Nintendo is acquiring SRD, the development house that assisted them on The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
This is Nintendo's second purchase in two years after buying Luigi's mansion studio, Next Level Games, in 2021
February 25, 2022 / 05:27 PM IST
SRD have been long-time collaborators with Nintendo, dating back to the NES era
Nintendo will acquire development house Systems Research and Development (SRD) for an undisclosed amount. SRD has assisted the company on various games, most recently The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
Their partnership dates back even further that, co-developing and assisting on various titles for the original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) like Super Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong. The Tokyo-based SRD will officially become part of Nintendo from April 1 this year.
As reported on by Eurogamer, SRD has also worked with Nintendo on various experimental projects such as Game Builder's Garage and Nintendo Switch's cardboard based accessory Nintendo Labo.
Also Read: Sony's PlayStation buys Bungie, game studio with Xbox ties
This will be Nintendo's second purchase in two years, with Vancouver-based Next Level Games joining the Nintendo stable in January 2021. They worked on Luigi's Mansion and are also working on the next Mario Strikers title, which was announced earlier this month.
Historically, Nintendo has been really selective with its purchases and is not known for many acquisitions. Comparatively, Microsoft and Sony have been on a purchasing spree of late, gobbling up studios in major deals like the recent Sony-Bungie deal for $3.6 billion or the proposed Microsoft-Activision Blizzard merger for an insane $68.7 billion.
Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa even went on record saying the company would rather invest in and consolidate their position with their existing portfolio of developers, rather than buy new ones.
As reported by Bloomberg, Furukawa said, “Our brand was built upon products crafted with dedication by our employees, and having a large number of people who don’t posses Nintendo DNA in our group would not be a plus to the company."
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