commonly abbreviated as Nintendo SPD, was a Japanese research, planning and development division housed inside the Nintendo Development Center in

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin, Keihanshin metropolitan area along wi ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. The division had two departments: ''Software Planning & Development Department'', which primarily co-produced games with external developers; and ''Software Development & Design Department'', which primarily developed experimental and system software. The division was created during a corporate restructuring in September 2003, with the abolition of the

Nintendo R&D1 commonly abbreviated as Nintendo R&D1, was Nintendo's oldest video game development team. It was known as before splitting in 1978. Its creation coincided with Nintendo's entry into the video game industry, and the original R&D1 was headed by ...

and

Nintendo R&D2 commonly abbreviated as Nintendo R&D2, was a Japanese team within Nintendo that developed software and peripherals. While usually occupied in system operating software and technical support, the team would come back to early development in the ...

departments. The group had the task of independently developing innovative games, assisting other development teams on projects, and managing overseas production of first-party franchises. Both SPD and SDD departments were divided into four separate groups, which worked concurrently on different projects.Cassidy, Kevin
NCL Team Structure work in progress
June 7, 2006. Retrieved October 26, 2007. In September 2015, Nintendo SPD merged with Nintendo's other software development division,

Entertainment Analysis & Development commonly abbreviated as Nintendo EAD and formerly known as Nintendo Research & Development No.4 Department (abbreviated as Nintendo R&D4), was the largest software development division within the Japanese video game company Nintendo. It was pr ...

(EAD), becoming Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development.

History

In 2003, then-Nintendo president

Satoru Iwata was a Japanese businessman, video game programmer, video game designer, and producer. He was the fourth president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Nintendo from 2002 until his death in 2015. He was a major contributor in broadening the app ...

created the Software Planning & Development division, appointing himself as its general manager. The goal of the newly created division would be to focus on co-producing and supervising external second-party video game development, with the goal of relieving the

(EAD) division, and its general manager Shigeru Miyamoto, to focus on internal development. Although that was the division's primary focus, it also went on to develop some video games titles internally. On June 27, 2013, deputy general manager Shinya Takahashi replaced Satoru Iwata as general manager of the division, gaining a seat in Nintendo's board of directors in the process. A year later, on June 18, 2014, all of Nintendo's internal research and development divisions, including the SPD division, were moved from the Nintendo's headquarters in Kyoto to the newly built Nintendo Development Center, just 300 meters from the old building. By centralizing all of its developers in the new building, Nintendo hoped they would deeply interact with each other, regardless of which division and field they were working on, creating a synergy between hardware and software development. On September 16, 2015, the division was merged with Nintendo's internal software development division, Entertainment Analysis & Development, becoming Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development (EPD). As Shigeru Miyamoto retired as general manager of the EAD division and went on to become a ''Creative Fellow'', former SPD general manager Shinya Takahashi took his place as general manager of the newly created EPD division, thus supervising all video games developed at Nintendo. The new division accumulated all of its predecessors roles as both developing video games internally and co-producing them with external developers.

Structure

The General Manager of the ''Nintendo Software Planning & Development Division'' was

Shinya Takahashi commonly abbreviated as Nintendo EPD, is the largest division within the Japanese video game company Nintendo. The division focuses on developing and producing video games, mobile apps, and other related entertainment software for the company. E ...

, assisted by both Keizo Kato, the Assistant Manager and

Kensuke Tanabe is a Japanese video game producer and designer working for Nintendo, where he currently is Senior Officer at Nintendo EPD. After he had graduated from the Visual Concept Planning Department of Osaka University of Arts, he decided to enter the ...

, the Executive Officer. The division was split into two different departments: the ''Software Planning & Development Department'', which was split into four separate groups, which was supervised by Deputy Manager

Yoshio Sakamoto (born July 23, 1959) is a Japanese video game designer, director, and producer. He has worked at Nintendo since 1982. He has directed several games in the '' Metroid'' series. He is one of the most prominent members of Nintendo's former Researc ...

; and the ''Software Development & Design Department'' which was split into three separate groups, supervised by Deputy Manager Masaru Nishita. All of the groups worked concurrently on different projects.

