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[jamesinclair]

I had no idea Factor 5 closed.

WTF, the wii needs their bump mapping magic


Edit: Also, I only recently learned that Flagship, the Zelda 4 swords people were closed too. WTF.

 

[Celine]

DMA Design:
DMA Design originally partnered with Nintendo to bring out their first console game, Uniracers, for the SNES which was published by Nintendo. At one point, DMA was developing a game named Kid Kirby about Kirby as a kid for the SNES. Later, DMA signed up as a member of Ultra 64 Dream Team where they would make an exclusive game for Nintendo which Nintendo would publish. They eventually made Body Harvest for the N64 but Nintendo wouldn't publish it, so they shopped around for another publisher and eventually Midway published it. They also later made Space Station Silicon Valley for the N64.
Aftermath: DMA was bought out by Take-Two and renamed Rockstar North. After breaking up with Nintendo, they later released Grand Theft Auto III for the Playstation 2. Since then, their Grand Theft Auto franchise has become one of the biggest franchises in gaming.

During N64 hey-days DMA worked also on Climber for Nintendo but little is know about it.

 

[Starwolf_UK]

Edit: Also, I only recently learned that Flagship, the Zelda 4 swords people were closed too. WTF.

Flagsihp were part of Capcom (and were culled shortly after Clover were, though in a way a lot of people left in 2003 and I think the founder dying in 2005 lead to more) but I wonder, how did they get into a special relationship with Zelda (something I can only assume other developers have tried, only to fail...well except Philips :lol ).

 

[Shanadeus]

to be fair when level 5 and silicon knights left . everybody was predicting nintendoom within the next 2 years

Their faith in Godtendo wasn't strong enough, their fate is well deserved.

 

[digita1alchemy]

I'm curious to see how Nintendo's relationship with with Monster Game evolves, I certainly hope nothing bad happens to them. I'd like to see their partnership with Nintendo let them make some "real" racing games again, perhaps for the 3DS or Nintendo's new console.

 

[farnham]

Their faith in Godtendo wasn't strong enough, their fate is well deserved.

well.. i believe their "fate" was sealed when they created shitty games like toohuman or lair. silicon knights is not gone yet though.

 

[wsippel]

Headstrong might have stopped Wii development (I can't blame them), but they're still working for Nintendo, and they recently stated that they are working on at least three 3DS projects right now. After that interview with Sega West a while ago, I guess one of those titles might be House of the Dead in some form.

They also provided the voice compression technology* for Pokemon Stadium and Pokemon Stadium 2 (I wonder if there lack of demand for technology on the audio side of things these days as it seemed they were good at it):

They also ported DivX to consoles. But Firelight (fmod) and CRI dominate the codec and audio middleware market these days. Shin'en does a lot in that regard as well, at least on the handheld side. With Unity technologies pledging support for tracker formats in the future, I would hope Taktik jumps on the bandwagon. His tech (Renoise and XRNS) would be awesome for game development, especially highly interactive soundtracks with very low memory requirements and an incredibly high audio quality.

 

[TunaLover]

well.. i believe their "fate" was sealed when they created shitty games like toohuman or lair. silicon knights is not gone yet though.

That happen when you don't have Nintendo over your shoulders to say you "sorry your game sucks"

 

[Pacman2k]

I worked at Left Field while it was under Nintendo and during the "break-up" which ultimately caused me to be laid off. (I'm not mad about it, I learned shit loads during the 3 years I worked there. It was my first game industry job. Plus I was only a kid... they let me go when I was .... 19... I think?)

During the period where Left Field had just broken free of Nintendo and was transitioning to multiplatform, spirits were high and generally everyone was happy with the decision as I recall. At that time Nintendo was not fun to work with, at least from what I saw.

Good thread though, caused me to reminisce a little bit. <3

 

[[Nintex]]

It would be extremely bad timing to talk about that story in detail. Kinect Sports is launching pretty soon and it wouldn't be fair to reveal all of their canned games/prototypes right now. It would also be way too much for this thread.

You should write a book about the full history of Rare. Including all the shit that went down there even before Microsoft came into play. :lol

Nintendo seemed to have lost interest in most of these developers at some point. If they hadn't bought it Monolith Software would've probably ended the same way after Disaster. At one point Nintendo had all these 'core' games in development at various studios and suddenly they shot them down one by one.

