Iwata: Nintendo “actively” looking to collaborate with third-parties

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With rising development costs, Nintendo’s global president Satoru Iwata has expressed that the company will “actively cooperate with software developers to produce something new beyond the traditional licensing business.”

Within last week’s Nintendo Direct, it was revealed that Nintendo and ATLUS have partnered to collaborate on a Shin Megami-Tensei and Fire Emblem crossover.

Similar collaborations with Nintendo have seen Namco Bandai working on the new Super Smash Bros., and the company teaming up with TT Games for LEGO City: Undercover.

“We announced a collaboration title of the ‘Shin Megami-Tensei (Japanese Title)’ series and ‘Fire Emblem’ series which ATLUS and we are cooperatively developing,” Iwata began.

“As the developing cost of games for home consoles has been high, it has been very difficult for third-party developers to take a risk by developing games only for one home video game console. We therefore have had various discussions with software developers for the projects.”

He continued, “Our in-house development team will create Nintendo-like unique games on our own and various games with the help of second-party development companies. However, this is not enough to have a large variety of games, and we have to do something to strengthen our lineup.

“Our efforts include the cooperative development of our IP games like the new ‘Super Smash Bros. (temp.)’ which we are developing with Namco Bandai and collaboration titles like the one with ATLUS I mentioned before, ‘LEGO CITY: Undercover’ which we are developing with Warner Bros. Entertainment and TT Games, and Ubisoft’s ‘JUST DANCE’ series which was a smash hit in the overseas markets and we localized for the Japanese market.

“We are willing to actively cooperate with software developers to produce something new beyond the traditional licensing business. We believe that this is possible because Nintendo is not only a platform holder but has a powerful in-house software development team.”

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