Kirby studio HAL Laboratory has relocated its main Tokyo office to Nintendo's new building in the city, it has been revealed.
The company – which remains independent but has strong ties with Nintendo (referred to in Japan as "keiretsu") – has also taken on more staff, bringing its headcount up from 169 to 195.
While this might seem like a big change, HAL was previously headquartered in Nintendo's Tokyo Prefecture Building, located in Nihombashi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, but moved out in 2003 to a new office in Kanda Suda-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo.
While Nintendo remains headquartered in Kyoto, its new Tokyo base is becoming a vital location when it comes to game development. Pokémon studio Game Freak has already moved to the new building, along with Nintendo EPD Tokyo, Nintendo PTD Tokyo and 1-Up Studio. With HAL joining the setup, that's quite a formidable selection of development talent all in one place.
HAL's Yamanashi office remains unaffected by the move.
[source old.reddit.com, via gonintendo.com]
Comments 11
I'm expecting a massive explosion of content to come from Nintendo and their second party devs.
By condensing all of their home console and handheld efforts into just one platform- I expect that any software they started at the end of the 3DS's life cycle will be there or thereabouts ready to reveal on Switch- given they will have had 2-3 years to prepare something by now.
In theory we should be seeing double the amount of Nintendo's own IP on a single console, shouldn't we?
@Scottwood101
This theory would only apply if producing Switch games was as quick and cheap as producing 3DS games.
Which it isnt.
@Scottwood101 They are releasing a game a month. I would say that makes them prolific enough.
Don't forget Boxboy, a great game!
@westman98 oh right, fair enough if you have first experience on that front, but that theory is the complete antithesis of what has been said by various indie developers, especially if it isn't a particularly power hungry game. Take this article for instance https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/293404/Whats_it_like_developing_for_the_Switch_9_indie_studios_weigh_in.php
A reply to comment #6 which is a reply to comment #3 (NintendoLife's outdated comment system)
@Scottwood101 The article you link is OK and I wish NintendoLife articles were made like this (which 99,99% aren't) BUT ... the content of this particular article is not relevant as it dates from 10/3/2017, just 7 days after Switch's release date.
@Cosats yeah note taken. I just took from it that in the earliest days of development, devs were commenting on how developing appeared to be a doddle compared to on previous hardware.
@Cosats We've done loads of articles along those lines, you must have missed them:
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2019/12/feature_what_developers_really_think_about_the_nintendo_switch_in_2019
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2019/03/feature_what_developers_really_think_of_the_nintendo_switch_eshop
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2020/04/feature_switch_developers_open_up_about_the_impact_of_covid-19
Wonder if their other office is the one that's been referenced in their games?
Better bring a new, strong, proper Kirby game then. No more free-to-play nonsense (besides, we can all use a new dose of awesome Kirby music)!
@Scottwood101
Well yes, that's the reason why the indie scene on Switch is like 20x greater than the indie scene on 3DS.
But if you are referring to bigger budget titles that could be sold at retail for $60, then no, Switch development will be much more resource-intensive than 3DS development.
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