Nintendo Buys Singapore Studio Behind Papercraft PS5 Console Exclusive Hirogami

I suppose the one thing that is reassuring is Nintendo hardly (if ever) close down studios.

Hirogami just makes me think of Tearaway.

@themightyant You can attribute which team did what based on the producer and developer interviews.

For instance we know the 3D Mario team made DK Bananza based on the tech used, developer interviews, and the producer.

Same for Splatoon and Animal Crossing, Mario Kart and ARMS, all the weird experimental games come from one team.

But beyond that, it's easy to tell since it's well known what studio does what. Nintendo Cube does party games, Monolith does Xenoblade, Retro does whatever they want, Camelot does Mario Sports, Next Level does Luigi's Mansion and Strikers, BST does smaller games, NERD is the retro games studio.

The only teams we don't actually get a good idea on are the really small ones like Shiver, mostly because they haven't done anything....yet.

@themightyant Well if that's your criteria, then go game ever made has the same team if Devs move around.

It may be better to think of EPD as just one big studio (which it seems to be given how often they migrate around each other) with producers being set to games/series and picking their teams.

But given Nintendo's over 95% employee retainment rate, if a "studio" in EPD does get closed, they don't lose the staff.

Good for Nintendo and the studio i guess.

But what i want to know is if Hirogami sold well on PS5 or not, especially with how loud some people in here or gaming forum screams about "No more sequels!!! We need more new IP on PS5!!!".

@PuppetMaster Small indication would he that Hirogami has 65 reviews on PS Store, which is really not much, almost on par with Dreams of Another, which seems like a major flop.

But, it is also worth mentioning that Hirogami was just a side project of several Bandai Namco employees not official Bandai Namco game!

@PuppetMaster

It‘s not about sequels in general. It’s about sequels which look and feel almost the same. In that article about „too many sequels“, it was mentioned that there are 24 Super Mario entries. Except for Super Mario Bros. 2 Japan („The Lost Levels“) and Galaxy 2, there are no direct sequels, the titles play totally differently. Galaxy 2 is more like Ragnarök, Forbidden West, Miles Morales, Rift Apart and all the other examples we all know well.

A new IP doesn’t mean that Hirogami is more or less successful. If the game is mediocre, that’s the problem.

Expectations for PS Studios games are just extremely high, created by Sony with the firework of PS4 exclusives.

@Max_the_German "It‘s not about sequels in general. It’s about sequels which look and feel almost the same"

Some people including you doesn't understand that a sequel function is to continue what the 1st game already established and loves by plenty of people while adding some QoL here and there. You can't make a sequel looks and plays totally different than the first game just for the sake "it should be different".

No sane devs are crazy enough to throw away everything what they already successfully established with the 1st game and make a completely different sequel. Not even devs like Suda51 or Kojima who loves to experiment are stupid enough to do that. Look at No More Heroes 1 vs No More Heroes 2, MGS 1 vs MGS 2, and Death Stranding 1 vs Death Stranding 2 for example. They all still looks and plays similar but with some new change here and there.

Honestly, i want to see if people like you can make a sequel that looks and plays totally different than the 1st game. I want to see if it still gonna sell well or ended as a flop.

"A new IP doesn’t mean that Hirogami is more or less successful. If the game is mediocre, that’s the problem"

A lot of good new IP doesn't sold well either. Kunitsu Gami for example by no means a mediocre game. But it doesn't sold well.

In the end, a lot of gamers just doesn't know what they exactly want. Instead of just say "We want good games", they choose to nitpicking it should be a new IP or should be exactly like this and that. And when the new IP comes they didn't support. No wonder devs / publishers are playing it safe 🤷‍♂️

@Stepan I didn't see Hirogami on PS5 top 20 download chart for September and October. So let's just say Hirogami didn't do well on PS5 but maybe do well on PC.

Oh, another acquisition. Consolidation is extremely bad for the industry and I don’t care if it’s Nintendo. It does look like a good fit for some of their minor projects, though.

@PuppetMaster This is a weird hill to die on. Death Standing and No More Heroes are bad examples of egregious sequels, as both series are fairly small. MGS, like Mario, reinvents itself; 1 and 2 are the only two entries I'd say are closely alike, but certainly not to the extent of something like Modern Warfare to Modern Warfare 2. The expectation isn't for a developer to throw out everything and start from scratch. Super Mario Galaxy feels like a successor to Super Mario 64, but it doesn't feel like the same experience.

I would add to Max_the_German's point by saying there are degrees of egregiousness to consider. It depends on the size of the series, how alike a sequel is, if it can do ANYTHING to differentiate itself (doesn't necessarily have to be gameplay), how derivative the original was to begin with, and how far apart entries are.