 

[Proven]

You should write a book about the full history of Rare. Including all the shit that went down there even before Microsoft came into play. :lol

Nintendo seemed to have lost interest in most of these developers at some point. If they hadn't bought it Monolith Software would've probably ended the same way after Disaster. At one point Nintendo had all these 'core' games in development at various studios and suddenly they shot them down one by one.

Considering the low sales of Core games on the Wii, I can't blame them. They decided to just focus on a few really good ones and shoot the rest.

 

[The Awkward Wizard]

Staying with Nintendo is not always too helpful either, especially when it comes to their own studios (America-only, don't know about their Japanese ones). You don't get too much creativity and the management is kind of difficult to work with, which has led to an enormous turn-over rate at NST. Retro Studios is another example, they pitched various original IPs, but it all came down to the Zelda franchise. When that spin-off was canned and the creative leads left, the team was put on the DKC franchise.

Why is NOA so restrictive when NCL is so...unique?

Thousands of prototypes were done. Their EA project might've been cancelled though (it was under the Blueprint label which no longer exists).

And I'm guessing we'll never hear about those, unfortunately...

It would be extremely bad timing to talk about that story in detail. Kinect Sports is launching pretty soon and it wouldn't be fair to reveal all of their canned games/prototypes right now. It would also be way too much for this thread.

For the love of everything good, write a book/go to a real game journalist and he'll write an epic feature story. WE NEED TO KNOW

 

[[Nintex]]

Considering the low sales of Core games on the Wii, I can't blame them. They decided to just focus on a few really good ones and shoot the rest.

But this happened between 2006 and 2008 I think long before 'lol everything bombs on Wii'.

For the love of everything good, write a book/go to a real game journalist and he'll write an epic feature story. WE NEED TO KNOW

I know a few details and yes part of it is interesting, however some events aren't. A lot about that shit is like: "So what happened to [insert here]" and then you get the answer and you're like... "That's it?" . Just like when Rare showed their Wii Mote knock-off and Fast and Furriest to the world.

 

[hydragonwarrior]

DMA Design:
DMA Design originally partnered with Nintendo to bring out their first console game, Uniracers, for the SNES which was published by Nintendo. At one point, DMA was developing a game named Kid Kirby about Kirby as a kid for the SNES. Later, DMA signed up as a member of Ultra 64 Dream Team where they would make an exclusive game for Nintendo which Nintendo would publish. They eventually made Body Harvest for the N64 but Nintendo wouldn't publish it, so they shopped around for another publisher and eventually Midway published it. They also later made Space Station Silicon Valley for the N64.
Aftermath: DMA was bought out by Take-Two and renamed Rockstar North. After breaking up with Nintendo, they later released Grand Theft Auto III for the Playstation 2. Since then, their Grand Theft Auto franchise has become one of the biggest franchises in gaming.

Cool. And a lot of the examples in the opening post seem to be Nintendo losing interest in the company, rather than the other way around i.e. couldn't stick with Nintendo even if they wanted to

 

[A Link to the Past]

Next Level Games should not be on there; they were never exclusive to Nintendo. Their first game was multi-console, then two Nintendo exclusives, and then another multi-console, and then an XBL game. After Punch-Out!!, they began work on three more non-Nintendo affiliated projects.

 

[The Awkward Wizard]

I know a few details and yes part of it is interesting, however some events aren't. A lot about that shit is like: "So what happened to [insert here]" and then you get the answer and you're like... "That's it?" . Just like when Rare showed their Wii Mote knock-off and Fast and Furriest to the world.

I'm sure I'm making a big deal out of nothing, but I'm just really interested about what happened. PM me the info?

 

[Proven]

But this happened between 2006 and 2008 I think long before 'lol everything bombs on Wii'.


I know a few details and yes part of it is interesting, however some events aren't. A lot about that shit is like: "So what happened to [insert here]" and then you get the answer and you're like... "That's it?" . Just like when Rare showed their Wii Mote knock-off and Fast and Furriest to the world.

You're right. I read the OP and remembered the Nintendo fleeing too. I'm an idiot.

 

[[Nintex]]

I'm sure I'm making a big deal out of nothing, but I'm just really interested about what happened. PM me the info?

If I have some time I'll write down some stuff, some of it goes way back and is easily found on the internets. Again those are only bits and pieces only a few know the full story.

