Iwata on third-party collaborations for Wii U, willing to actively team up with partners

Nintendo announced a completely unexpected title during last week’s Nintendo Direct: Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem. Atlus and Nintendo are bringing the two legendary franchises together on Wii U.

During the Nintendo Direct, Satoru Iwata briefly talked about the rise of console development costs and the need to strengthen its lineup through partnerships. Iwata once again spoke about this subject during Nintendo’s financial results briefing today, stating that the company is “willing to actively cooperate with software developers to produce something new beyond the traditional licensing business.”

Iwata said:

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

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.