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The Nintendo Licensing Division is a company within Nintendo that produces Nintendo published titles that have been developed by third party companies. They license out characters to third parties to be used in their video games, such as giving Namco the rights to include Link in Soul Calibur II for the GameCube. They oversee projects that Nintendo will publish but are being developed by outside companies, and have made games such as Mario Party and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles possible. It's unknown exactly how many games the division has worked on, but the number is presumably high considering how many games Nintendo publishes that outside developers have created. The company was headed by general manager Shinji Hatano until he was replaced by Susumu Tanaka.
Within the Nintendo Licensing Division is the Operation Department, the unnamed software quality control department, and the famous Kyoto research center known as Super Mario Club
List of games[]
- Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles - Helped Square Enix bring the game out on the GameCube.
- Soul Calibur II - Gave Namco rights to include Link in the GameCube version.
- Donkey Konga series - Gave Namco the right to make a Donkey Kong game.
- Pac-Man Vs. - Helped Namco create the Nintendo published title.
- Star Fox Assault - Part of Nintendo's Tri Force initiative that was supposed to result in an Arcade version by Namco
- F-Zero GX - Part of Nintendo's Tri-Force initiative, with Sega
- Mario Kart Arcade GP series - Arcade iterations of the Mario Kart series done by Bandai Namco
- Rhythm Tengoku Arcade
- Luigi's Mansion Arcade
- Mario Party arcade games - various arcade machines made by Capcom mostly based on earlier entries of the Mario Party series.
- Super Smash Bros. series - Oversaw licensing third party charters and select second party characters
- Fortune Street - Licensing the Mario characters and locations for the game
- Rayman Legends - Mario & Luigi costumes for Rayman and Globox
- Monster Hunter series - various Nintendo costumes starting with the 4th entry
- Story of Seasons - Mario plants
- Taiko series - various Nintendo songs including amiibo usage in the second Wii U entry
IP Management companies[]
Some Intellectual Properties that have shared rights between partners have resulted in the formation of companies to handle the multimedia rights. These are
- WarpStar Inc. for the Kirby series
- The Pokémon Company for the Pokémon series