Software Planning & Development Department

Production Group No. 1

The Production Group No. 1's primary focus was the development and production of video game software and software applications for Nintendo home and handheld consoles, as well as software for peripherals developed for said consoles, both internally and in cooperation with

second-party developer A video game developer is a broad term for a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large ...

s. The group manager and main producer was Nintendo-veteran

. The group is responsible for developing and producing games in the ''

WarioWare is a video game series, a Spin-off (media), spin-off of the ''Mario (franchise), Mario'' franchise. It comprises various video games created by Nintendo, starring the character Wario. The series began with ''Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3'', th ...

'', ''

Rhythm Heaven ''Rhythm Heaven'', known as ''Rhythm Paradise'' in Europe and ''Rhythm World'' in Korea, is a Japanese rhythm video game developed by Nintendo SPD for the Nintendo DS. It is the second game in Nintendo's ''Rhythm Heaven'' series and the first on ...

'', '' Card Hero'', '' Tomodachi'' and the mainline '' Metroid'' series.

=Notes

Production Group No. 2

The Production Group No. 2 was led by manager and

video game producer A video game producer is the top person in charge of overseeing development of a video game. History The earliest documented use of the term ''producer'' in games was by Trip Hawkins, who established the position when he founded Electronic Ar ...

Hitoshi Yamagami. The group was primarily responsible for co-producing and supervising video games published by Nintendo and developed by

third-party developer A video game developer is a broad term for a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large ...

s from

. They're responsible for producing and supervising games in the ''

Pokémon (an abbreviation for in Japan) is a Japanese media franchise managed by The Pokémon Company, founded by Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures (company), Creatures, the owners of the trademark and copyright of the franchise. In terms of ...

'', ''

F-Zero is a series of futuristic racing video games originally created by Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development, Nintendo EAD with multiple games developed by outside companies. The F-Zero (video game), first game was released for the Super Fa ...

'', '' Legendary Starfy'', ''

Fire Emblem is a fantasy tactical role-playing game franchise developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo. First produced and published for the Famicom in 1990, the series currently consists of sixteen core entries and five spinoffs. Game ...

'', '' Dr. Mario'', ''

Endless Ocean ''Endless Ocean'' (known as ''Forever Blue'' in Japan) is a scuba diving adventure game for the Wii. It is published by Nintendo and was developed by Arika, who also worked on their spiritual predecessor '' Everblue'', another scuba diving adve ...

'', ''

Fossil Fighters ''Fossil Fighters'' is a role-playing video game series published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS consoles. Its gameplay revolves around digging up and extracting dinosaur fossils, reviving them into supernatural "vivosaurs" a ...

'', '' Style Savvy'' and ''

Xenoblade Chronicles is a series of action role-playing games developed by Monolith Soft and published by Nintendo. It is a part of the '' Xeno'' metaseries created by Tetsuya Takahashi, but was formed after Nintendo's acquisition of Monolith Soft in 2007. The se ...

'' series. In addition to co-producing games, the group also supervised the development of '' Drill Dozer'', developed by

Game Freak is a Japanese video game developer, best known as the primary developer of the mainline ''Pokémon'' series of role-playing video games published by Nintendo and The Pokémon Company. History Predating the video game company, ''Game Freak'' ...

=Notes

Production Group No. 3

The Production Group No. 3 was led by producer

and responsible for overseeing the development of titles from the ''

Metroid Prime ''Metroid Prime'' is an Action-adventure game, action-adventure video game developed by Retro Studios and published by Nintendo for the GameCube. ''Metroid Prime'' is the fifth main installment in the ''Metroid'' franchise and the first game in ...

'', '' Battalion Wars'', ''

Super Mario Strikers ''Super Mario Strikers'', known in Europe and Australia as ''Mario Smash Football'', is a 2005 sports video game developed by Next Level Games and published by Nintendo for the GameCube. The game's developers had worked on '' NHL Hitz Pro'' bef ...

'', ''

Mario vs. Donkey Kong is a sub-series of the ''Mario'' and ''Donkey Kong'' series, based on puzzle video games, marking the return of Pauline and the rivalry between Mario and Donkey Kong. '' Mario vs. Donkey Kong'', released in 2004 for the Game Boy Advance, was ...