Now, if you think Sony's output isn't that egregious because of the small size of most of the series they've put out sequels to, I'd like to add another point: holistic originality output. Sony has a few problems that exacerbate the unoriginality vibes. Of course, the lack of new IP this gen is the biggest problem. It was literally only last gen that we got Horizon, Marvel's Spider-Man (which we'll pretend is a 'new IP' ), Death Stranding, Days Gone, Bloodborne, Dreams, Astro Bot, and Ghosts... (and Gravity Rush and Tearaway, if you include Vita) — and I'm sure I'm forgetting some like Resogun. This gen, really just Returnal, with Tokon, Wolverine, and Soros finally adding to that roster. Concord, too, I guess. And then we're on to the next big problem: most of the PS5's exclusives are direct successors to PS4 games. Almost all the PS4 era new IP I just listed have already gotten sequels, sequels in very close proximity to their predecessors. Without enough new IP to balance them out — or even series reinventions, like God of War saw last gen — it really feels like we're getting the same suite of games from 5 years ago. Also, contemporary PlayStation games have the problem of all feeling alike. Over-the-shoulder camera, high-fidelity, cinematic adventure games, all with a fairly cohesive art style. One of the things that helps Nintendo's HOO is that few of their series are alike, but the uninitiated might have a hard time differentiating between Horizon, God of War (Norse), and Death Stranding. Also-also, Sony's relatively smaller output makes it feel like these alike sequels are all we get.

LONG PARAGRAPH. To sort of co-opt Max's words, it's really not about sequels in general. Sequels are fine. I don't have much issue with how Nintendo mostly puts out sequels. But it's easy to fall into a rut if you don't handle those sequels correctly. To ease up on Sony, modern Halo and Gears are great examples of how to kill a series with derivative, frequent sequels.

@Nei Don't take such an absolutist stance. Acquisitions are normal, and often aren't damaging.

It's literally a large publisher buying a small team from another large publisher, all of which have a long history of working closely. I'd barely count it as consolidation. And, if anything, I'd assume the team will be in a better position being a subsidiary of Nintendo instead of Bandai Namco.

@RoomWithaMoose You didn't proof me wrong here 🤷‍♂️

You think NMH and Death Stranding are bad examples but they're still sequel that looks and plays similar to the 1st game. And Insomniac Spiderman, Ghost, Helldivers, Horizon, and GoW aren't big series with tons of sequels either. Spiderman 2 is the 2nd main title or 3rd game in the series. Yotei is the 2nd game in the series. Ragnarok is the 2nd game after GoW got reboot in 2018. Horizon FW is the 2nd main game in the series. And Helldivers 2 is the 2nd game in the series. But some of you are still yapping "boooo all looks and plays the same" lol.

Clearly Sony didn't mishandling their recent sequels unlike MS did with Halo and Gears. GoW Ragnarok, Spiderman 2, Horizon FW, Helldivers 2, Death Stranding 2, or Yotei aren't "derivative frequent sequels" or even close to modern Halo or Gears quality 🤷‍♂️

Also also quality over quantity and Sony has pretty good output. It's better for Sony to release 3-5 solid games /year rather than spamming 20 or 30 games /year that will cannibalize each other sales & marketing and got ignored by most people. Sony made that mistakes back in PS3 era and half of PS4 era and it took them long enough to realized they need to be more efficient with their outputs.

@PuppetMaster And you apparently didn't try to understand what I was saying, or read through "LONG PARAGRAPH."

But I suppose I appreciate the needless Sony defending, nonetheless.

R.i.p.. Nintendo is the worst, most morally corrupt game company today!

@DarianStarfrog Out of morbid curiosity, why do you think Nintendo is the worst, most morally corrupt company in contemporary gaming?

@RoomWithaMoose .. you never heard of the court cases? The patents that threaten the freedom of developers everywhere?, that stifle creativity? Howabout the fan made projects shut down and hugely fined by Nintendo, fined so much the victims could never pay it in their life times?
Their strong arming of small developers so hard their games never release, all because of one mechanic Nintendo decided they'd patent as their own, even though they never invented it? There's a bunch of people sued into grave debt by Nintendo.. over literal very little, problem their lawyers are very expensive, and usually win, they always crush the little man..

@RoomWithaMoose I did understand your longass parapgraphs and was tempted to write TL;DR and move on. But that would be disrespectful and didn't add anything to the argument. But again, for any reply from you, i guess i should just do that next time 🤷‍♂️

@PuppetMaster Hmm, rude. Well, if you don't want to engage with my arguments, feel free to keep fanboying and ignore any arguments that might disrupt said fanboying.

@DarianStarfrog Mmm, some exaggeration there. But mostly accurate.

Just was curious what your reasoning was.

@RoomWithaMoose I did engage with your empty arguments but you choose to ignored my points while gave me the "Sony fanboy" stamp. Talk about rude and i throw that back at ya 🤷‍♂️. Bye and keep crying though lel.

"Now, if you think Sony's output isn't that egregious because of the small size of most of the series they've put out sequels to...[proceeds to explain the circumstances which make Sony's output seem tired]."

"And Insomniac Spiderman, Ghost, Helldivers, Horizon, and GoW aren't big series with tons of sequels either...[proceeds to detail the amount of entries each series has as though that wasn't already addressed]."

You didn't address my point about Mario-esque reinvention.
You didn't address my point about "degrees of egregiousness."
You didn't address my point about contemporary Sony's lack of new IP — or really any of the points in LONG PARAGRAPH.
Completely ignored my statement: "Sequels are fine."
And seemingly thought my allusion to Microsoft was an accusation at Sony's expense, even though I prefaced it by saying, "To ease up on Sony."

I'm still very much inclined to think you didn't understand my arguments. Or you chose not to engage with them. My arguments weren't empty — that's ridiculous. And I called you a fanboy because you ostensibly feel the need to counter all criticism of Sony.

Hirogami was never on my radar so I am fine with the acquisition of the company. Churning out content tied to a small handful of franchises is safe and safety is no small thing given the amount of churn in the industry.