They worked on the most recent Mario vs DK IIRC
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Updated List of Nintendo Companies - Employee Count
- Thread starter Shikamaru Ninja
- Start date
They worked on the most recent Mario vs DK IIRC
JB2448
Member
NoA as a subsidary does not do game development (apart from writing/localization) as far as I know, it's not their function. With that said, NST (Nintendo Software Technology, works mostly on Mario vs. Donkey Kong) resides inside the NoA Redmond offices. But they are considered their own division, so while they are tightly connected to NoA in that sense they are not really part of NoA.
NTD, NST, and Retro Studios are development arms of Nintendo of America. It's just that they all answer to NCL.
But the hiring, management personnel, are all NOA tied.
D
Deleted member 465307
Unconfirmed Member
Ah, okay. I wondered if it was that. Well, they need to be more productive and license Kirby to more things! I see a lot of cool Kirby products pop up in Japan but never really in the US!
Shikamaru Ninja
任天å ã® å¿è
It's a brand management company more than anything. Most of their employees are actually retail workers manning the Pokemon Centers across Japan (and US?).
If it hasn't changed they work on tools and stuffs also.
like their biggest contributions are tools that other Nintendo studio uses.
Really unsexy job but damn more useful.
Or maybe I'm confusing them with someone else.
Shikamaru Ninja
任天å ã® å¿è
They were moving to the 100s on the heels of Metroid Prime Hunters. They have numbers, and are hiring, it's up to NCL to let them do something worthwhile.
Lupin the Third
Member
I thought NST was under NOA, but it's not that way in the OP. Was I mistaken?
Hero of Legend
Member
Shouldn't the Mariners and DeNA be Major Affiliates as Nintendo (now) owns 10% of each?
I wish we knew HAL's place here. Junichi Masuda claimed that HAL is actually "a part of Nintendo" awhile back:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1134392
What if any amount of shares does Nintendo own of them? Also, I know Nintendo at least at one point owned like 32% of Genius Sonority do that basically defines 2nd-party to me so they fit that list.
Also shocked HAL is 149 employees while Retro is only half that size at 70+, yet the former hardly makes console games and I believe Rainbow Curse had a small team behind it to boot.
I wish we knew HAL's place here. Junichi Masuda claimed that HAL is actually "a part of Nintendo" awhile back:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1134392
What if any amount of shares does Nintendo own of them? Also, I know Nintendo at least at one point owned like 32% of Genius Sonority do that basically defines 2nd-party to me so they fit that list.
Also shocked HAL is 149 employees while Retro is only half that size at 70+, yet the former hardly makes console games and I believe Rainbow Curse had a small team behind it to boot.
recently I learned Yoshiaki Koizumi now works as a representative director for 1-Up Studio (look under the 代表者 header). apparently it happened back in 2013, but I don't any english source beside wikis reported on this.
Shikamaru Ninja
任天å ã® å¿è
Both Nintendo and TPC own shares of Genius Sonority.
HAL Labs dedicates resources as a Nintendo system development team. That's actually how Face Raiders happened, they were working with Nintendo's tech team on AR.
StreetsAhead
Member
HAL also does some games besides Kirby; namely BoyBoy & Picross 3D. Nothing too resource intensive, though. They used to do Pokemon Ranger, too, but I guess meh sales and increased dev requirements for Wii U/3DS over the previous generation meant they couldn't afford the staff.
EDIT: Shikamaru, the OP says 1-Up is 20 employees, but the site linked to above says 30 as of May 2016. Typo?
Shikamaru Ninja
任天å ã® å¿è
Yeah I accidentally wrote down the number of men. I also got an update on NERD.
The way I get it neither HAL nor IS are that into making games more than providing tools that nintendo uses to work on their own projects.
Kinda like how the hardware team at Nintendo do the most thankless job at Nintendo but are the very reason the people handling the software do such a bang up job.
Depends also on their timetables I guess, I mean IS was never the most prolific part of the whole Nintendo environment either after all.
thinking about it, it's really crazy how SSB64/M was HAL, SSBB was GameArts and SSB4 was NamcoBandaï.
Seems like the disaster that was Project HAMMER's development cycle really killed any trust NCL had in them.
Shikamaru Ninja
任天å ã® å¿è
IS has been a game assistant for the larger part of their softography. But most sites interpret it as them being THE DEVELOPER or sole developer quite often. Recently they have been working as the lead developer on a lot of projects (Under Nintendo EPD and with additional agencies helping them.)
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
Most of those employees would not be listed here, because they wouldn't be full-time employees.
Thanks for the insight (great thread btw).
I guess the internal working of the company and the corporate cultures are hard to grasp from the outside.
After the late Iwata was chosen as the future head of Ncl I kinda got the idea that they were more fluid in their relationship than what we tend to understand in the west.
I think I found GBA tools for pc by IS (I think) and while the thing is quite useless for me (I don't even have the font to get anything showing in an intelligible language in most of my comps) I get from that that they're more involved than what the credits show them.
Kinda like that 01Net interview were someone was explaining some stuffs that people took the wrong way when it's really not anything inflammatory to begin with.
Dash Kappei
Not actually that important
Pancakes R Us
Member
Just what does NST do wth more than 50 employees? Surely they don't need that many to make crossword games?
Ho ho ho.
Ho ho ho.
Chittagong
Gold Member
I can't understand how NOE can have nearly half of the headcount of NCL, yet produce fuck all - while the NCL headcount makes games, consoles, handhelds, branding, on top of the sales and marketing in their region. Seriously what do all those NOE people do?
Pancakes R Us
Member
You didn't get the memo, I see. NCL is too bloody stuck up to let NoA or NOE do anything at all. They're just mouthpieces and distribution planners. With a bit of localisation on the side.
Really weird they've kept that secret.
There's a few possibilities. Some of those people may have been contractors signed specifically for XCX development, thus a natural downsizing as the team is now only in pre/early production of their next big game. Also possible that Monolith is to some degree treated like any other internal Nintendo team in that some of the staff shift around to other Nintendo teams, like those that are currently helping with Zelda. Could be that they are now being counted as part of NoJ.
Shikamaru Ninja
任天å ã® å¿è
They also work on emulation, applications, SDK technology, besides games.
And of the 2000 people working at NCL, somewhere between 1000 and 500 people are likely doing the kind of jobs that also make for the bulk of NoA's and NoE's headcount. What's your point?
NoE manages several countries (same goes for NOA, who includes Canada and Mexico at least).
I also believe localization eats up a big chunk of that headcount.
I think Shikamaru mentioned he's counting every local subsidiaries in this total?
They have global managers, logistic/retailer managers, local PR/marketing guys, etc... in all countries where they have a subsidiary so UK, France, Spain, Switz, etc...
In Frankfort they also have all the localization teams afaik, as well as some developers relations guys.
Shikamaru Ninja
任天å ã® å¿è
I believe NOA/NOE/NOAU are corporate buildings, while most of the others are smaller satellite offices that correspond to the above.