• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

New article from EAD -- RIP R&D1

anotheriori said:
The draw back is that instead of having creative designers compete against each other, you have them all mashed into one group where it could be better or worse if creative ideas conflict. As for the IP i think Metroid 'belonged' to R&D1 in that Gunpei created it, its is understandable the kind of frustration the R&D1 must've felt having to do hand me down versions of mario for portable.. makes so much sense how wario was created.

... but they aren't "mashed into one group" -- there are multiple design teams working independently of each other. Yes, they are all under the EAD name now, but the same article goes on to point out that many designers were promoted to producer levels. The individual design teams remain individual, but they are now all classified under the same catagory. Team 1 isn't going to necessarily have to deal with Team 2's ideas.

I have one other issue here -- the article assumes that R&D1 was necessarily frustrated by EAD's prominence, but they have no proof of that being the case. They harp on them being pigeonholed into Super Mario Land games, but there was a three year gap between the release of Super Mario Land and Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins... that hardly seems like they were forced into making nothing but Mario titles. Could Wario be a sign of defiance? Possibly, but the article appears to be nothing but speculation and hype as far as that matter goes. I'm almost surprised the author didn't speculate that Gumpei's death was caused by a mysterious Italian plumber zipping past him on the freeway.
 
... but they aren't "mashed into one group" -- there are multiple design teams working independently of each other. Yes, they are all under the EAD name now, but the same article goes on to point out that many designers were promoted to producer levels. The individual design teams remain individual, but they are now all classified under the same catagory. Team 1 isn't going to necessarily have to deal with Team 2's ideas.

The main difference is that in the old days, R&D1 creative heads had no idea what R&D4 creators were doing. As a method of competition, they were not allowed into each others department. Now. Miyamoto and Tezuka are involved in every game, even if the team members have their own sort of arrangement. It is definitely a change.

I'm almost surprised the author didn't speculate that Gumpei's death was caused by a mysterious Italian plumber zipping past him on the freeway.

I almost might take offense to that. If you don't agree with my opinion thats fine. I feel I provide A LOT of information eitherwise.

This article is misleading. R&D1 is not dead, just merely reorganized.

If by reorganized you mean the fact that the two former general managers are gone, several staff retired, and most of what was a core team having been merged into other teams. Then yes reorganized. R&D1 is dead technically on paper. And if you want to talk spiritually, I mean Sakamoto is there but whatever team he is in, I can guarantee you its going to be different. Though truth in the matter, hopefully at least half of the Metroid team is there.

Seriously, treating R&D1 and EAD like separate companies is not just silly, but downright retarded. They are all internal development teams/departments at Nintendo and can be altered, merged, or divided at will.

There is no argument there. Never do i treat them as different companies. However, there were some traditions and guidelines the groups followed. And they definitely had their own identity.

By merging all of game development under one branch instead of having several teams, sounds like a really smart idea IMO. (I mean merging them all under EAD, as opposed to having EAD, R&D1, R&D2, etc. stand side by side)

I stated how I think hopefully this means more games are released overall.

And unlike Nintendo's 2nd parties, it's not like Nintendo's internal teams really "owned" any individual properties. I mean, Metroid wasn't exclusive to R&D1 after all.
The 3D Metroid and Wario were out of R&D1 jurisdiction. Obviously, there was a reason for it.

Correct. Both GBA Metroids are R&D1's games, though key IS staffers were also on board.

No Intelligent Systems assistance at all in any of the GBA Metroids. There was IS assistance on Wario Ware Touched and Twist though. The original Wario Ware was done by R&D1, and since then, they havent fully released anything.
 
Yeah, true.. but it seems the least likely at this point
 
What I don't understand is that why do we have multiple games like 4 Mario Parties, 2 Metroids (more if you count the DS), hell even several Zeldas, but only one Mario and one Smash bros?
 
Oblivion said:
What I don't understand is that why do we have multiple games like 4 Mario Parties, 2 Metroids (more if you count the DS), hell even several Zeldas, but only one Mario and one Smash bros?

Studio preference, I guess. Mario Party isn't from Nintendo, it's from Hudson--actually, a co-founded studio within Hudson, if I remember right. Anyway, they've never made anything but Mario Party, and maybe never will. Working there must be hell.

Metroid Prime=Retro. They're quite possibly stuck with Metroid and nothing else, forever. A far better fate than Mario Party!

Zelda's been handed off to Aonuma and his team, again with the possibility that he'll never be allowed to do anything else.

But Mario (at least, the "real" Mario games) is still Miyamoto's baby. There's no dedicated "Mario" team--EAD does other stuff, notably Pikmin, this gen.

And Smash Bros. is HAL Labs, whose main squeeze is Kirby. It's just our dumb luck that they wanted to re-do Smash Bros right away this gen, since the N64 version sucked.
 
Kroole said:
Why would that be stupid?

They contributed greatly to what has now become Nintendo´s cash cow. I'd say that it was quite a good decision in retro aspect.
"retro aspect" :lol
 
Aloha!

