The N-Sider Files Volume #2 / nsidr

The N-Sider Files Volume #2

Welcome to another edition of the N-Sider Files. This is a feature where fact and speculation meet for a detailed look at the latest happenings in the world of Nintendo. In our second issue, we take a detailed look at the internal happenings at Nintendo Company Limited's Kyoto development staff.

Nintendo's abundance of GameCube titles?

Satoru Iwata has stated Nintendo Company Limited is currently working on 20 in-house titles for the Nintendo GameCube per development cycle. A staggering number when taking into consideration the decline of software released from the R&D1-R&D4 groups from 1996-2001. However, we think we can explain what happened.

It is odd from 1996-1998 the development team released a variety of high budget titles like Super Mario 64, Yoshi's Story, Star Fox 64, F-Zero X, 1080 Snowboarding, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Wave Race 64, Mario Kart 64, and Pokemon Stadium. In total, 9 games covering the span of July 1996 to November 1998.

Considering the fact Nintendo was also developing several undisclosed 64DD titles and aborted Nintendo 64 titles like Jungle Emperor Leo, it is a bit hard to gauge just how many titles (not counting Game Boy) NCL was handling per development cycle. Also note that several projects often become fused or dropped, so 20 GameCube projects can easily turn out to be 11-13 games released in 18 months even though there were 20 different coding projects at a time.

Ultimately, we think the two factors that can validate Nintendo's more efficient output are:

(1) Increased Development Staff

One thing very noticeable at Nintendo, is the company's expanding resources in the technology development groups. When Nintendo relocated offices in the Summer of 2000 to supposedly "accommodate its growing development staffs", not many people realized just how big this was.

With that in mind, we submit the company's archived induction list for its game development groups.

New Employees inducted in 1997

While in Fall 1997, Nintendo hired 18 new personnel to work in the R&D groups, it was apparent that the move to expand was made sometime in the middle of 1998.

New Employees Inducted in 1998	32
New Employees Inducted in 1999	42
New Employees Inducted in 2000	46
New Employees Inducted in 2001	40

That's 160 new employees to the company, who given the late 1998 entry were definitely absent from the Nintendo 64 scene, and likely have barely touched any of the 2001 software released by Nintendo. If the GameCube's ease of development, and Nintendo's larger staffs combine, then it is going to make a very noticeable difference with the R&D groups output.

(2) New Philosophy

In regards to GameCube development, Nintendo has taken a philosophy different from the N64. Nintendo's new philosophy is to develop a variety of small resource and fun titles to compliment the 3-4 big resource titles. All very contrary to the Nintendo 64's big six or bust philosophy, where Nintendo decided to develop 6 big titles and nothing else. The big problem with the big six or bust route, is that often those big six titles were delayed, and left Nintendo without a second-option. Even worse, several of those big R&D titles underperformed in sales. Developing simple games like Koro Koro Kirby 2 and Pikmin, promote fun games that are developed without huge delays, huge budgets and without eating up 10 programmers.

Why didn't Nintendo do this before?

While expanding the development teams did call for more funding and even a new headquarters, one of the biggest reasons for the game cycle increase seems to be the amount of capable directors now anxiously awaiting projects. Several designers and assistant directors working at the company for 6-12 years have basically earned their position. Just like Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka (both who are now Producers) were promoted from designers, to directors, to producers; the opportunity has to be given to the other personnel.

Now, the better question is when will Nintendo reveal these titles? Outside of confirming several titles in development (Mario Kart, Mario Sunshine, Koro Koro Kirby 2, The Legend of Zelda, Meowth's Party, Animal Forest, 100 Marios), Nintendo has at least promised to show off Mario Sunshine and The Legend of Zelda playable for the first time.

The Majora's Mask E3 Connection

Nintendo has apparently bestowed utter confidence in the three creators of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask; Eiji Aonuma (Director), Yoshiaki Koizumi (Assistant Director), and Mitsuhiro Takano (Script Writer, Designer). The three are reportedly now the lead directors of three separate titles; Mitsuhiro Takano with The Legend of Zelda for GameCube, and the other two projects are unannounced. All three finished Majora's Mask in the Spring of 2000, and begun working on GameCube projects right before Spaceworld.

(Speculation) From team N-Sider, we'd like you to write down with a number 2 pencil. Yoshiaki Koizumi is the Director behind the upcoming blockbuster Mario Sunshine, while Mr. Aonuma gets an equally large honor of working on a secret unannounced title. Do the three titles sound familiar to anything Mr. Miyamoto has said about E3?

Hideki Konno's Mario Kart, Toshiaki Suzuki's Koro Koro Kirby 2, Takao Shimizu's Meoths Party / Pokemon project are all very likely to show up at E3 in some capacity from EAD.