Nintendo and third parties don’t generally get along. They’ve always had an uneasy relationship, even during Nintendo’s heyday of dominance with the NES and SNES, and starting with the N64, third parties have generally started gradually avoiding Nintendo’s machines, all culminating with the Wii U, which literally gets no more third party support. Even on the handheld front, where third party support has traditionally been great for Nintendo, things are gradually drying out, as smartphones become more and more viable.
However, Nintendo is now teasing some third party collaborations that it may announce at E3 this year.Nintendo of Canada head Pierre-Paul Trepanier recently said in an interview that we will be hearing more about third party partnerships come E3.
“We would love to have third parties, and you’ll hear in a few weeks about some interesting partnerships. We’ve already over the past year opened up and aggressively sought licensing deals in lots of different areas. In the video game space you’ve seen Nintendo characters appear in other game worlds. It’s also happening outside the game world, with the Universal Studios partnership that will bring Nintendo to fans and families through theme parks,” he said.
Exactly what these third party collaborations will be like is as of yet unknown- it could be something as disappointing as the spate of ‘partnerships’ Nintendo had for the Wii U before its launch (so, something like an Ezio Amiibo), or it could be something actually meaningful. We can’t say for sure yet, but we’ll find out this E3. Stay tuned.
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