'', ''

Excite Excitation, excite, exciting, or excitement may refer to: * Excitation (magnetic), provided with an electrical generator or alternator * Excite Ballpark, located in San Jose, California * Excite (web portal), web portal owned by IAC * Electron ex ...

'', ''

Paper Mario ''Paper Mario'' is a video game series and part of the ''Mario'' franchise, developed by Intelligent Systems and produced by Nintendo. It combines elements from the role-playing, action-adventure, and puzzle genres. Players control a paper ...

'', '' Fluidity'', and ''

Donkey Kong Country ''Donkey Kong Country'' is a 1994 platform game developed by Rare (company), Rare and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). It is a Reboot (fiction), reboot of Nintendo's ''Donkey Kong'' franchise and foll ...

'' series.

=Notes

Production Group No. 4

The Production Group No. 4 was led by Toshiharu Izuno and responsible for overseeing the development of titles from the ''

Mario Party is a party video game series featuring characters from the ''Mario'' franchise in which up to four local players or computer-controlled characters (called " CPUs") compete in a board game interspersed with minigames. The games are currentl ...

'', '' Mario Sports'', ''

Mario & Luigi ''Mario & Luigi'' is a series of role-playing video games developed by AlphaDream and published by Nintendo for the latter's various video game handheld consoles. The series is a spin-off from Nintendo's trademark ''Super Mario'' series, and stars ...

'', ''

Yoshi Yoshi is a fictional dinosaur who appears in video games published by Nintendo. Yoshi debuted in ''Super Mario World'' (1990) on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System as Mario and Luigi's sidekick. Yoshi is the title character of the ''Yoshi' ...

'', ''

Donkey Kong is a video game franchise created by Shigeru Miyamoto and owned by Nintendo. It follows the adventures of a gorilla named Donkey Kong (character), Donkey Kong and his clan of other Ape, apes and monkeys. The franchise primarily consists of plat ...

'', and ''

Wii Party ''Wii Party'' is a party video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Wii video game console. The game heavily borrows game play elements from the ''Mario Party'' series, another Nintendo franchise. It is also the first game in the ''Wi ...

'' series.

=Notes

= * Co-production with

Eighting , stylized as 8ing, is a Japanese video game developer and publisher. It was formerly known as . It is known for its shoot 'em ups and its licensed fighting games. History Raizing and Eighting were formed in part by former staff of Compile, ...

. * Co-production with

NDcube is a Japanese video game developer and a wholly owned subsidiary of Nintendo based in Japan with offices in Tokyo and Sapporo. The majority of the company is made up of former employees of Hudson Soft. They have also been the developers of ...

. * Co-production with Cing. * Co-production with

Hudson Hudson may refer to: People * Hudson (given name) * Hudson (surname) * Henry Hudson, English explorer * Hudson (footballer, born 1986), Hudson Fernando Tobias de Carvalho, Brazilian football right-back * Hudson (footballer, born 1988), Hudso ...

. * Co-production with

INiS INIS may refer to: *International Nuclear Information System *Iraqi National Intelligence Service *iNiS Corporation *Institut national de l'image et du son * Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service *INIS character set See also * * Innis (d ...

. * Co-production with

Camelot Camelot is a castle and court associated with the legendary King Arthur. Absent in the early Arthurian material, Camelot first appeared in 12th-century French romances and, since the Lancelot-Grail cycle, eventually came to be described as th ...

. * Co-production with

Paon is a Japanese video game developer. The company was founded in August 2004 as DP Inc. and merged with Paon Corporation, Ltd. in March 2015 to form Paon DP. Paon Corporation was founded on January 20, 1999. Through a partnership with Nintendo ...

. * Co-production with

AlphaDream was a video game development company founded in 2000 by Tetsuo Mizuno and Chihiro Fujioka in Tokyo, Japan. In partnership with Nintendo, it produced software for the Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, and Nintend ...

. * Co-production with

Project Sora is a Japanese video game director and game designer best known as the creator of the '' Kirby'' and '' Super Smash Bros.'' series. Apart from his work on those series, he also led the design of '' Meteos'' in 2005 and directed '' Kid Icarus: U ...

and

Sora Ltd. is a Japanese video game director and game designer best known as the creator of the '' Kirby'' and '' Super Smash Bros.'' series. Apart from his work on those series, he also led the design of ''Meteos'' in 2005 and directed '' Kid Icarus: Up ...

