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1-UP Studio Inc.(JP)(CN) (formerly Brownie Brown Inc.(JP) until 2013) is a first-party development studio owned by Nintendo. It is comprised mostly of ex-Square designers and artists prior to the Enix merger.
They work on mainline, large-scale games for Nintendo's franchises such as Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Animal Crossing.
History[]
The company was founded in June 2000 in Musashino City, Tokyo, Japan by many ex-Square staff during its then-processing merger with Enix. It was founded as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nintendo, and released their first game, Magical Vacation for the Game Boy Advance in 2001 in Japan only, but their next title, Sword of Mana, was published by Square Enix in Japan in 2003 for the GBA.
Since launch, the company has developed and co-developed games published by Nintendo, while some are published by third-party companies including Square Enix, AQ Interactive, and Marvelous. It has worked on Mother 3 in 2006, Heroes of Mana in 2007, Professor Layton and the Last Specter in 2010, and Super Mario 3D Land in 2011.
On February 1, 2013, they restructured into 1- UP Studio and relocated to Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan. Since then, it has worked on several games for Nintendo's IPs, mainly the Super Mario series, as well as games such as Ring Fit Adventure and Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Staff that left in the restructure formed the company Brownies. In 2020, they moved into Kanda Square with the other Nintendo Tokyo teams, Game Freak and HAL Laboratory.
List of games[]
As Brownie Brown[]
| Game title | Platform | Year of release |
|---|---|---|
 Magical Vacation |
 |
2001 |
 Sword of Mana (published by Square Enix in Japan) |
|
2003 |
 Magical Starsign |
 |
2006 |
 Mother 3 |
|
2006 |
 Heroes of Mana (published by Square Enix) |
|
2007 |
 Blue Dragon Plus (published by AQ Interactive) |
|
2008 |
 A Kappa's Trail |
 |
2009 |
 Livly Garden (published by Marvelous) |
|
2010 |
  Professor Layton and the Last Specter ("London Life" minigame) |
|
2010 |
 Super Mario 3D Land (Graphics) |
 |
2011 |
As 1-Up Studio[]
| Game title | Platform | Year of release |
|---|---|---|
 Fantasy Life (co-developed with Level-5; published by Level-5 in Japan) (Nintendo DS version planned, but cancelled) |
|
2012 |
 Super Mario 3D World (co-developed with Nintendo EAD Tokyo) |
 |
2013 |
 Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (co-developed with Nintendo EAD Tokyo) |
|
2014 |
 Flipnote Studio 3D (co-developed with Nintendo EAD Tokyo) |
|
2015 |
 The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes (co-developed with Nintendo EAD Group No. 3 and Grezzo) |
|
2015 |
 Super Mario Odyssey (co-developed with Nintendo EPD Tokyo) |
 |
2017 |
  Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (Switch/3DS) (co-developed with Nintendo Software Technology) |
|
2018 |
 Ring Fit Adventure (co-developed with Nintendo EPD) |
|
2019 |
 Animal Crossing: New Horizons (co-developed with Nintendo EPD) |
|
2020 |
 Super Mario 3D All-Stars (co-developed with Nintendo EPD Tokyo and Nintendo European Research & Development) |
|
2020 |
 Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury (co-developed with Nintendo Software Technology) |
|
2021 |
 Mario Kart World (co-developed with Nintendo EPD) |
 |
2025 |
 Donkey Kong Bananza (co-developed with Nintendo EPD) |
|
2025 |
Trivia[]
- Brown is the name of Brownie Brown's mascot. According to their English website, Brownie means "a hardworking elf".
- Hence its name, it is renamed after the 1-Up Mushroom power-up from the Mario series which they worked the games on.
Gallery[]
External links[]
- 1-Up Studio at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia