Nintendo to Strengthen Game Development by 'Acquiring Development Companies' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 05 November 2025 / 4,328 Views
Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa in a presentation revealed the company wants to strengthen its internal video game development ability by acquiring companies to make them subsidiaries and to augment its own development facilities.
"Here, I will share specific examples regarding the funds to strengthen our business foundation, which I explained on the previous slide," said Furukawa. "There are three main investment areas.
"First is strengthening game development. We will work to strengthen the internal game development organization within the Nintendo group. This includes initiatives such as acquiring development companies to make them subsidiaries and augmenting our development facilities, and the construction of Corporate Headquarters Development Center, Building No. 2 (tentative name).
"Second is building software assets in non-game entertainment. Taking into account the success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, we will allocate funds to more actively pursue business opportunities that have an affinity with our game business, including but not limited to movies.
"Third is the foundation for maintaining and expanding our relationships with consumers. We will utilize funds to maintain and expand our touchpoints with consumers, centered on the Nintendo Account system."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
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Acquire Gamefreak and make them bring Poke'mon into the current century plz. We need a Poke'mon game with a team that matches the billions the franchise brings in. Poke'mon games currently just cost a few million, but sell like hotcakes.
The question mark here is who is to blame for the pokemon shovelware games of late? Game Freak clearly has talent judging by how impressive their upcoming non-pokemon game looks. Considering Pokemon is normally all Game Freak makes, it's hard to imagine they are the one's purposefully putting out terrible games that look 10-20+ years old.
Maybe it is Nintendo that are already the ones that are telling Game Freak the Pokemon gaming franchise doesn't matter and to just churn out absolute minimum effort games before moving on to the next game. In that case, Nintendo buying them would do absolutely nothing.
Or maybe it is The Pokemon Company itself that forces limited funds and time and demands they quit working on games when they are still in an alpha state, with decades old graphics and terrible game design.
Not sure how that Ninty/GF/TPC triumverate works. But it produces the most pathetic series of games in the industry and Nintendo buying GF would only fix things if Nintendo somehow has previously not had any power in that relationship, which seems unlikely.
I understand it is the Poke'mon Company. They are focused on the manga and tv show. Every new country in the manga has to have corresponding game or else. So instead of a new Poke'mon every five years we get a new Poke'mon every two years. GF is being forced to go at Poke'mon Company's manga pace. But yeah Nintendo should also buy Poke'mon Company as well.
Yeah, I highly doubt it's Nintendo, otherwise we'd be seeing the same low effort CoD-ification with other Nintendo IP like those with Mario in the name.
Nintendo please purchase Rare from Microsoft, even if you pay 20% more than its worth, imagine the games that could and should be
Sounds like you want Nintendo to have the IP moreso than the talent. Which is fine, because it's been about a quarter century since Nintendo sold its stock in Rare. Safe to say that most of that original talent has moved on (to Playtonic).
correct! and im sure nintendo can put a good team together to make some great rare titiles
ew I get it but eww. But maybe to keep them financially stable. Invest in Platinum Games. Not fully own but a percentage where they can still make games on other platforms but secures a relationship and financial security.
As much as I don’t favor acquisitions, I do think there are some studios Nintendo needs to get under their wing.
- Grezzo is an immediate example, being responsible for so many Zelda titles including the most recent Echoes of Wisdom.
- HAL Laboratories would also make a good addition.
- Intelligent Systems too, with their Paper Mario TTYD remake.
- Mercury Soft (esp with all the allegations of highly toxic work environment).
- etc…
I feel like all of these make sense... but the statement suggest to me they are thinking bigger buyouts
Eh… I read it more as an explicit statement regarding their recent decision to acquire studios like Shiver and NLG as Nintendo had almost no history of acquiring studios prior to them.
Yeah that's kind of my point though...
They weren't making statements when they bought NLG in 2021, Dynamo and SRD in 2022, or Shiver this year... so why make a statement now unless you're looking bigger?
