Nintendo Software Technology

Nintendo Software Technology
Division of Nintendo
Industry Video games
Founded 1998 (1998)
Founder Minoru Arakawa
Claude Comair
Headquarters Redmond, Washington, United States
Key people
 Shigeki Yamashiro (President)
Products List of software developed
Owner Nintendo
Number of employees
 50 (2016)
Parent Nintendo of America
Website www.nintendo.com/ Edit this on Wikidata

Nintendo Software Technology (or NST) is an American video game developer. NST was created by Nintendo as a first-party developer to create games for the North American market, though their games have also been released in other territories such as Europe and Japan. Although the development team is based in North America, there is a traditional Nintendo and Japanese-centric design applied to the development of the software. Co-founders Scott Tsumura and Claude Comair retired in 2002 and 2006, respectively. NST is currently headed by Shigeki Yamashiro, and is located inside of Nintendo of America's headquarters in Redmond, Washington.

Nintendo made the decision of transplanting several members of their development team in Japan over to America. NST also recruited several veterans from companies such as Rockstar Games, Electronic Arts, and Microsoft to further complete their development talent.

History

The establishment took place in 1998 through a collaboration with the private university DigiPen Institute of Technology, also located in Redmond. The offices opened with several doctorate level instructors and some recent graduates of the university working with several Nintendo of America designers and producers. Their first game, Bionic Commando: Elite Forces, was released for the Game Boy Color in 1999 and was a sequel of Capcom's Bionic Commando.

Over the years, NST has developed many games for Nintendo consoles such as the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series, Wave Race: Blue Storm, and Metroid Prime Hunters.

NST started developing Project H.A.M.M.E.R. For the Nintendo Wii but several problems landed the project in 'development hell'. A large amount of funding was spent on cut-scenes early in development and so when the project started to fall behind managers didn't want to end it because of the capital already spent. The American developers suggested that the problem was the gameplay however the Japanese managers believed the problems were the environments. This dispute, among others, made the project drag on for a number of years before it was totally abandoned and a large number of staff were made redundant.[1]

DigiPen's Main Campus was based in the same building as theirs until 2010.

List of software developed

Year Title Platform(s) Director Producer
1999 Bionic Commando: Elite Forces Game Boy Color Josh Atkins Andrew Hieke
Minoru Arakawa
2000 Ridge Racer 64 Nintendo 64 Akila Redmer Andrew Hieke
Minoru Arakawa
Crystalis Game Boy Color Josh Atkins Andrew Hieke
Pokémon Puzzle League Nintendo 64 Yukimi Shimura Takehiro Izushi
Genyo Takeda
2001 Wave Race: Blue Storm GameCube Shigeki Yamashiro Shigeru Miyamoto
Minoru Arakawa
2003 Nintendo Puzzle Collection (Panel de Pon) GameCube Hitoshi Yamagami
Yukimi Shimura		 Andrew Hieke
Takehiro Izushi
The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition GameCube Shigeru Miyamoto
1080° Avalanche GameCube Vivek Melwani Shigeki Yamashiro
Shigeru Miyamoto
2004 Mario vs. Donkey Kong Game Boy Advance Yukimi Shimura
Ridge Racer DS Nintendo DS Vivek Melwani Shigeki Yamashiro
2006 Metroid Prime Hunters Nintendo DS Masamichi Abe Shigeki Yamashiro
Kensuke Tanabe
Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis Nintendo DS Yukimi Shimura
2007 Sin and Punishment (English translation) Nintendo DS Hideyuki Suganami Masato Maegawa
Takehiro Izushi
2008 Super Smash Bros Brawl (Masterpiece Mode) Wii Masahiro Sakurai Kensuke Tanabe
Crosswords DS (Co-developed w/ Nuevo Retro Games) Nintendo DS Yukimi Shimura Shigeki Yamashiro
Masao Yamamoto
2009 Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again DSiWare Yukimi Shimura Shigeki Yamashiro
Kensuke Tanabe
2010 Aura-Aura Climber DSiWare Masamichi Abe Yukimi Shimura
Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem! Nintendo DS Yukimi Shimura Shigeki Yamashiro
Kensuke Tanabe
2012 Crosswords Plus Nintendo 3DS Stephen Mortimer Yukimi Shimura
2013 Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move Nintendo 3DS Yukimi Shimura
Kensuke Tanabe
2015 Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars Wii U / Nintendo 3DS Akiya Sakamoto
2016 Mini Mario & Friends: Amiibo Challenge[2] Wii U / Nintendo 3DS[2] Akiya Sakamoto
Kensuke Tanabe
Super Mario Maker for Nintendo 3DS Nintendo 3DS Yosuke Oshino Takashi Tezuka
Shigeki Yamashiro
Hiroyuki Kimura
2018 Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker Nintendo 3DS / Nintendo Switch Kenta Motokura
Shinya Hiratake		 Koichi Hayashida

List of applications developed

Year Title Platform(s) Director Producer
2006 Nintendo 64 Emulator Wii
2009 BBC iPlayer Channel Wii
Mario Calculator and Clock DSiWare Shigeki Yamashiro
Animal Crossing Calculator and Clock DSiWare Shigeki Yamashiro
2011 Kirby TV Channel Wii
2012 Wii U Chat (Co-developed w/ NERD and Vidyo)[3] Wii U Fumihiko Tamiya
2013 Wii Street U[4] Wii U Toshiaki Suzuki Keiichi Kawai

Cancelled games

Title Platform(s)
Project H.A.M.M.E.R. Wii

References

  1. ↑ "Project H.A.M.M.E.R. [Wii – Cancelled] – Unseen64". unseen64.net. 4 April 2008.
  2. 1 2 Allen, Eric Van (13 January 2016). "Mini Mario & Friends: Amiibo Challenge Announced as Pack-In with New Amiibo in Japan". ign.com.
  3. ↑ "Iwata Asks". nintendo.com.
  4. ↑ "Iwata Asks". nintendo.com.
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