 

[gerg]

I like how the title both serves as a warning and as a piece of advice.

 

[Hero of Legend]

I worked at Left Field while it was under Nintendo and during the "break-up" which ultimately caused me to be laid off. (I'm not mad about it, I learned shit loads during the 3 years I worked there. It was my first game industry job. Plus I was only a kid... they let me go when I was .... 19... I think?)

During the period where Left Field had just broken free of Nintendo and was transitioning to multiplatform, spirits were high and generally everyone was happy with the decision as I recall. At that time Nintendo was not fun to work with, at least from what I saw.

Good thread though, caused me to reminisce a little bit. <3

Interesting. Where are you at now?

Speaking of, Left Field sorta "came back" with Nitrobike, referencing their Nintendo days and Excitebike 64, but that didn't turn out quite so hot, even with online.

I hope the later PS2 version didn't bog down the Wii game, maybe not as the Wii version came out in Jan '08, the PS2 version came out in Oct '08, plenty time for a downport I'd assume.

 

[Sammy Samusu]

Silicon Knights: They are hard at work on X-Men: Destiny.

 

[Cheerilee]

Flagsihp were part of Capcom (and were culled shortly after Clover were, though in a way a lot of people left in 2003 and I think the founder dying in 2005 lead to more) but I wonder, how did they get into a special relationship with Zelda (something I can only assume other developers have tried, only to fail...well except Philips :lol ).

As I heard it, they were given a GBC dev kit and were told that the GBC was approximately the same as a portable NES. The head of the team needed more than just that ballpark though, so he decided to run the system through it's paces by feeding it an NES game, and observing exactly how much better or worse it was than an NES and in what areas. Instead of using one of Capcom's NES games for his test though, he broke Nintendo's copyrights and used an illegal ROM of Zelda 1 he got off the internets.

His team was having some trouble with the kit and called Nintendo for help, and Miyamoto was personally doing the rounds on developer assistance at the time, so when Miyamoto himself showed up on their door, they were afraid that he was going to freak out on them, but he just looked at their test work and started helping them without batting an eye, and while chatting said that he was too busy making console Zeldas to work on handheld Zeldas, and asked if they could give him a hand with them.

Their original plan was to make three games, a port of Zelda 1, a port of Zelda 2, and an entirely new one of their own design. Then the plan changed to forget the ports and just make three games of their own design. When that became too much for them, they slimmed it down to two (the Oracle games).

For the GBA, they made a Zelda 3 port (which actually got released this time) and paired it with their own game, Four Swords. Then they also made the Minish Cap.

 

[Chrange]

Looks like the real lesson is simply 'don't make shitty games'

 

[dogbert]

Cool. And a lot of the examples in the opening post seem to be Nintendo losing interest in the company, rather than the other way around i.e. couldn't stick with Nintendo even if they wanted to

I was at DMA during that period & that's thoroughly wrong. DMA had multiple projects with Nintendo & continued to work with them, but DMA's management wanted to diversify so they jumped into bed with BMG Interactive for a multiple game, multiple SKU deal (GTA, Tanktics and a bunch more).

 

[Fantastical]

It's really a shame what happened to Factor 5. They seemed to be working very closely with Nintendo in their last days, and I would have liked to see their projects come to fruition. Less the Man Icarus stuff and more Pilot Wings and Rogue Squadron.

 

[Proven]

As I heard it, they were given a GBC dev kit and were told that the GBC was approximately the same as a portable NES. The head of the team needed more than just that ballpark though, so he decided to run the system through it's paces by feeding it an NES game, and observing exactly how much better or worse it was than an NES and in what areas. Instead of using one of Capcom's NES games for his test though, he broke Nintendo's copyrights and used an illegal ROM of Zelda 1 he got off the internets.

His team was having some trouble with the kit and called Nintendo for help, and Miyamoto was personally doing the rounds on developer assistance at the time, so when Miyamoto himself showed up on their door, they were afraid that he was going to freak out on them, but he just looked at their test work and started helping them without batting an eye, and while chatting said that he was too busy making console Zeldas to work on handheld Zeldas, and asked if they could give him a hand with them.

Their original plan was to make three games, a port of Zelda 1, a port of Zelda 2, and an entirely new one of their own design. Then the plan changed to forget the ports and just make three games of their own design. When that became too much for them, they slimmed it down to two (the Oracle games).

