The Grudge - Leaving Nintendo or being left alone by Nintendo
Factor 5:
Factor 5 provided technology and tools during the GCN days to Nintendo. They also worked on a Pilotwings game late in the GCN's lifetime which was canned when Factor 5 found high-powered next-gen consoles to be more promising.
Aftermath: Factor 5 went for a long-term partnership with Sony. When both PS3 and Lair sales were lower than expected and Lair's quality and development were anything but perfect (it received gorgeous reviews), Sony retreated from their contract. Factor 5 tried to do some PSN titles, but none of them came to fruition. Other attempts to get a new project included pitching a Man Icarus demo to Nintendo. In 2008, everything looked quite well: A Superman game for all platforms, a Rogue Squadron Trilogy for Wii and a flight game (Pilotwings) for Nintendo. Only when Brash went bankrupt, everything changed. Factor 5 went into bankruptcy, they received no more funds from Nintendo and LucasArts who feared that these would be used to pay off debts instead of producing their games. But the F5 staff had a new idea.
Today: Factor 5 tried a resurrection as WhiteHarvest. Their main work was done on a Wii port of Brütal Legend for EA, cancelled in July. Old fears from LucasArts and Nintendo came back and both Rogue Squadron and the flight game were cancelled at these new developers in spite of being ready for release in the same year. As a result, WhiteHarvest had to close down after only 7 months of operation. Factor 5 and WhiteHarvest has been dissolved with only the German division (approximately not more than five people) remaining.
Fuse Games/ Silverball Studios:
Fuse Games was a company formed in 2002, which focussed on pinball games at first. In 2003, they partnered with Nintendo to work on Mario Pinball Land (GBA, 2004). After that, they worked on Metroid Prime: Pinball (DS, 2005). Nintendo seemed to have trust in the studio and gave them their next franchise: Kirby (DS). More than two years later, in late 2008 or early 2009, this game was canned for unknown reasons.
In the meantime, Fuse Games had opened a second studio to work on Wii games. This studio was shut down in early 2009 due to a lack of interest by publishers (and due to a lack of funding from Nintendo). Nintendo at least somewhat supported Fuse Games for another year; they let them made Active Health (DS, UK-only, 2009) and a pinball game for DSi. In late 2009, Nintendo cut all ties and Fuse Games was bankrupt. The studio was reopened as Silverball Studios.
Today: Silverball Studios has only worked on low-budget titles so far: Thomas&Friends - Hero of the Rails as well as the iPhone game "Mensa Brain Test". Right now, they are working on a multiplatform title.
Headstrong Games:
Nintendo first co-operated with Headstrong Games when they were still called Kuju London. Back then, they worked on Battalion Wars/Advance Wars: Under Fire. When the Wii approached, the partnership seemed to evolve. The studio developed both Battalion Wars 2 and Knight Wars. Sadly, Nintendo did no longer think that Knight Wars was a compelling concept for the Wii audience and thus canned it.
Today: Headstrong acted as a Nintendo-only studio in the meantime and shipped HotD: Overkill and Aragorn's Quest (based on the original Knight Wars pitch). A small part of Headstrong also worked on the DSi (and later DS retail) game Art Academy. Due to declining sales of 3rd party Wii sales, Headstrong recently had to let some staff go. Right now they are working on an unannounced PS3 game, Wii games are not planned anymore.
n-Space:
n-Space is well known for their long-delayed GameCube title Geist. Nintendo had partnered with them on another untitled game for Wii, which was cancelled for both strategic and quality reasons.
Today: n-Space tried to pitch another game to Nintendo, Geist DS, which evolved into CoD DS. Since then the company mostly worked on franchise based titles and various DS iterations of Activision games (James Bond, Call of Duty). Only recently they ran into financial difficulties and had to let some staff go.
Silicon Knights:
In 2000, Nintendo bought shares of Silicon Knights. After many delays, they released Eternal Darkness in 2002 and two years later a remake of Metal Gear Solid. For several reasons (Dyack wanted to do Too Human and other cinematic titles, Nintendo didn't; Dyack wanted to work on a powerful console, Nintendo didn't have one; Dyack wanted to increase staff numbers, Nintendo didn't) they parted ways in 2004.
Aftermath: Silicon Knights first managed to get a deal with Microsoft to develop Too Human, back then planned as a trilogy. After various delays and with many shortcoming, the first game was released (getting the critical praise of NeoGAF) in 2008. Low sales and low quality resulted in the cancellation of both sequels.
Besides the Too Human deal, Silicon Knights began work on an ambitious horror game, called The Box or temporarily The Crucible: Evil Within, for PS3 and Xbox 360 which was meant to be published by Sega. In early 2009, however, Sega cancelled a whole lot of games from Western developers - Aliens: Crucible (Obsidian), Cipher Complex (Edge of Reality), Aliens: Colonial Marines (Gearbox) - and another one was Silicon Knights' The Box.
Today: After SK was left alone by both Sega and Microsoft, they were forced to lay off some staff. In the meantime, they received money from the Canadian government to fund a project (Siren in the Maelstrom) which is still to be revealed. Nonetheless, the team helped a little bit on THQ's Darksiders (PS3/Xbox 360) via outsourcing and right now they are hard at work on X-Men: Destiny (all platforms).
Other Studios:
Argonaut Software (shut down)
Left Field Productions (shovelware)
Next Level Games (low budget Wii rail-shooters; Captain America)
Paradigm Entertainment (shut down)
and well...Rare Ltd.