As far as I know a Super Mario Sunshine director, namely Mr. Koizumi, went in EAD Tokyo branch, the other director was Mr. Usui, I don't know much about him. I dont't know why Miyamoto allowed the Super Mario Sunshine team to split either.

Hal laboratories have a Kirby platform for GameCube to finalize and release, I don't know if they have started next Super Smash Brothers installment.

lo zaffo - Italy
 
Leondexter said:
And Smash Bros. is HAL Labs, whose main squeeze is Kirby. It's just our dumb luck that they wanted to re-do Smash Bros right away this gen, since the N64 version sucked.

Ermm...no.

The N64 version didn't suck, and HAL actually planned an N64 sequel for a while until they canned it in favour of a GC version. As for why no sequel this gen, a couple of reasons come to mind. Firstly, maybe they didn't think they could top it on the same system, it's pretty damn complete. Secondly, the creator left Nintendo (also created Kirby) which may well have thrown the team into some turmoil, as I hear he was highly influential in jamming so much into the sequel. Finally, I believe Nintendo might look at Smash Bros as the new Mario Kart: an incredibly popular multiplayer game that only sees a release once per system, probably to stop the game losing its appeal.

As for why only one Mario a gen, I don't think it's intentional. Mario 64 2 was unfortunate enough to be a 64DD title and pretty much sank with that system, though I seem to recall some attempt to bring it over was made. And this generation, following a mixed reaction to Sunshine, Miyamoto wanted to go back to the drawing board and make Mario games simple to pick up again. I'm sure they intended to get a GC sequel out, but a combination of being distracted by other projects and not falling upon an idea they definitely want to go with has meant it's so near the end of the generation now that putting it on the next system makes too much sense.

Also, I'm sure Nintendo are quite happy with the mileage they get out of Mario. If Zelda games are missing, or Metroid games, or whatever, they're not exactly taking advantage of Link and Samus's popularity. If the main Mario games are missing though, they've still got him all over the place in sports games and party games and dance games and racing games and all sorts.

Hal laboratories have a Kirby platform for GameCube to finalize and release, I don't know if they have started next Super Smash Brothers installment.

They have. HAL are plenty big enough to work on 3 or 4 games at once.
 
I find it interesting that so many of Nintendo's home console development teams are now working on DS games. The DS is almost like a mini home console, not a traditional portable console. Maybe Nintendo was so scared of the PSP that they felt that everyone at Nintendo needs to work on DS titles from now on, even Shigeru Miyamoto and Eiji Aonuma.
 
Digital Dark World said:
I find it interesting that so many of Nintendo's home console development teams are now working on DS games. The DS is almost like a mini home console, not a traditional portable console. Maybe Nintendo was so scared of the PSP that they felt that everyone at Nintendo needs to work on DS titles from now on, even Shigeru Miyamoto and Eiji Aonuma.

with that attitude, the DS is going to be one of the best handhelds to date. The GBA with very little effort became the best system to date....now with a huge backing, the DS is going to be killer.
 
Originally Posted by Kroole:
Why would that be stupid?

They contributed greatly to what has now become Nintendo´s cash cow. I'd say that it was quite a good decision in retro aspect.

"retro aspect" :lol

Heh.. Might have been a little swenglish there.
 
Shikamaru Ninja said:
The main difference is that in the old days, R&D1 creative heads had no idea what R&D4 creators were doing. As a method of competition, they were not allowed into each others department. Now. Miyamoto and Tezuka are involved in every game, even if the team members have their own sort of arrangement. It is definitely a change.
Yeah, you're right about that... but now Miyamoto and Tezuka are company-wide execs, as opposed to heads of individual teams, right? Effectively it amounts to an old EAD guy supervising a formerly independent team's work, although technically the teams are still seperate and independent (as Miyamoto isn't a head of an individual team now ... right? Or am I wrong about that?) In theory, the individual teams remain independent of each other, right?

Shikamaru Ninja said:
DavidDayton said:
I'm almost surprised the author didn't speculate that Gumpei's death was caused by a mysterious Italian plumber zipping past him on the freeway.
I almost might take offense to that. If you don't agree with my opinion thats fine. I feel I provide A LOT of information eitherwise.

Sorry -- I think I wasn't quite in my best mind last night. I just meant to say that I thought the implied resentment of EAD by R&D1 was lacking in support and evidence for my liking... however, it reminded me of some really WEIRD folks who were spinning a bizarre Nintendo conspiracy theory around Gumpei's death. Sorry -- I should have thought a bit more before writing that. I meant no disrespect towards you or towards Gumpei at any time -- I was badly attempting to show how I thought the R&D1 annoyance was more speculation than fact at the present time.

Urk.

In general, though, I love the article -- I guess I'm just saying that while it's quite possible for R&D1 to be "lost" through this process, and for them to have had years of feeling "left out", I'd want more evidence before so strongly implying that they've always been annoyed at dealing with EAD's preeminence.
 
Top Bottom