For the GBA, they made a Zelda 3 port (which actually got released this time) and paired it with their own game, Four Swords. Then they also made the Minish Cap.

Oh wow, Miyamoto just showing up at your door. That's cool. And I loved those Oracle games, my brother and I each got one and played through the games by swapping cartridges.

 

[Mooreberg]

Oh man Body Harvest was fucking awesome, DMA rocks my world!

Yeah but those bums haven't done anything since then!

 

[Anasui Kishibe]

looks like his aura still extends to Kyoto

 

[V_Ben]

It would be extremely bad timing to talk about that story in detail. Kinect Sports is launching pretty soon and it wouldn't be fair to reveal all of their canned games/prototypes right now. It would also be way too much for this thread.

I would certainly love to hear about these at some point. Maybe a couple of months after sports launches

 

[TheUnknownForce]

You should write a book about the full history of Rare. Including all the shit that went down there even before Microsoft came into play. :lol

After getting The History of Nintendo Volume 1, I am ALL for getting in-depth books about developers and franchises and the like, at least if they have as much media and content as the Pix n Love books.

So, yeah I agree

 

[dreamcastmaster]

I was at DMA during that period & that's thoroughly wrong. DMA had multiple projects with Nintendo & continued to work with them, but DMA's management wanted to diversify so they jumped into bed with BMG Interactive for a multiple game, multiple SKU deal (GTA, Tanktics and a bunch more).

Wow, Dogbert. There's a name I've not come across in a long time, good to see you're still around mate.

 

[Pacman2k]

Interesting. Where are you at now?

Speaking of, Left Field sorta "came back" with Nitrobike, referencing their Nintendo days and Excitebike 64, but that didn't turn out quite so hot, even with online.

I spent the last 6 years at Insomniac and recently moved on to a studio named Whitemoon Dreams.

I was watching Nitrobike when it came out hoping it was gonna be good. Never followed up on it, bummer to hear it didn't go so well.

 

[Shikamaru Ninja]

Dunno if all of these count, but:

• ASH
  [*]Card Hero
• Ch&#333;s&#333;j&#363; Mecha MG
• Electroplankton
• Ouendan/Elite Beat Agents
• Fossil Fighters
• Hotel Dusk
• Kurikin Nano Island Story
• Master of Illusion
• Project Hacker
  [*]Slide Adventure MAGKID
• Soma Bringer
• Style Boutique

...and that's DS only, and probably missing quite a few titles.

Card Hero is from Yoshio Sakamoto and planning team of SPD Group 1. And Slide Kid Adventure is from Kazunobu Shimizu of Nintendo NSD. Just to start.

 

[Ifrit]

Has it been confirmed that the too human sequels have been cancelled? I've never really seen anything official about that

 

[Jonnyram]

Wow... who would have thought Rockstar North had its origins in creating Uniracers. Loved that game to death back in the day.

It's hardly their origins. They made a fuckton of games before that came out, and have a long history dating back to home-computers in the 80s. In fact, way before GTA3, they had a major hit with Lemmings.

Anyway, the best part of this thread is Rare. They are in a much better position now than they were under Nintendo. They might not have the volume of sales, but they have nice offices, and I'm sure they get treated better all round.

 

[Jazzem]

As I heard it, they were given a GBC dev kit and were told that the GBC was approximately the same as a portable NES. The head of the team needed more than just that ballpark though, so he decided to run the system through it's paces by feeding it an NES game, and observing exactly how much better or worse it was than an NES and in what areas. Instead of using one of Capcom's NES games for his test though, he broke Nintendo's copyrights and used an illegal ROM of Zelda 1 he got off the internets.

His team was having some trouble with the kit and called Nintendo for help, and Miyamoto was personally doing the rounds on developer assistance at the time, so when Miyamoto himself showed up on their door, they were afraid that he was going to freak out on them, but he just looked at their test work and started helping them without batting an eye, and while chatting said that he was too busy making console Zeldas to work on handheld Zeldas, and asked if they could give him a hand with them.

Their original plan was to make three games, a port of Zelda 1, a port of Zelda 2, and an entirely new one of their own design. Then the plan changed to forget the ports and just make three games of their own design. When that became too much for them, they slimmed it down to two (the Oracle games).

For the GBA, they made a Zelda 3 port (which actually got released this time) and paired it with their own game, Four Swords. Then they also made the Minish Cap.

