List of Nintendo developers

This is a list of current and former first-party, second-party, and devoted third-party game developers for Nintendo systems. Both First and Second Party Developers of Nintendo can have games published by Third Party Companies, but they must remain exclusive to Nintendo systems.

First-party

A first party developer is a subsidiary of Nintendo and one in which Nintendo has a controlling interest in (51% or more ownership).

Current first-party

*Brownie Brown — Software developer consisting of former members of Squaresoft. Responsible for "Magical Vacation" and "Magical Starsign", and for supporting Shigesato Itoi and HAL with "Mother 3".
*Intelligent Systems — Established in 1986 by former members of Nintendo Research & Development 1 to develop games. Responsible for "Metroid", "Fire Emblem", "Wario Ware", "Card Hero", "Paper Mario" series and "Famicom Wars" franchises.
*Monolith Soft — Founded in 1999 by a former member of Square Co., Nintendo bought a majority stake on April 27, 2007 from Namco Bandai. Developer of the "Xenosaga" series, as well as "Namco x Capcom", and the "Baten Kaitos" series. Developed the Wii title ' and the DS titles "Soma Bringer" along with '.
*Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development (Originally "Nintendo Research & Development 4") — Largest division at Nintendo. Managed by Shigeru Miyamoto. Responsible for the "Mario", "Star Fox", "Zelda", "Animal Crossing", "Wii Series", and other franchises.
*Nintendo Software Technology Corporation — Redmond-based studio responsible for "Metroid Prime Hunters", among others.
*Nintendo Software Planning and Development — Development division inside Nintendo. SPD was created during a corporate restructuring in 2004 and primarily assists other first party teams and manages overseas production of first party franchises.
*Retro Studios — Austin-based studio fully owned by Nintendo. Developer of the "Metroid Prime" games excluding "Hunters" and "Pinball".

Defunct first-party

*Nintendo Research & Development 1 (Merged into Nintendo EAD) — Responsible for games such as "Metroid", "Kid Icarus", and "Super Mario Land".
*Nintendo Research & Development 2 (Merged into Nintendo EAD) — Responsible for the Super Mario Advance games on the Game Boy Advance and peripherals for Nintendo.
*Nintendo Integrated Research and Development (Nintendo IRD) — Responsible for the Punch-Out!! series and the StarTropics series of games, as well as Teleroboxer, though focused primarily on hardware research and design.

econd-party

A second-party developer is one that creates games exclusively for Nintendo systems through a contract agreement. Nintendo may or may not own a percentage of the studio, but not enough to give it a controlling interest.

Current second-party

*AlphaDream — Developer of "Tomato Adventure" (Japan only) and the "Mario & Luigi" games.
*Ambrella — Developer of "Hey You, Pikachu!", "Pokémon Channel", "Pokémon Dash", and "My Pokémon Ranch".
*Camelot Software Planning — Developer of Nintendo's Mario Golf and Mario Tennis series as well as the Golden Sun franchise. Recently developed We Love Golf for the Wii, published by Capcom.
*Game Freak — Developer of the "Pokémon" video game series and "Drill Dozer".
*Genius Sonority — Developer of "Pokémon Colosseum", its sequel, "Pokémon XD", "Pokémon Trozei", and "Pokémon Battle Revolution".
*HAL Laboratory — Developer of the "Kirby" franchise, "Super Smash Bros." series, the "Eggerland" series (also known as the "Adventures of Lolo" series), the development of the e-Reader, and co-produced the "EarthBound/Mother" series.
*NDCUBE — Developer of "", Tube Slider, and various other Game Boy Advance and GameCube titles.
*Noise — Developer of the "Custom Robo" franchise.
*skip Ltd. — Developer of the series, the bit Generations series (Japan only), GiFTPiA (Japan only) and Captain Rainbow for Wii.

Defunct second-party

*Clever Trick — Developer of "Echo Delta".
*Param — Developer of "Doshin the Giant".
*Saru Brunei — Developer of the GameCube title ""

Former second-party

*Factor 5 — Known for series. Currently developing an unnamed game for the Wii.
*Rare — Although at one time under a 49% ownership by Nintendo, Rare is now owned by Microsoft. It was responsible for such titles as "Donkey Kong Country"/"Land"/"64", "GoldenEye 007", "Banjo-Kazooie", "Battletoads", "Blast Corps", "Perfect Dark", "Jet Force Gemini", "StarFox Adventures", "Conker's Bad Fur Day", and "Killer Instinct". It has, however, developed games for Nintendo handhelds during Microsoft's ownership, including "Diddy Kong Racing DS" and "".
*Silicon Knights — Developed "Eternal Darkness" and co-developed with Konami on the remake of Metal Gear Solid, "".

Third-party

A third party developer is one that is not tied to any specific system. Those listed here have expressed explicit support for Nintendo systems, with some developers creating games exclusively for Nintendo systems.

