Not big ones like sega or capcom. But smaller ones consisting of 200 people or less. The only ones they've purchased in the last 10 years are retro studios and monolith soft. That's not enough. Nintendo has so many IPs that are just lying dormant (star fox, f-zero, metroid). If they don't have the resources to make some new games themselves, then buy some new developers on staff and have them crank out sequels to popular franchises. Here's a complied list of examples:
Platinum Games - Starting with the most obvious one. They like Nintendo, they have Wii U dev kits, they've worked closely with Nintendo - if Nintendo bought them nobody would be surprised. Hell, they even flat out said that they'd love to be a second party developer for Nintendo.
Next Level Games - Based in Vancouver Canada. They've made excellent games for Nintendo. Like Luigi's mansion dark moon, Super mario strikers, Mario strikers charged, and Punch-out!! Nintendo needs to snatch them up already.
Monster Games Studio - Based in Minnesota USA. They mostly specialize in racing games. They've made Excitetruck, ExciteBots trick racing, Excitebike world rally, Pilotwings resort, Donkey kong country returns 3D. Nintendo should give them the keys to F-zero or a new Wii Sports and let them go to town.
Treasure - Would add one of the world's best shmup developers. These guys would make an awesome Star Fox. Or even Sin & Punishment 3!
Sandlot - Maker's of the EDF games. They have a small but vocal fanbase.
Frictional Games - developers of Amnesia. Just about perfect for an Eternal Darkness reboot.
Armature Studio - New, small studio that has done good work with some handheld ports.
Shin'en - Nearly a Nintendo developer anyway. Might as well make it official.
WayForward - They like Nintendo as well and the majority of their development is Nintendo-focused. Often considered as a good choice for a potential 2D Metroid game.
Sidhe - Developers of Gripshift and Shatter. They haven't done much of note in the past few years but when they make original stuff they are very good at rethinking and modernising basic concepts from older games.
Sumo Digital - These guys would also make an awesome F-zero. Their most recent work - Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed - is one of the best Wii U racing games and one of the best arcade-style racers in years. Difficult target though - they are consistently and reliably rumoured to be working on LBP3 so are unlikely to be buyable just yet.
Yager Development - Makers of Yager and Spec Ops: The Line, an FPS acclaimed for its narrative.
Grasshopper - I think buying this studio might turn out to be a mistake and I'm not sure they fit with Nintendo, but they have a fanbase and an interesting (if quite erratic) history.
Q-Games - Developers of the PixelJunk series (they have also worked with Nintendo on two Star Fox games), they're a small team with a surprising breath of games experience.
That's all I can think of. Adding even just half of these teams to their in house subsidiaries would be a huge help for Nintendo. All of them are relatively small teams and therefore wouldn't cost much for Nintendo to buy. Also, remember that Nintendo is not getting hardly any third party support. To counter this, they should focus on acquiring smaller talented development teams and increase their in house studios to pick up the slack. Anyone agree?
Platinum Games - Starting with the most obvious one. They like Nintendo, they have Wii U dev kits, they've worked closely with Nintendo - if Nintendo bought them nobody would be surprised. Hell, they even flat out said that they'd love to be a second party developer for Nintendo.
Next Level Games - Based in Vancouver Canada. They've made excellent games for Nintendo. Like Luigi's mansion dark moon, Super mario strikers, Mario strikers charged, and Punch-out!! Nintendo needs to snatch them up already.
Monster Games Studio - Based in Minnesota USA. They mostly specialize in racing games. They've made Excitetruck, ExciteBots trick racing, Excitebike world rally, Pilotwings resort, Donkey kong country returns 3D. Nintendo should give them the keys to F-zero or a new Wii Sports and let them go to town.
Treasure - Would add one of the world's best shmup developers. These guys would make an awesome Star Fox. Or even Sin & Punishment 3!
Sandlot - Maker's of the EDF games. They have a small but vocal fanbase.
Frictional Games - developers of Amnesia. Just about perfect for an Eternal Darkness reboot.
Armature Studio - New, small studio that has done good work with some handheld ports.
Shin'en - Nearly a Nintendo developer anyway. Might as well make it official.
WayForward - They like Nintendo as well and the majority of their development is Nintendo-focused. Often considered as a good choice for a potential 2D Metroid game.
Sidhe - Developers of Gripshift and Shatter. They haven't done much of note in the past few years but when they make original stuff they are very good at rethinking and modernising basic concepts from older games.
Sumo Digital - These guys would also make an awesome F-zero. Their most recent work - Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed - is one of the best Wii U racing games and one of the best arcade-style racers in years. Difficult target though - they are consistently and reliably rumoured to be working on LBP3 so are unlikely to be buyable just yet.
Yager Development - Makers of Yager and Spec Ops: The Line, an FPS acclaimed for its narrative.
Grasshopper - I think buying this studio might turn out to be a mistake and I'm not sure they fit with Nintendo, but they have a fanbase and an interesting (if quite erratic) history.
Q-Games - Developers of the PixelJunk series (they have also worked with Nintendo on two Star Fox games), they're a small team with a surprising breath of games experience.
That's all I can think of. Adding even just half of these teams to their in house subsidiaries would be a huge help for Nintendo. All of them are relatively small teams and therefore wouldn't cost much for Nintendo to buy. Also, remember that Nintendo is not getting hardly any third party support. To counter this, they should focus on acquiring smaller talented development teams and increase their in house studios to pick up the slack. Anyone agree?
