Topic: What do you guys think of Nintendo's current list of 1st party devs?

What do you guys honestly think about Nintendo's first party developers and how beneficial they can be for the future of nintendo and the nintendo switch?

Honestly, i think they could open/buy some more devs and it wouldn't hurt to let some of their current devs work on new original ip's.

If the Nintendo Switch actually ends up fusing Nintendo's console and handheld markets, I wouldn't see a need for more first-party devs. Also, I don't think a Nintendo console can sell really well without a healthy number of third-party games, and we've already seen that 3rd party games sometimes struggle to sell well since the install base is spending all their money on Nintendo games, so having more Nintendo games per year might not be the best thing.
On the other hand, since video games are getting bigger and more expensive to produce, I'd like to see more employees per development company instead of more development companies. That way Nintendo doesn't run into the problem it had with the Wii U launch, where they had to delay some games because HD development was a bigger undertaking than they thought.

This is kinda difficult. On the one hand the merging of both home and handheld development teams could allow for more games being produced for the Nintendo Switch in any given year than was possible on both Wii U and 3DS. However on the other hand I can see this being done mainly to allow for bigger games to be produced, and from what they learned from moving into HD development, more powerful hardware often means more resources.

I don't think internally Nintendo needs more teams but after seeing how Sony are going about supporting the PS4 during the PSX last Saturday, they definitely need to look into getting more external developers producing exclusives.

Actually I would like to see a few more 1st party devs. But under the condition that they give them to the IPs that are rarely getting games. F-Zero, Golden Sun, Advance Wars, etc.

I think for Nintendo to succeed they need to stop piling IPs on a single first-party and instead give the responsibility to someone else. Like how Grezzo makes some Zelda titles even if they are remakes

Now that they have all teams working on a single platform, I don't think Nintendo will have too much problems on the first party front. The 3DS has had a healthy game output all these years.
The main problem they have are third parties. They needs to get either exclusives or more support from them to pad the release calendar and not have to worry about releasing games every single month.

People shouldn't really want independent studios to be bought out, because as far as I'm concerned history tells us that if you're the CEO of a game development company and you sign the papers to sell your company off to an Activision or an EA or even a Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo then you are signing that company's death warrant. Might take years, might only take one big failed project but it's only damaging for the company in the long run.

I think Nintendo shouldn't buy out any companies and should prove that the current infrastructure they have is enough to support one system. The less Bullfrogs, Lionheads and the several studios quietly shut down by Sony this gen the better.

@Shinion Being independent doesn't offer any more stability than being part of a large corporation. One failed game again often leads to closure. And it happens a lot.

Also I don't recall Nintendo shutting down studios. They tend to just change what they do and make something else of it.

@FragRed That's true, but at least you have full control of your future and the big decisions for your company if you remain independent. Look at Titanfall 2, everyone with half a brain could see that it was absolutely maddening to release that game in between Battlefield One and CoD, and from what we've heard since from Respawn it certainly wasn't their decision to do that, as they would obviously want their project to stand a chance. Look at Deus Ex Mankind Divided, sources leaked out from the devs team that Square-Enid sprung on them that the game had to have a microtransactions pimping mode mere weeks before the game launched, and the devs were far from happy with that situation. Same is true I would imagine for Rise of the Tomb Raider, no way would a developer arbitrarily delay the PS4 release of their game just for the lols.

Any game studio is in the real world and has to deliver the green but the expectations, demands and just downright nonsense is elevated greatly once a publisher has their control.

Even Irrational closed down almost immediately after the really successful Bioshock Infinite because they were just tired of said expectations.

But I digress, on topic I believe Nintendo are fine as is.

I'm decently impressed so far, especially considering that they have Bethesda on board. That hardly ever happens with Nintendo consoles. Now, if they get From Software involved that would make a huge difference in my mind, because they are a company you wouldn't think in a million years would release on a Nintendo console. That would show me the huge potential of third party developers releasing on Nintendo Switch because having one well liked developer to release on the console is great, but two is even better. It could hopefully have a snowball effect with other developers assuming the console sells well. That being said, getting Bethesda is still a great first step even if it just a remaster.