Nintendo Software Technology

Nintendo Software Technology Corporation

The exterior of Nintendo Software Technology's headquarters in Redmond, Washington
Trade name	Nintendo Software Technology
Company type	Subsidiary
Industry	Video games
Founded	1998; 26 years ago (1998)
Founders	Minoru Arakawa Claude Comair Scott Tsumura
Headquarters	Redmond, Washington , United States
Key people	Tim Bechtel[1] (president)
Products	List of software developed
Owner	Nintendo
Number of employees	~50 (2019)[2]
Parent	Nintendo

Nintendo Software Technology Corporation, doing business as Nintendo Software Technology (NST), is an American video game developer. 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 worldwide. The company was founded by Minoru Arakawa, Claude Comair and Scott Tsumura in 1998 and is located inside of Nintendo of America's headquarters in Redmond, Washington.

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, senior staff 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 problem was the environments. This dispute, among others, made the project drag on for a number of years, before it was completely abandoned in 2009 and a large number of staff were made redundant.^[3]

DigiPen's Main Campus was based in the same building as theirs until 2010.

List of software developed

Year	Title	Platform(s)	Director	Producer
1999	Bionic Commando: Elite Forces	Game Boy Color	Josh Atkins	Andrew Hieke Minoru Arakawa
2000	Ridge Racer 64	Nintendo 64	Akila Redmer	Andrew Hieke Minoru Arakawa
	Crystalis	Game Boy Color	Josh Atkins	Andrew Hieke
	Pokémon Puzzle League	Nintendo 64	Yukimi Shimura	Takehiro Izushi Genyo Takeda
2001	Wave Race: Blue Storm	GameCube	Shigeki Yamashiro	Shigeru Miyamoto Minoru Arakawa
2003	Nintendo Puzzle Collection (Panel de Pon)		Hitoshi Yamagami Yukimi Shimura	Andrew Hieke Takehiro Izushi
	The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition			Shigeru Miyamoto
	1080° Avalanche		Vivek Melwani	Shigeki Yamashiro Shigeru Miyamoto
2004	Mario vs. Donkey Kong	Game Boy Advance	Yukimi Shimura
	Ridge Racer DS	Nintendo DS	Vivek Melwani	Shigeki Yamashiro
2006	Metroid Prime Hunters		Masamichi Abe	Shigeki Yamashiro Kensuke Tanabe
	Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis		Yukimi Shimura
2007	Sin and Punishment (English translation)	Nintendo 64 (on Wii Virtual Console)	Hideyuki Suganami	Masato Maegawa Takehiro Izushi
2008	Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Masterpiece Mode)^[citation needed]	Wii	Masahiro Sakurai	Kensuke Tanabe
	Crosswords DS (Co-developed w/ Nuevo Retro Games)	Nintendo DS	Yukimi Shimura	Shigeki Yamashiro Masao Yamamoto
2009	Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again	DSiWare	Yukimi Shimura	Shigeki Yamashiro Kensuke Tanabe
2010	Aura-Aura Climber		Masamichi Abe	Yukimi Shimura
	Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem!	Nintendo DS	Yukimi Shimura	Shigeki Yamashiro Kensuke Tanabe
2012	Crosswords Plus	Nintendo 3DS	Stephen Mortimer	Yukimi Shimura
2013	Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move			Yukimi Shimura Kensuke Tanabe
2015	Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars	Wii U / Nintendo 3DS		Akiya Sakamoto
2016	Mini Mario & Friends: Amiibo Challenge[4]	Wii U / Nintendo 3DS[4]		Akiya Sakamoto Kensuke Tanabe
	Super Mario Maker for Nintendo 3DS (port work/new content)	Nintendo 3DS	Yosuke Oshino	Takashi Tezuka Shigeki Yamashiro Hiroyuki Kimura
2017	Snipperclips - Cut it out, together! (development support)	Nintendo Switch	Adam Vian	Takao Nakano Toyokazu Nonaka
2018	Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (port work/new content)	Nintendo 3DS / Nintendo Switch	Kenta Motokura Shinya Hiratake	Koichi Hayashida
2019	The Stretchers (development support)	Nintendo Switch	Viktor Lindäng Masamichi Abe	Paul Allen Takao Nakano Toyokazu Nonaka Keisuke Terasaki Yoshiaki Koizumi Katsuya Eguchi
2020	Good Job! (development support)		Masataka Takemoto Coen Neessen	Katsuya Eguchi Toyokazu Nonaka Fernando Rojas Braga
2021	Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury (co-development)[5]		Kenta Motokura Koichi Hayashida	Yoshiaki Koizumi Kaori Ando
2023	F-Zero 99		Chris Polney	Takao Nakano Shinya Saito
2024	Mario vs. Donkey Kong (remake)		Vivek Melwani	Shinya Saito Takao Nakano

List of applications developed

Year	Title	Platform(s)	Director	Producer
2006	Nintendo 64 Emulator	Wii
2009	BBC iPlayer Channel	Wii
	Mario Calculator and Clock	DSiWare		Shigeki Yamashiro
	Animal Crossing Calculator and Clock	DSiWare		Shigeki Yamashiro
2011	Kirby TV Channel	Wii
2012	Wii U Chat (Co-developed w/ NERD and Vidyo)[6]	Wii U	Fumihiko Tamiya
2013	Wii Street U[7]	Wii U	Toshiaki Suzuki	Keiichi Kawai

Cancelled games

Title	Platform(s)
Project H.A.M.M.E.R.	Wii

References

1. https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-bechtel-0185b15/ ^{[self-published source]}
2. "Largest Employers | Redmond, WA".
3. "Project H.A.M.M.E.R. [Wii – Cancelled] – Unseen64". unseen64.net. 4 April 2008.
4. Allen, Eric Van (13 January 2016). "Mini Mario & Friends: Amiibo Challenge Announced as Pack-In with New Amiibo in Japan". ign.com.
5. Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury - Credits And Secret Ending, retrieved 2024-02-27
6. "Iwata Asks". nintendo.com.
7. "Iwata Asks". nintendo.com.

External links

• Official Site
• A group interview with NST about 1080º Avalanche
• Two-part interview with Shigeki Yamashiro, producer of 1080º Avalanche, and Vivek Melwani, lead game designer and director