The Canadian studio that is best known for the Mario Strikers series and reviving Luigi’s Mansion joins the Nintendo 1st party family.
Announced via investor relations last night, Next Level Games will be a wholly owned subsidiary by Nintendo. The purpose of the acquisition is to “secure the availability of Next Level Games development resources, including development expertise” and “facilitate an anticipated improvement in development speed and quality by enabling closer communication and exchange of staff with the Nintendo development team.” The acquisition, according to Shuntaro Furukawa (President of Nintendo), will not be official until March 1, 2021, due to conditions of shareholder approval and regulatory approval under Investment Canada Act.
This marks Nintendo’s first acquisition in eight years, following the acquisition of Brownie Brown Inc. which would be restructured and become 1-UP Studio Inc. for support development. Founded in 2002, Next Level Games has created many games for Nintendo as a second-party. Their resume includes the Mario Strikers series, Punch-Out!! reboot on Wii, Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon, Metroid Prime: Federation Force, and their recent release, Luigi’s Mansion 3.
Dave’s first Nintendo platform was the GameCube when he was age 7; however, he was introduced to Nintendo through Duck Hunt on NES.