"Luigi's Mansion 3"/Nintendo
Summary List PlacementIn a rare move for the Japanese gaming powerhouse, Nintendo is buying the game studio behind the smash-hit "Luigi's Mansion 3" for the Nintendo Switch.
Canadian studio Next Level Games will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Nintendo on March 1 — "pending satisfaction of all relevant terms and conditions" — which Nintendo says will enable, "an anticipated improvement in development speed and quality."
Nintendo and Next Level Games have worked together for years, going all the way back to the Nintendo GameCube with "Super Mario Strikers" in 2005. More recently, Next Level created "Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon" for the Nintendo 3DS, and its wildly popular followup "Luigi's Mansion 3" for the Nintendo Switch.
The latter entry has sold nearly 8 million copies since launch on October 31, 2019, according to Nintendo.
Of note, Nintendo rarely purchases third-party game studios.
The last major game studio Nintendo purchased was over 10 years ago, when it bought RPG-maker Monolith Soft. Nintendo's first-party game development is largely handled in Japan, with European and North American arms of the company serving as localization and marketing.
If the acquisition is approved, Next Level Games will become Nintendo's second game development studio in North America — Retro Studios, based in Texas, was purchased by Nintendo back in 2002.
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