Nintendo has often shown a willingness to work with external, independent developers to work on its properties, and even the last few years have seen plenty of instances of that, from Grezzo working on The Legend of Zelda to WayForward on Advance Wars to MercurySteam on Metroid and more, and it looks like the company is looking to expand those efforts in the future.
That’s according to GamesIndustry’s Christopher Dring, who has claimed in an article looking ahead to Nintendo’s plans for the Switch 2 that the company has been “actively meeting” with independent developers for multiple purposes. Not only does Nintendo intend to continue publishing and lending support to indie titles going forward, Dring claims the company is also “seeking studios that could work on some of its IP”. In fact, Nintendo is allegedly “deep in conversation” with at least three developers to do just that.
Which of its properties Nintendo might be looking to lend to external partners and which developers it could be looking to work with remains to be seen, but it certainly would fit with Nintendo’s overarching strategy.
Interestingly enough, in November, Bandai Namco formally announced Studio 2 and Studio S as a development team that will be focused on working on Nintendo-commissioned projects.