Investors and the stock market. Every announcement they made from movies to games look like the kind of announcement a company makes to increase their value.
And that's completely ok.
I’d imagine Nintendo was doing a little bit of “double speak”: Investors hear “acquisition” and instantly start fantasizing about Nintendo acquiring a studio like Capcom or SquEnix… but reality is that we’re almost certainly never getting anything more than a Shiver Entertainment or Grezzo acquisition.
Nintendo has done extensive work with second party studios this past generation, far more than any generation prior. My guess is this is there way of building relationships with talented studios so as to determine which studios fit the “Nintendo standard of quality” as they begin expanding their headcount. Grezzo being given 2D Zelda and Mercury given 2D Metroid screams to me “testing the waters” and priming for integration.
That's a good point that I hadn't considered
Ironically, Capcom and SQE are the ones that came to mind for me
Especially considering Nintendo are the only ones I would trust with an acquisition
But to be clear I would they remain independent and multiplatform
Mercury Steam is already owned. IS and HAL do not need to be bought when they work so close to Nintendo anyway. They are never leaving Nintendo's side as is. Nintendo doesn't need more overhead for them. Grezzo maybe
Mercury is not currently owned by Nintendo…unless I’m misunderstanding? They have 40% stake ownership, but that’s about it.
MercurySteam is owned by Nintendo?
No by another company.
They have no reason to acquire companies that have always exclsuively worked with them anyway. Especially when they already own the ip or have co-ownership.
And IS already works out of Nintendo's buildings. If they ever decided to sell they would to Nintendo anyway. Nintendo has no need to go out of their way to buy them.
True but also sounds like what happened with Rare lol.
Nintendo happily let AlphaDream go bankrupt and close,
They also happily hired everyone they saw as talent after the closure as well...
There's no point in buying a bankrupt company when they don't own any IP and you can just hire the staff after the closure
They also happily hired everyone they saw as talent after the closure as well...
There's no point in buying a bankrupt company when they don't own any IP and you can just hire the staff after the closure
Should buy the Banjo ip.
If Microsoft continues the way they handle gaming, it won't be too long until Xbox and other MS Gaming divisions will be sold for a symbolic Dollar.
i hope you are correct!
And Conker, and Battletoads, and Killer Instinct, and Perfect Dark.
Relationship with consumers rather than customers, an interesting word choice there. Maybe start by not being so cutthroat with copyrights and patents and whatnot.
They should look for studios that are very talented but financially struggling. The type of studios that make great but niche games. If there are any of those around, Nintendo could secure their future and get top teams all in one fell swoop. Hopefully that's what they are looking to do rather than say just picking up game companies for to bring more IP under Nintendo's umbrella which is how Sony and Microsoft I think usually when doing acquisitions.
After all, Nintendo has tons of IPs to work with, some of which they could really bring back.
which titles are you looking to bring back?
F-Zero, Star Fox, Earthbound, Punch-Out, Custom Robo, Golden Sun and Wario Land.
star fox adventures 2 would be awesome
Hopefully they do the opposite of how Microsoft handled acquisitions.
Buy the studio that made PallWorld and have them make a new Pokomon game.
Nintendo needs support Studios to create new tools and engine. Their games look aged as f$#@, some look like early PS4 games from 2013-2015. Ninty needs to improve alot.
It would be amazing if Nintendo created a new studio with Toby Fox as well. He's already worked with Nintendo and he did the Earthbound Halloween rom hack (The song Megalovania first appears during the final boss fight in this rom), so maybe he could contribute to a new Earthbound game.
Sega would be easily affordable for Nintendo. IJS.
I don't think Nintendo would be interested in owning Sonic Racing and Total War. It's probably about bringing expertise in house they don't already have, not mere franchises.
And it would be weird and uncomfortable to have Sonic owned by Nintendo.
There's also Atlus, which would be a big get. But I think Nintendo also wants to expand capacity and ensure a fuller slate of game releases, which Sega would definitely help with. They want volume as well as expertise. They pretty much have expertise locked down anyway.
