Nintendo Software Technology Corporation, doing business as Nintendo Software Technology (NST), is an American

video game 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 ...

. NST was created by Nintendo as a first-party developer to create games for the

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

n market, though their games have also been released worldwide. The company was founded by Minoru Arakawa and

Claude Comair DigiPen Institute of Technology is a private, for-profit university in Redmond, Washington. It also has campuses in Singapore and Bilbao, Spain. DigiPen offers bachelor's and master's degree programs in Computer Science, Animation, Video Game D ...

in 1998 and is located inside of Nintendo of America's headquarters in

Redmond, Washington Redmond is a city in King County, Washington, United States, located east of Seattle. The population was 73,256 at the 2020 census, up from 54,144 in 2010. Redmond is best known as the home of Microsoft and Nintendo of America. With an an ...

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 The (commonly abbreviated as GBC) is a handheld game console, manufactured by Nintendo, which was released in Japan on October 21, 1998 and to international markets that November. It is the successor to the Game Boy and is part of the Game ...

in 1999 and was a sequel of

Capcom is a Japanese video game developer and video game publisher, publisher. It has created a number of List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises, with its most commercially successful being ''Resident Evil' ...

's ''

Bionic Commando ''Bionic Commando'' is a video game franchise consisting of an original arcade game released in 1987 and several later versions and sequels. Background The original Japanese arcade game and its Famicom counterpart (''Hitler's Resurrection'' ...

''. 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 ''Metroid Prime Hunters'' is an action-adventure game published by Nintendo and developed by its Redmond-based subsidiary, Nintendo Software Technology, for the Nintendo DS. It was released in North America in March 2006, with other territorie ...

''. 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.

List of software developed

List of applications developed

Cancelled games

References

External links

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
{{Authority control American companies established in 1998 Nintendo divisions and subsidiaries First-party video game developers Video game companies of the United States Video game development companies Companies based in Redmond, Washington Video game companies established in 1998 1998 establishments in Washington (state) American subsidiaries of foreign companies