Kondo overseeing the music. Nintendo did even more overseas, and published the game in both North America and Europe. Later on, Nintendo did a smaller crossover with Koei, this time putting costumes of Link and Samus in Dynasty Warriors VS.
Of course, you can't talk about Nintendo and Koei Tecmo without discussing big guns, and little compares to Nintendo and Team Ninja teaming up for Metroid: Other M. Regardless of what you think about the final product, Other M was a landmark title in getting Tecmo's flagship development team on board with Nintendo. This partnership continued into the Team Ninja's debut game for the 3DS Dead or Alive Dimensions, featuring Ridley and Samus appearing as hazards on the Geothermal Plant stage.
Lastly we arrive at the latest collaboration between Nintendo and Koei Tecmo. That is the crossover between Pokemon and Nobunaga's Ambition: Pokemon Conquest.Development of this game dates back to 2008, when Fatal Frame 4 was just completed, Other M was in the middle of development, and Dynasty Warriors VS wasn't even in pre-production. This time, Koei pitched the idea to The Pokemon Company rather than Nintendo, and Iwata had no involvement in the games production.
Yet despite Iwata's mysterious absence, Nintendo did play a role in developing the game. Of course, The Pokemon Company itself was formed by Nintendo as a comapny to manage the Pokemon brand when it became such a huge success. But regardless, even Nintendo employees such as SPD2 head Hitoshi Yamagami took part in coordinating efforts between Koei and TPC. Of course, Pokemon spin-offs are nothing new, and virtually any company can make a few bucks by churning one out. But this is just another example of Koei Tecmo working closely with Nintendo.
So what about the future? Well we already know of one project that Nintendo and Koei Tecmo are collaborating on. That of course is Ninja Gaiden 3: Razors Edge. Nintendo is publishing the game on behalf of KT, and apparently, Nintendo is also helping Team Ninja polish the game, hopefully it won't be as rough around the edges as it's PS360 counterpart.
I suppose the last point I want to make is this question. Why work with Koei Tecmo? Why invest in Fatal Frame?
When I think of Japanese third parties, I never really considered Koei Tecmo until Nintendo started working so closely with them. I think many of you like myself would think of Capcom, Bandai Namco, Square Enix, and SEGA before KT. Perhaps it's a western bias because games like Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Nobunaga's Ambition were never that big here, and on the other hand many people see Dynasty Warriors as a joke.
Perhaps it's the very subdued nature of KT that makes them the perfect partner for Nintendo. They're not too big as to be able to cause trouble for Nintendo. But at the same time they're big enough to make relationship bear fruit.
Personally, I can't wait to see how this partnership develops further. I know that without this partnership, I never would have looked at Samurai Warriors twice, but now I find myself a fan of the series.
I know that for some of you, you would rather have another third party working closely with Nintendo.So go ahead and sound off about partnerships you would like to see, and the games that would come from them.
Perhaps the most significant of all these partnerships, is the relationship between Nintendo and Koei Tecmo.
I remember back in the days of the N64 and the Gamecube, Koei and Tecmo were virtually non existent on Nintendo platforms. Koei was developing it's games primarily for the PC and Playstation, whereas Tecmo was developing for SEGA and later Microsoft.
This relationship soon changed however, and we first see this with Nintendo and Tecmo collaborating over Fatal Frame 4. The game featured bonus costumes representing Luigi and Zero Suit Samus, but most thought this was typical Nintendo bonus content.
At the time, Fatal Frame 4 seemed like a one off game where Nintendo had financed the development of a third party game in exchange for exclusive rights of distribution. In fact, rumours of development issues and the final game featuring all sorts of bugs made many people assume that Nintendo and Tecmo's relationship had ended as quickly as it started.
Fast forward to the 2010 Fall Conference, and one of the games announced was a remake of Fatal Frame 2, once again being published by Nintendo. For over a year, nothing was shown about the game. Some people believed that it had been cancelled, others said it was moved to the PS3, and others figured that Nintendo had moved the project to Wii U. Yet despite all the rumours, Fatal Frame 2 reappeared this year, and is slated for release next week in Japan and Europe.
All right, you're probably thinking that this is all fine and dandy, and is similar to the situation with Dragon Quest. I thought so as well, but it gets more interesting.
When Tecmo got its first 3DS development kit, longtime Fatal Frame developer Keisuke Kikuchi drew up a plan for a Fatal Frame game, and delivered his proposal to Satoru Iwata, not the head of development at Tecmo. Under normal circumstances, a third party wouldn't send their proposal to Nintendo, but would handle that internally.