Ha, that's awesome, I'd only heard snippets of that story but had no idea about them downloading a Zelda 1 rom and such. Funny how things turn out. I love the Oracles games

 

[TheSeks]

It's hardly their origins. They made a fuckton of games before that came out, and have a long history dating back to home-computers in the 80s. In fact, way before GTA3, they had a major hit with Lemmings.

Yeah, DMA was LONG before Nintendo/SNES.

That said, one of their dudes split from them and went to Realtime Worlds to make ABP. So the lesson of this topic is: Don't make crap games?

 

[I NEED SCISSORS]

Yeah, DMA was LONG before Nintendo/SNES.

That said, one of their dudes split from them and went to Realtime Worlds to make ABP. So the lesson of this topic is: Don't make crap games?

But he also made Crackdown, which was good enough to warrant a sequel. The lesson is really: don't blow $100 million on a single game in a WOW-dominated MMO genre which you can't possibly make a profit on.

 

[TheSeks]

But he also made Crackdown, which was good enough to warrant a sequel. The lesson is really: don't blow $100 million on a single game in a WOW-dominated MMO genre which you can't possibly make a profit on.

AKA: Don't make crap games?

 

[GDGF]

Oh man Body Harvest was fucking awesome, DMA rocks my world!

Hell yeah it was. One of my favorite N64 games. Loved the atmosphere.

 

[Mockingbird]

Card Hero is from Yoshio Sakamoto and planning team of SPD Group 1. And Slide Kid Adventure is from Kazunobu Shimizu of Nintendo NSD. Just to start.

Well, in place of those you can add in

Zangeki no Reginleiv
The Last Story
Flingsmash
Line-attack Heroes
Sin and Punishment 2
Fluidity
Bonsai Barber
the art style series
you, me, and the cubes
etc.

 

[Shiggy]

Card Hero is from Yoshio Sakamoto and planning team of SPD Group 1. And Slide Kid Adventure is from Kazunobu Shimizu of Nintendo NSD. Just to start.

Are you sure about the latter? What was Agenda's involvement in Slide Kid?

Has it been confirmed that the too human sequels have been cancelled? I've never really seen anything official about that

Nothing official, but it's become pretty clear that Microsoft has no interest in the series, they even cancelled all DLC.

 

[Metroid Killer]

Awesome topic. I like hearing about little some of the less known details (such as the Zelda 1 illegal rom :lol )

 

[jax (old)]

read this in the morning on the ipad. great writeup

My reactions in particular

a) I wish SK had gone under
b) I wish F5 hadn't
c) Rare. LOL

wii games not selling (which I'm sure is what factored into EA decision) and killing the restarted whiteharvest is hard to read.

 

[BadSanta]

Interesting thread.

Given the money earned by Nintendo since the Wii launch and the poor quality of third party titles, it's a shame they didn't help some of these studios more and offer them to do what they don't want to do themselves.

 

[zigg]

While it's interesting to read about these guys' fates, the premise of this thread is weird, to say the least. The takeaway point I have is just that Nintendo was getting pretty good at knowing when to cut loose an impending liability.

But I miss the hell out of Fuse. Their last project for Nintendo, Pinball Pulse, is so good. I want more DSiWare tables from them.

 

[Yoboman]

Almost all of those developers were kind of one-hit wonders

 

[Cosmonaut X]

Card Hero is from Yoshio Sakamoto and planning team of SPD Group 1. And Slide Kid Adventure is from Kazunobu Shimizu of Nintendo NSD. Just to start.

I thought Slide Kid was by Agenda, though obviously with lots of support/input from Nintendo?

What others did I list that shouldn't have been? I picked titles I thought were developed by partners, even if they had Nintendo supervision or input.

Anyway, the best part of this thread is Rare. They are in a much better position now than they were under Nintendo. They might not have the volume of sales, but they have nice offices, and I'm sure they get treated better all round.

That really doesn't mesh with the scuttlebutt about lots of cancelled projects, being turned into a Kinect dev, replacement of management etc. If anything, from the outside looking in it seems that they are in a worse position than they were under Nintendo.

 

[levious]

They might not have the volume of sales, but they have nice offices

:lol

 

[Dascu]

Shame about Headstrong Games. Loved their Wii output. Though, at least they're still making games compared to others of the studios listed.