Topic: Should Nintendo establish an Indie publishing division?

In recent years, Major game publishers have established sub-divisions specializing in games from indie developers. Square Enix, Bandai Namco, and even EA have all jumped on the train. Nintendo's been pimping indie games as a major pillar of the Switch software library, and have published SFB Games' Snipperclips during the Switch's launch, as well as Cadence of Hyrule. However, what if Nintendo could take it a step further by building a separate division to publish and produce indie games. Having a dedicated Indie publishing division frees up some of Nintendo's resources that could go to other projects, plus it can also help further bolster Nintendo's annual Switch output, as well as further Nintendo's relationship with indie developers.

Nintendo are already publishing/commissioning indie games and there's a lot more example you don't realise like Flip Wars, Hydroventure etc so I don't there's a need to really. Also separating the publishing, distributing etc duties is more likely to strain resources rather than boost them.

Kinda defeats the point, of being, well... ''independent'', don't you think?

I'm not sure I see the need, unless they are aiming for more exclusives. They're already doing an excellent job of providing a platform for indie developers.

That said, I would encourage this if it got us more indie partnerships using Nintendo IP. Cadence of Hyrule is fantastic!

Well, other than indies, Nintendo already do a lot to publish a lot of games from Japan (Like Level-5 and Square Enix's stuff iirc), so they already kind of publishing things other people don't want to publish?

Not really. It'd function like how Square Enix Collective or Devolver Digital works. The developer keeps their independence, as well as co/full ownership of the IP. But the publisher provides the money and creative guidence needed for those indies who can't afford to self-publish.

Nintendo could publish games whilst remaining completely separate from development decisions and company ownership.
That would still be fairly independent. Developers would still decide what to make, then they'd submit their work on a game-by-game basis and Nintendo would choose whether to publish or not. Those developers would then be equally free not to submit their next game if they'd rather go multi-plat.
I was saying they should've done this with games like Shovel Knight and Steamworld Dig. Those developers both prioritized Nintendo as the main platform. Nintendo should've essentially just given them a small financial incentive to remain exclusive on Nintendo. I bet both companies would've agreed to for a relatively low price.

I think it'd especially benefit Japanese Indie studios as most of them don't have the financial resources needed to self-publish like a lot of western indies do.

I was going to say this forum is a oxymoron kinda like Octane was saying! But y'all changed my mind with some good points and examples.

Exclusive indie games aren't actually that uncommon believe it or not. It's just that porting them is so easy that a lot of the time, there isn't much reason not to bring a game to other platforms unless it's using unique hardware or there's a deal with the platform holder.

I would love to see them do more stuff like they did on the 3ds- Pocket Jockey, Street Pass, the submarine, tank and baseball games etc.

@rockodoodle Well there is stuff like Snipperclips, Tetris 99, Pokemon Quest and BoxBoy + BoxGirl. It's small, but we're getting there.

@TheMisterManGuy yeah, Tetris99 has been cool. I am hoping Nintendo does more like this with online for sure. I would be cool if they added games for free, but later had DLC or pay to play type microtransactions as long as you got significant value out of the initial free offering.

I don’t see the point of an extra division. Nintendo can publish them while still promoting them as indie.