Type Subsidiary Parent Nintendo of America Number of employees 50 (2016) | Industry Video games Owner Nintendo | |
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Key people Shigeki Yamashiro (President) Headquarters Redmond, Washington, United States Founded 1998, Redmond, Washington, United States Founders Minoru Arakawa, Claude Comair Video games Metroid Prime Hunters, Mario vs Donkey Kong, Mario vs Donkey Kong 2, Wave Race: Blue Storm, Mario vs Donkey Kong: Tip Profiles | ||
Metroid series development secrets
Nintendo Software Technology (or NST) is an American video game developer located inside of Nintendo of America main headquarters, based in Redmond, Washington. NST was created by Nintendo as a first-party developer to create games for the North American market, though their games have also been released in other territories such as Europe and Japan, exclusively for Nintendo consoles. Although the development team is based in North America, there is a traditional Nintendo and Japanese-centric design applied to the development of the software. Co-founders Claude Comair (founder of DigiPen) and Scott Tsumura retired in 2006 and 2002, respectively. NST is currently headed by Shigeki Yamashiro.
Contents
Nintendo made the decision of transplanting several members of their development team in Japan over to America. The list of staff included Shigeki Yamashiro, Masamichi Abe, Katsuhiko Kanno, and Colin Reed. Nintendo Software Technology Corporation also recruited several veterans from companies like Rockstar, Electronic Arts, and Microsoft to further complete their development talent.
History
The establishment took place in 1998 through a collaboration with the private university DigiPen Institute of Technology, also located in Redmond. The offices opened with several doctorate level instructors and some recent graduates of the university working with several Nintendo of America designers and producers. Their first game, Bionic Commando: Elite Forces, was released for the Game Boy Color in 1999 and was a sequel of Capcom's Bionic Commando.
Over the years, NST has developed many games for Nintendo consoles such as the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series, Wave Race: Blue Storm, and Metroid Prime Hunters.
NST started developing Project H.A.M.M.E.R. For the Nintendo Wii but several problems landed the project in 'development hell'. A large amount of funding was spent on cut-scenes early in development and so when the project started to fall behind managers didn't want to end it because of the capital already spent. The American developers suggested that the problem was the gameplay however the Japanese managers believed the problems were the environments. This dispute, among others, made the project drag on for a number of years before it was totally abandoned and a large number of staff were made redundant.
DigiPen's Main Campus was based in the same building as theirs until 2010.