* Co-production with

Bandai Namco Studios is a Japanese video game developer headquartered in Kōtō, Tokyo. Its offices in Malaysia and Singapore, Bandai Namco Studio Malaysia and Bandai Namco Studios Singapore, are based out of Selangor, Malaysia and Infinite Studios, Singapore respec ...

and

* Co-production with

Good-Feel is a Japanese video game developer. Good-Feel started in Hyogo, Japan in 2005 and opened a production facility in Tokyo in the same year. Their main focus had been educational games for the Nintendo DS, which were released solely in Japan. Th ...

. * Co-production with

Arzest Arzest Corporation (Japanese: アーゼスト, Hepburn: Āzesuto) is a Japanese video game development company that develops games for video game consoles. It was formed on June 25, 2010 by key members of Artoon, which was also founded by Execu ...

. * Co-production with

Artoon Artoon Co., Ltd. (株式会社アートゥーン Kabushiki-Gaisha Ātūn) was a Japanese video game developer established in 1999. It became a subsidiary of AQ Interactive in May 2004 and became a wholly owned subsidiary in June 2005. The team w ...

. * Co-production with

Namco Bandai Games is a Japanese multinational video game publisher headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo. Its international branches, Bandai Namco Entertainment America and Bandai Namco Entertainment Europe, are respectively headquartered in Irvine, California and ...

Software Development & Design Department

Deputy Manager: Masaru Nishita
''Nintendo Software Development & Design'' was an experimental software development team assembled by Nintendo Co., Ltd. president

. The team was originally assembled as a ''System Service Task Force'' that would develop all the unique internal system software for the Nintendo DS and

Nintendo Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major home game console, f ...

. The team was responsible for all the additional

Wii Channels The Wii Menu is the graphical shell of the Wii and Wii U game console, as part of the Wii system software. It has four pages, each with a 4:3 grid, and each displaying the current time and date. Available applications, known as "channels", are ...

,Nintendo
Iwata Asks: Wii Channels
/ref> the Nintendo DSi system software and more recently, the

Nintendo 3DS system software The Nintendo 3DS system software is the updatable operating system used by the Nintendo 3DS. The Nintendo Switch system software is believed to have evolved from the Nintendo 3DS system software. Technology OS The Nintendo 3DS firmwa ...

. Nintendo SDD also went on to develop several innovative retail games. The philosophy behind development was to think out of the box and create unique software in a timely manner with smaller development resources. The development staff was composed of Koichi Kawamoto, who was the original programmer of ''

'', and

, who was a longtime designer at

Nintendo EAD commonly abbreviated as Nintendo EAD and formerly known as Nintendo Research & Development No.4 Department (abbreviated as Nintendo R&D4), was the largest software development division within the Japanese video game company Nintendo. It was pr ...

. The department was also responsible for developing several subsequent

WiiWare WiiWare was a service that allowed Wii users to download games and applications specifically designed and developed for the Wii video game console made by Nintendo. These games and applications could only be purchased and downloaded from the Wii ...

and

DSiWare This is a list of games and applications, collectively known as DSiWare, for the Nintendo DSi handheld game console, available for download via the DSi Shop and unplayable on earlier DS models. An update released for the Nintendo 3DS in June 201 ...

software.

Software Development Group

Manager/producer: Kiyoshi Mizuki
Software Development Group was responsible for developing software from the '' Jam with the Band'' and ''

Brain Age ''Brain Age'', known as ''Dr Kawashima's Brain Training'' in PAL regions, is a series of video games developed and published by Nintendo, based on the work of Ryuta Kawashima. Video games The ''Brain Age'' games, known as ''Brain Training'' ...

'' series, among additional ''

Touch! Generations is a Nintendo brand used for the Nintendo DS and Wii showing games created to appeal to a broader audience (mainly adults and the elderly) than the traditional gamer. Nintendo retired the brand with the launch of the Nintendo 3DS in 2011, s ...

'' titles with partner developers. * Co-production with

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nintendo Software Planning And Development Nintendo divisions and subsidiaries Japanese companies established in 2003 Video game companies established in 2003 Video game companies disestablished in 2015 Defunct video game companies of Japan Japanese companies disestablished in 2015