With the new Donkey Kong game, Nintendo now has 13 active first-party franchises

Kotaro said:
What franchise should Nintendo re-activate next? Kid Icarus, Starfox?
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Mhmmm 2077 said:
is it first party then? if the IP holder is a 3rd party company and the developer is also a 3rd party company? it's more like 2nd party, with Nintendo funding the games, no?
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Second party is a bit nebulous, but basically its a type of first party game.

When Nintendo reports sales to investors they have first party sales and third party ones. There's no seperate second party category.

The first party list contains any game where Nintendo is the publisher, regardless of IP or developer ownership.

For example, when Spiderman PS4 came out in 2019 it was a first party game, even though Sony didn't own Insomniac or Spiderman.
 
Woopah said:
If I remember correctly, Pokémon ownership is split three way between Nintendo, Game Freak and The Pokémon Company.

Then ownership of The Pokémon Company is split three way between Nintendo, Game Freak and Creatures.

For Smash Bros., the copyright is written as "© Nintendo / HAL Laboratory, Inc." so that makes me think HAL has some sort of stake in it. But I'm not 100% sure.
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Ah yes, Creatures or Game Freak was a spin out company from HAL if I remember. Yes, HAL likely have some stake in Smash then.
 
apple_of_enlightenment said:
Ah yes, Creatures or Game Freak was a spin out company from HAL if I remember. Yes, HAL likely have some stake in Smash then.
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I had to double check this, but it looks like when Iwata was at HAL he helped the people who worked on the Mother series to found a new company called Creatures.

So that seems to be the link.
 
nial said:
Level-5? Nintendo has nothing to do with those games, lol.
And they don't own The Duskbloods either, which is also published by From Software in Japan.
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that's alright. i can see more projects between Nintendo and From Soft in the future
 
Woopah said:
If I remember correctly, Pokémon ownership is split three way between Nintendo, Game Freak and The Pokémon Company.

Then ownership of The Pokémon Company is split three way between Nintendo, Game Freak and Creatures.
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no, the Pokémon Company is the owner of the Pokémon IP.

and Nintendo, Game Freak and Creatures Inc all own 1/3 of the Pokémon Company.
but afaik Nintendo is officially the majority owner.

they created the Pokémon company together to manage the ip
 
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kevboard said:
no, the Pokémon Company is the owner of the Pokémon IP.

and Nintendo, Game Freak and Creatures Inc all own 1/3 of the Pokémon Company.
but afaik Nintendo is officially the majority owner.

they created the Pokémon company together to manage the ip
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Yes you're right. I don't think we know whether Nintendo is a majority owner though.
 
They took the opportunity of tapping Starfox 64 vibes to deliver a doomed Wii U gamepad sequel. In my mind, it's the worst timeline that betrayed my childhood.

Sure, they can always make a 64 aesthetic SF64 sequel without all that. But they already blew their load on it, so it won't happen. If they make a new game at all, everything will be fresh and different, like the new DK.

I'll never stop being angry about this.
 
apple_of_enlightenment said:
Yes Nintendo may not be the majority owner, and not the overall controller for the IP, but it's the controller for video games of the IP. Which is what really matters.
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To me the important thing is that they are the publisher. There's several first party games where the publisher doesn't own the IP (Indiana Jomes, Wolverine and MLB The Show for example).
 
Woopah said:
Yes you're right. I don't think we know whether Nintendo is a majority owner though.
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Just speculation, but it feels like they'd be even more heavily involved in the games if that was the case, at least in terms of quality control.

I'm pretty sure Nintendo is the sole owner of all the trademarks though (the name "Pokemon", every Pokemon name, logotypes etc.). So they seem to be sitting on the most valuable assets.
 
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Robb said:
Just speculation, but it feels like they'd be even more heavily involved in the games if that was the case, at least in terms of quality control.

I'm pretty sure Nintendo is the sole owner of all the trademarks though (the name "Pokemon", every Pokemon name, logotypes etc.). So they seem to be sitting on the most valuable assets.
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Yes I believe Nintendo does own the trademarks. I don't think we can judge IP ownership from game quality though.
 
Woopah said:
To me the important thing is that they are the publisher. There's several first party games where the publisher doesn't own the IP (Indiana Jomes, Wolverine and MLB The Show for example).
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That's the key thing yes, that they're exclusive publisher of the Pokemon video games.

Wolverine is a little different as it could potentially be published by different companies on a per contract basis (I think X men stuff has been in the past, not sure), whereas Nintendo seems to have exclusive indefinite publishing rights for Pokemon.
 
apple_of_enlightenment said:
That's the key thing yes, that they're exclusive publisher of the Pokemon video games.

Wolverine is a little different as it could potentially be published by different companies on a per contract basis (I think X men stuff has been in the past, not sure), whereas Nintendo seems to have exclusive indefinite publishing rights for Pokemon.
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Correct, Wolverine is closer to what Nintendo did with Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3. They own the rights to the first party game, but own 0% of the IP.
 
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I wish they would create Doki Doki Panic games again as none of the Mario games since SMB2 has scratched that same itch for me.
 
What constitutes as "active"?

We're getting new rhythm heaven and Tomodachi Life games next year. We got a new WarioWare just a few years ago too.
 
Bridges said:
What constitutes as "active"?

We're getting new rhythm heaven and Tomodachi Life games next year. We got a new WarioWare just a few years ago too.
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good point, Tomodachi is definitely another active Nintendo 1st party IP.

WarioWare is part of Mario IP
 
Kotaro said:
Nintendo active 1st party IPs:

1. Mario (including many sub-series: main series, Kart, Party, 2D platformer, RPG, Paper, Sports, etc)
2. Zelda (including Hyrule Warriors)
3. Pokemon (including Detective Pikachu)
4. Animal Crossing
5. Smash Bros
6. Metroid
7. Donkey Kong
8. Kirby
9. Splatoon
10. Pikmin
11. Fire Emblem
12. Xenoblade
13. Luigi Mansion
14. Tomodachi

What franchise should Nintendo re-activate next? Kid Icarus, Starfox?

Out of curiosity, how many active first party franchises do Sony and MS have?

EDIT: Added Tomodachi as pointed by Bridges Bridges
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Where is F-ZERO?
 
Kotaro said:
it just doesn't count, rhythm heaven also don't count, same with Wii sports. Games like those or Labo, don't count
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Why? They are franchises Nintendo are producing which have got new entries

What makes Tomodachi count that doesn't apply to Rhythm Heaven or Famicom Detective Club?
 
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Mister Wolf said:
Damn shame if Xenoblade 1 - 3 and X don't have day one free patches. They gotta keep growing the franchise.
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This and also I hope Nintendo doesn't forget about Astral Chain.

I would love to see upgrade version for Switch 2 and later on sequel for it.
 
Woopah said:
Why? They are franchises Nintendo are producing which have got new entries

What makes Tomodachi count that doesn't apply to Rhythm Heaven or Famicom Detective Club?
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Tomodachi actually sold a lot, Detective Club is very niche
 
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