For a lot of people, this put up red flags about the relationship between Nintendo and Tecmo, and it gets even more interesting. New reports have confirmed that Nintendo has complete rights over the Spirit Camera IP, and is now officially co-owner of the Fatal Frame IP with Tecmo.
Fatal Frame has also become the new home of long time Nintendo developer Toru Osawa. You may not be familiar with his name, but you guys are all familiar with his games. When he first joined Nintendo in the 80's, he was in charge of developing Kid Icarus on his own until Yoshio Sakamoto and his team were finished with Metroid. Afterwards he became Sakamoto's right hand man, working on Famicom Detective Club, X, For the Frog the Bell Tolls, and Teleroboxer. Soon after, he was briefly transferred to EAD where he worked on Ocarina of Time as the senior director. After Ocarina, Osawa returned to the R&D division, but fell into obscurity, no longer working with Sakamoto on the Metroid or Wario series. Osawa kept busy working on some small scale GBA and DSiware games, but was no longer working on any major projects. It was only after Nintendo started working with Tecmo on the Fatal Frame series, did Osawa return to the limelight as a producer, but he still remains an illusive figure at the very secretive Nintendo.
More collaborations at Nintendo extended beyond the Fatal Frame series. This time Shigeru Miyamoto Takashi Tezuka, and Koji Kondo got in on the action. In 2009, Nintendo and the newly merged Koei Tecmo announced Samurai Warriors 3 exclusively for Wii. Announced with the game was a retelling of the NES classic Murasame's Mysterious Castle. All of the characters from Takamaru to Murasame were redesigned for the first time since the original game was released (excluding Takamaru's cameo in Captain Rainbow). The Murasame mode returned in the expansion pack Samurai Warriors 3 XL, but was naturally removed from the PS3 ports of SW3Z and SW3Z Empires.
The Murasame mode was supervised by Miyamoto and Tezuka, with Kondo overseeing the music. Nintendo did even more overseas, and published the game in both North America and Europe. Later on, Nintendo did a smaller crossover with Koei, this time putting costumes of Link and Samus in Dynasty Warriors VS.
Of course, you can't talk about Nintendo and Koei Tecmo without discussing big guns, and little compares to Nintendo and Team Ninja teaming up for Metroid: Other M. Regardless of what you think about the final product, Other M was a landmark title in getting Tecmo's flagship development team on board with Nintendo. This partnership continued into the Team Ninja's debut game for the 3DS Dead or Alive Dimensions, featuring Ridley and Samus appearing as hazards on the Geothermal Plant stage.
Lastly we arrive at the latest collaboration between Nintendo and Koei Tecmo. That is the crossover between Pokemon and Nobunaga's Ambition: Pokemon Conquest.Development of this game dates back to 2008, when Fatal Frame 4 was just completed, Other M was in the middle of development, and Dynasty Warriors VS wasn't even in pre-production. This time, Koei pitched the idea to The Pokemon Company rather than Nintendo, and Iwata had no involvement in the games production.
Yet despite Iwata's mysterious absence, Nintendo did play a role in developing the game. Of course, The Pokemon Company itself was formed by Nintendo as a comapny to manage the Pokemon brand when it became such a huge success. But regardless, even Nintendo employees such as SPD2 head Hitoshi Yamagami took part in coordinating efforts between Koei and TPC. Of course, Pokemon spin-offs are nothing new, and virtually any company can make a few bucks by churning one out. But this is just another example of Koei Tecmo working closely with Nintendo.
So what about the future? Well we already know of one project that Nintendo and Koei Tecmo are collaborating on. That of course is Ninja Gaiden 3: Razors Edge. Nintendo is publishing the game on behalf of KT, and apparently, Nintendo is also helping Team Ninja polish the game, hopefully it won't be as rough around the edges as it's PS360 counterpart.
I suppose the last point I want to make is this question. Why work with Koei Tecmo? Why invest in Fatal Frame?
When I think of Japanese third parties, I never really considered Koei Tecmo until Nintendo started working so closely with them. I think many of you like myself would think of Capcom, Bandai Namco, Square Enix, and SEGA before KT. Perhaps it's a western bias because games like Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Nobunaga's Ambition were never that big here, and on the other hand many people see Dynasty Warriors as a joke.
Perhaps it's the very subdued nature of KT that makes them the perfect partner for Nintendo. They're not too big as to be able to cause trouble for Nintendo. But at the same time they're big enough to make relationship bear fruit.
Personally, I can't wait to see how this partnership develops further. I know that without this partnership, I never would have looked at Samurai Warriors twice, but now I find myself a fan of the series.
I know that for some of you, you would rather have another third party working closely with Nintendo.So go ahead and sound off about partnerships you would like to see, and the games that would come from them.
