Nintendo acquires Luigi's Mansion 3 developer, Next Level Games!

https://www.destructoid.com/stories/nintendo-acquires-luigi-s-mansion-3-developer-next-level-games-615756.phtml

Nintendo has announced that it has purchased Next Level Games, acquiring 100% of its outstanding shares in order to transition the Canadian outfit into a full first-party studio.

"NLG’s shares are currently held entirely by its owner-directors and employees," reads an official document concerning the purchase. "A number of owner-directors recently determined that the time is right for them to sell their shares, and NLG therefore began exploring potential sale transactions. Completion of the Acquisition will serve to secure the availability of NLG development resources for Nintendo, including development expertise, as well as facilitate an anticipated improvement in development speed and quality by enabling closer communication and exchange of staff with the Nintendo development team."

The purchase is a no-brainer, given that Next Level has been responsible for a slew of popular Nintendo titles including Wii Punch-Out!!, the Super Mario Strikers titles, Metroid Prime: Federation Force for 3DS, and most recently Luigi's Mansion 3 for Nintendo Switch.

According to the purchase details, the acquisition is expected to close on March 1, 2021.

Sweet news. Have you played Luigi's Mansion 3, SW? Excited by this news? LM3 was a pretty good game. A bit bloated, but still fun. I wonder what their next project will be 😮

Damn, had no idea the game wasn't in-house.

Heard it's pretty good, haven't got around to it.

Metroid Prime: Federation Force. Urgh. At least Luigi's Mansion 2 and 3 are decent.

Anyway, good on them. Looking at their track record, they seemed to be a contractor studio, taking whatever jobs came their way, until Nintendo found them. This acquisition therefore secures their future, so I'm happy for them.

As for their next project, whatever it may be, it is bound to be solid but unambitious at best. Nintendo like to keep the big ones (Mario, Zelda, etc.) closer to home.

I find it interesting that Luigi's Mansion is made off-shore. maybe it's made primarily for the North American market. Luigi's Mansion 3 managed to sell 8 million units, so they have a winner lol.

Were they also the ones that made Luigi's Mansion 2?

Luigi's Mansion 3 was one of the top sellers of 2020, yet hardly talked about. Not in the same way as say Avengers or TLOU II were, which if my facts are right, sold less.

Yes, they did Luigi's Mansion 2, which was a 3DS game, Dark Moon!

Loved both Luigi's Mansion 1&2 but haven't played the third one yet, did you have a chance to check it out?

I recently played that this last Halloween with the kids. Honestly thought Nintendo made it.

Yep, it was a good, but they packed it with a bit more filler to do. The original game was around 5 hours I think, this one is like 15-20 hours, and that's not counting co-op. You should get it to do co-op with your bro!

I know needs more studios, but eh... I don't know. I'm just as iffy about this as MS' Bethesda buyout.

@nintendoboy16:

I don't think the two acquisitions are comparable. Bethesda was a megaton buy for Game Pass stuffing to compete in the streaming wars. This one, I feel, is a more traditional "you did good work for me so I'm going to secure your future" deal.

They are both what's wrong with Big Tech or Big Entertainment Industry (where, for that matter, Sony's buyout of Funimation and Crunchroll applies, and don't get us started on Disney's frequent buyouts, where the only good thing I can say about are Marvel characters being back together, but besides that...).

@nintendoboy16:

Yeah, it's true consolidation makes bloated monsters and stifle competition. I just don't think this particular acquisition is as disruptive as any of the other ones you've listed. It's just a small studio doing mid-budget games with no IP of their own.

I dont thin kthis will change much. Their last 3 games were already published by Nintendo.

As long as they get to keep their corporate culture. It's all good.

Yup, it is arguably the best one yet.

Yea, to me, Bethesda didn't really need to be acquired, but I guess they saw it to their benefit because of the amount of money involved. With a company like Next Level Games, it seems like they've been working with Nintendo for a while and it made them a natural fit.

Congrats to them. Luigi’s mansion 3 is an excellent game. Had a lot of fun playing it. Look forward to their next game.