Current Exclusive to Nintendo systems

*5TH Cell - Developer of Drawn to Life series for Nintendo DS and Wii.
*EA Salt Lake — Formerly known as Headgate Studios, it was bought by Electronic Arts and is now creating games exclusively for the Wii and Nintendo DS.
*Fall Line — Salt Lake City based game developer formed by Disney to create games exclusive to Nintendo systems.
*Firebrand Games — Develops racing games, such as Codemasters' for the Nintendo DS. It is developing for the Wii as well.
*Fuse Games — A British Pinball game company who made "Mario Pinball Land" and "Metroid Prime Pinball".
*Headstrong Games (formerly known as Kuju London) — Developer of the Battalion Wars series of games; this studio is exclusive to Nintendo. Currently developing the Wii-exclusive "" for Sega.
*Jet Black Games — Created by former developers at EA Canada, it have announced that it will license and develop games exclusively for Nintendo's hardware.
*Jupiter — Developer of the Nintendo DS game "Spectrobes", the "Pokemon Pinball" series, and "" among other titles.
*Image Epoch - Developer of several new IPs for DS and Wii, including "Luminous Arc", "World Destruction" and "Arc Rise Fantasia". All currently released and planned titles are for Nintendo systems.
*Nibris - Polish developer which intends to publish exclusively for Nintendo systems. Titles currently in development include "Sadness", "ROTR", several WiiWare titles, and more
*Shin'en — Developer of the "Nanostray" games for the DS.
*Sora Ltd. - Founded by former HAL Laboratory employee Masahiro Sakurai, Sora developed "Super Smash Bros. Brawl" for the Wii.

Not Exclusive

*Artoon — Created "Yoshi Topsy-Turvy" and "Yoshi's Island DS".
*Atlus — Developer of the Nintendo exclusive "Trauma Center series" , "Etrian Odyssey series" along with a number of other games.
*Capcom — Has developed and published a number of games for Nintendo, including those from the esteemed Zelda (portable) franchise. Developing/Developed the Wii exclusives ' , "Sengoku Basara 2" , "Monster Hunter 3", and '.
*Cing — Developer of the Nintendo DS games "Trace Memory" and "" and the forthcoming "Little King's Story".
*Dimps- Developer of and for GameCube and the Sonic Rush games for DS.
*Grasshopper Manufacture — Led by Goichi Suda, is responsible for "Killer 7" for the Nintendo GameCube, "Contact" for the Nintendo DS, and "No More Heroes" for the Wii.
*Hudson Soft — Now belongs to Konami; its first collaborated game with Nintendo was "". Hudson Soft also develops the "Mario Party" series, though its involvement with the Mario franchise has dated back to "Super Mario Bros. Special", which was released around the same time as "The Lost Levels".
*iNiS — Developer of the rhythm games "Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan" and its Western adaptation "Elite Beat Agents".
*Konami — Created the Nintendo GameCube exclusive ' and the Wii exclusive "Elebits". Recently developed "Dewy's Adventure" and ' for the Wii, along with other projects, such as "".
*Mitchell Corporation — Developer of "Polarium" and "Magnetica" titles for the Nintendo DS.
*Namco Bandai — NBGI had published many anime titles on Nintendo platforms like "One Piece","Gundam", "Dragon Ball Z", etc, along with the "Soul Calibur Legends" and "Tales of Symphonia ". Nintendo and Namco have collaborated on several games such as "Pac-Man Vs.", "", "Mario Superstar Baseball", and the "Donkey Konga" series; belongs to the Triforce arcade system.
*Natsume (company) - Creator of Harvest moon saga
*Nexon - Developer of MapleStory DS, based on the MMORPG, MapleStory.
*Next Level Games — Creator of the Mario Strikers and Mario Strikers Charged titles.
*Sega — Nintendo's former rival in the console market, Sega has since brought a number of its popular franchises to Nintendo systems, including the "Sonic the Hedgehog" series, the "Phantasy Star" series, and the "Super Monkey Ball" series. It also created "Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games", the first game in which the respective mascots for Nintendo and Sega have appeared in an official game together.

*Spike - Developed the for the Wii.
*Square Enix — Nintendo has in the past published Square Enix's games for the Western market, including the popular "Final Fantasy" and "Dragon Quest" series of games. The popular RPG publisher has licensed Nintendo's characters in the past, developing "Super Mario RPG" on the SNES and "Mario Hoops 3-on-3" and "Itadaki Street" for the DS. The company is currently developing "" for the Wii and the highly anticipated "Dragon Quest IX" for the Nintendo DS.
*Treasure Co. Ltd — Founded by ex-Konami workers, the studio has previously worked with Nintendo to make "Wario World" and "Mischief Makers". The studio is most notable among gamers for the Nintendo 64 formerly Japan-only (now on Virtual Console) game "Sin and Punishment".

Defunct

*Flagship — Nintendo, Capcom, and Sega, founded the joint venture Flagship to develop games and assist in the development of games. As of June 1, 2007 Flagship was closed [ [http://n-europe.com/news.php?nid=10445 N-Europe: News: Flagship Is No More! ] ] . Working with Nintendo's game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, it had developed ' and ', "", "Kirby and the Amazing Mirror" and "Kirby Squeak Squad".

Notes

References

[http://www.n-sider.com/articleview.php?articleid=344&page=3 N-Sider: Nintendo Revolution FAQ]