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Nintendo EPD Production Group No. 8, also known as Nintendo EPD Tokyo, is a Nintendo owned video game developer under the Nintendo Entertainment Planning and Development structure based in Tokyo. Originally, the group was created from the team behind Super Mario Sunshine with the general manager being Takao Shimizu to develop new titles. Their first title was Donkey Kong Jungle Beat for the GameCube. Now, the team is responsible for all the 3D Mario games. The team is currently under the jurisdiction of Yoshiaki Koizumi with the group manager being Koichi Hayashida for years until his departure to Kyoto to join Nintendo EPD Production Group No. 10. Due to being based in Tokyo away from the rest of Nintendo, the team has a dedicated sound group called Nintendo EPD Tokyo Sound Group.
History[]
After development of Super Mario Sunshine for the GameCube was completed, Nintendo opened up a new EAD studio in Tokyo, whereas the rest of the team was in Kyoto. The decision to create a new company there was so that they would be able to bring in fresh new talent from the capital of Japan who wouldn't be willing to travel hundreds of miles away to Kyoto. Their first project was to work on a new Donkey Kong game, and created the unique GameCube title Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat, which made use of the DK Bongos created initially for Donkey Konga. Unlike Konga, which was a rhythm game, Jungle Beat was a platformer. It received critical acclaim though, perhaps due to the time it was released, didn't manage to break a million sold.
After Jungle Beat was completed, Yoshiaki Koizumi, the director of that game and Sunshine, and his team decided it was probably time to work on a smaller game, though Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Mario, saw potential in the new development studio and suggested that they think big. One of the people working there suggested they create the new 3D Mario game, and Miyamoto approved of the idea. Some on the team were uncertain if they would be able to create a game of just magnitude, and when it was mentioned that the game would feature spherical worlds on which Mario would traverse, the team got more worried, so Koizumi and a small team created a prototype for three months which reassured everyone that it could be done. Two and a half years later and the game was highly lauded by critics, receiving many game of the year awards and becoming the best rated game of the year.
Following Galaxy, a smaller team at EAD Tokyo created an application for DSiWare called Flipnote Studio. Not only did it become the highest rated product available on DSiWare, but it became the most downloaded, partly thanks to being completely free. During 2008 EAD Tokyo worked on remaking Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat for the Wii under the New Play Control! label. At E3 2009, Nintendo announced a sequel to Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii, appropriately titled Super Mario Galaxy 2. It was the first direct sequel to a 3D Mario game and was developed by EAD Tokyo.
The success of the Galaxy games and 3D World led to the groups expansion with a new team making NES Remix and Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker while development started on the next 3D Mario game. Around this time, Nintendo decided to merge the groups back together in the restructure for Nintendo EPD with Takao Shimizu helping the hardware team with the NES Classic Edition. Koichi Hayashida maintained his Group Manager role until 2019 when he was transfered to EPD10 in kyoto.
List of games[]
Nintendo developers | |
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Nintendo EPD | Group 1 • Group 2 • Group 3 • Group 4 • Group 5 • Group 6 • Group 7 • Group 8 • Group 9 • Group 10 • Smart Device Production Group |
First party developers | 1-Up Studio • IQue Ltd. • Mario Club • Monolith Soft • NDcube • Next Level Games • NERD • Nintendo Pictures • NST • NTD • Retro Studios • Shiver Entertainment • SRD |
Partners | Arika • Camelot • CAProduction • Creatures Inc. • Cygames • DeNA • Game Freak • Genius Sonority • Good-Feel • Grezzo • HAL Laboratory • Indieszero • Intelligent Systems • PlatinumGames Bandai Namco • Koei Tecmo • Sega |
Defunct | Nintendo R&D1 • Nintendo R&D2 • Nintendo R&D3 • Nintendo R&D4 • Nintendo EAD • Nintendo SPD AlphaDream • Ambrella • Cing • Headstrong Games • Inis • Marigul Management • Mitchell Corporation • Vanpool |