@SolidGame_basic:

I dunno about that. With the ridiculous Fallout 76 saga and the way they're doing that Ubisoft thing of shoving microtransactions into single player games, some people (SkillUp among them) have been speculating that Bethesda might be a bit strapped for cash. From what I've seen, every game after 2016 (Doom 2016 and Dishonored 2) have been sales disappointments, and their entire 2020 practically rested on Doom Eternal. It is therefore possible.

I don't think they were in any danger of going under, mind, just that they looked like they could really use a commercial win. I think the acquisition might have given them a lot of breathing room, which was why they agreed to sell.

Even still... Big Tech/Big Entertainment. I don't care how small it is...

@nintendoboy16:

Fair enough.

Cool. All their good shit have been Nintendo games anyway, looking at their (pretty small) history.

A new Mario Strikers would be nice.

@nintendoboy16: Would you be more concerned if Nintendo acquired Square-Enix or Sega instead of Next Level Games?

That’s cool. I thought that it was an in-house game though. I haven’t played it yet myself but it does look to be an excellent game and one that I wouldn’t mind getting myself sometime.

When Nintendo acquires stuff I worry, they got rights to Fatal Frame and they have handled it disastrously.

Then years from now we'll be asking where is Luigi's Mansion 4 and we'll hear stories how Nintendo makes them go to work and stare at a wall all day in hopes they take early retirement.

Like others I thought the IP was already 1st party.

Yeah... I would. I may be a Nintendo fanboy, but don't think I'd put that aside for the consequences on the REAL WORLD! Monopolies are a TERRIBLE thing.

good stuff. the developer wasnt really working on multiplats anyway. they seems to be a long time collaborator with nintendo.

nintendo do need to do a bit of developer shopping and building their development capacity. they also need more devs outside japan imho just for a bit more variety.

next: ubisoft :P j/k.

Federation Force isn't bad. Rather than looking at and expecting a full on Samus game it gains a lot once it is put in perspective. When it came out I played it briefly and then unloaded it but I repurchased it in the last year and it has been fun in short spurts.

Very nice. Now expand them and put them on another Punch-Out game immediately

Same. It's ****ing shopping season for the big 3.

I own it but haven't played it yet. I'm looking forward to vegging out on it soon though. Just have to steal my Switch back from my daughter.

Yup... my fears on buyouts like this these days come from ramifications made in not only Big Tech and Big Entertainment, but industries as a whole.

That's very smart by Nintendo... I said after I played Luigi's Mansion 3 that they should acquire them. They are a very talented studio.

It was a smart move. They also should've acquired the studio that made Smash Project M too.

Mario Strikers please!

What's worse is the cheerleading these kind of moves get. While this one in particular isn't on the same scale as Bethesda's buyout it still worries me a little.

Yeah, Luigi's Mansion 3 was pretty nice. Loved how expressive the characters were.

I'm not surprised they're Canadian, since I was already surprised by the DKC Tropical Freeze team being Texan. Both games feel Japanese, though.

Meh they make Mario games, so they can't be next level.

That company has been working with Nintendo for a long time and they even said that they would make games exclusively for Nintendo since 2014 so it wasn't a surprise to me that Nintendo would eventually buy them out.

That is an understandable and suitable acquisition by Nintendo.

True. The only time in recent memory I praised anything like this was when Disney got 99% of Marvel superheroes together when it comes to film (1% STILL split with Sony). Besides that, their general buyout of Fox and several others are still... yikes!

This is a great buy for Nintendo. It makes sense to buy Next Level Games.

There is a difference though. Bethesda was actually making games for other platforms, so Microsoft just snatched them off the market. Next Level Games barely made games that weren't playable on Nintendo platforms.

Though I do agree with you here. I love Nintendo, but I would actually panic if they bought Square Enix or Sega. Really, Sega and Square Enix are doing so well on their own that they don't need to be bought.

This. I mean, did much change from Nintendo buying them other than official exclusivity? Like they were still making games only for Nintendo, but this just solidifies it ya know.