Factor 5:
Factor 5 provided technology and tools during the GCN days to Nintendo. They also worked on a Pilotwings game late in the GCN's lifetime which was canned when Factor 5 found high-powered next-gen consoles to be more promising.
Aftermath: Factor 5 went for a long-term partnership with Sony. When both PS3 and Lair sales were lower than expected and Lair's quality and development were anything but perfect (it received gorgeous reviews), Sony retreated from their contract. Factor 5 tried to do some PSN titles, but none of them came to fruition. Other attempts to get a new project included pitching a Man Icarus demo to Nintendo. In 2008, everything looked quite well: A Superman game for all platforms, a Rogue Squadron Trilogy for Wii and a flight game (Pilotwings) for Nintendo. Only when Brash went bankrupt, everything changed. Factor 5 went into bankruptcy, they received no more funds from Nintendo and LucasArts who feared that these would be used to pay off debts instead of producing their games. But the F5 staff had a new idea.
Today: Factor 5 tried a resurrection as WhiteHarvest. Their main work was done on a Wii port of Brütal Legend for EA, cancelled in July. Old fears from LucasArts and Nintendo came back and both Rogue Squadron and the flight game were cancelled at these new developers in spite of being ready for release in the same year. As a result, WhiteHarvest had to close down after only 7 months of operation. Factor 5 and WhiteHarvest has been dissolved with only the German division (approximately not more than five people) remaining.
Fuse Games/ Silverball Studios:
Fuse Games was a company formed in 2002, which focussed on pinball games at first. In 2003, they partnered with Nintendo to work on Mario Pinball Land (GBA, 2004). After that, they worked on Metroid Prime: Pinball (DS, 2005). Nintendo seemed to have trust in the studio and gave them their next franchise: Kirby (DS). More than two years later, in late 2008 or early 2009, this game was canned for unknown reasons.
In the meantime, Fuse Games had opened a second studio to work on Wii games. This studio was shut down in early 2009 due to a lack of interest by publishers (and due to a lack of funding from Nintendo). Nintendo at least somewhat supported Fuse Games for another year; they let them made Active Health (DS, UK-only, 2009) and a pinball game for DSi. In late 2009, Nintendo cut all ties and Fuse Games was bankrupt. The studio was reopened as Silverball Studios.
Today: Silverball Studios has only worked on low-budget titles so far: Thomas&Friends - Hero of the Rails as well as the iPhone game "Mensa Brain Test". Right now, they are working on a multiplatform title.
Headstrong Games:
Nintendo first co-operated with Headstrong Games when they were still called Kuju London. Back then, they worked on Battalion Wars/Advance Wars: Under Fire. When the Wii approached, the partnership seemed to evolve. The studio developed both Battalion Wars 2 and Knight Wars. Sadly, Nintendo did no longer think that Knight Wars was a compelling concept for the Wii audience and thus canned it.
Today: Headstrong acted as a Nintendo-only studio in the meantime and shipped HotD: Overkill and Aragorn's Quest (based on the original Knight Wars pitch). A small part of Headstrong also worked on the DSi (and later DS retail) game Art Academy. Due to declining sales of 3rd party Wii sales, Headstrong recently had to let some staff go. Right now they are working on an unannounced PS3 game, Wii games are not planned anymore.
n-Space:
n-Space is well known for their long-delayed GameCube title Geist. Nintendo had partnered with them on another untitled game for Wii, which was cancelled for both strategic and quality reasons.
Today: n-Space tried to pitch another game to Nintendo, Geist DS, which evolved into CoD DS. Since then the company mostly worked on franchise based titles and various DS iterations of Activision games (James Bond, Call of Duty). Only recently they ran into financial difficulties and had to let some staff go.
Silicon Knights:
In 2000, Nintendo bought shares of Silicon Knights. After many delays, they released Eternal Darkness in 2002 and two years later a remake of Metal Gear Solid. For several reasons (Dyack wanted to do Too Human and other cinematic titles, Nintendo didn't; Dyack wanted to work on a powerful console, Nintendo didn't have one; Dyack wanted to increase staff numbers, Nintendo didn't) they parted ways in 2004.
Aftermath: Silicon Knights first managed to get a deal with Microsoft to develop Too Human, back then planned as a trilogy. After various delays and with many shortcoming, the first game was released (getting the critical praise of NeoGAF) in 2008. Low sales and low quality resulted in the cancellation of both sequels.
Besides the Too Human deal, Silicon Knights began work on an ambitious horror game, called The Box or temporarily The Crucible: Evil Within, for PS3 and Xbox 360 which was meant to be published by Sega. In early 2009, however, Sega cancelled a whole lot of games from Western developers - Aliens: Crucible (Obsidian), Cipher Complex (Edge of Reality), Aliens: Colonial Marines (Gearbox) - and another one was Silicon Knights' The Box.
Today: After SK was left alone by both Sega and Microsoft, they were forced to lay off some staff. In the meantime, they received money from the Canadian government to fund a project (Siren in the Maelstrom) which is still to be revealed. Nonetheless, the team helped a little bit on THQ's Darksiders (PS3/Xbox 360) via outsourcing and right now they are hard at work on X-Men: Destiny (all platforms).
Other Studios:
Argonaut Software (shut down)
Left Field Productions (shovelware)
Next Level Games (low budget Wii rail-shooters; Captain America)
Paradigm Entertainment (shut down)
and well...Rare Ltd.
. I was just discussing this stuff with my friend.:lol
