Some big names

[@Stephen-Fox]

IIRC the creation of The Pokémon Company was a response to Nintendo, GameFreak, and Creatures - the three companies involved in creating and publishing Gen 1 - kind of realizing just how _big_ a machine Pokémon was, and as such needed a dedicated company just to manage the IP. ...Which GameFreak has kind of become trapped in the hamster wheel of anyway.

[@capgorski]

Your final chapter on discussing Nintendo's (lack of?) anti-takeover measures was really fascinating and well done.

[@shaammajedi]

I am on vacation in Japan and saw a news column for DeNA on the subway. At first it seemed normal until I saw that it was for the sports section. Shockingly, it is the same DeNA from the mobile games, but just a different subsection. So yeah, they are really diversified

[@ironicdivinemandatestan4262]

There's also Nintendo's 10% stake in the Seattle Mariners.

[@ArtemisWasHere]

Nintendo’s investment in PUX might be to maintain their monopoly on actually good UI and UX design Seriously, they are leagues above anyone else in that department

[@bradbradson4543]

Exactly! I see KZbin comments complaining about UX on Nintendo compared to ps/Xbox and I'm like, what?!

[@pipeliner8969]

I wouldn't say the Switch's UX is amazing but I see how much thought is put into that. The eShop is horrible though.

[@ArtemisWasHere]

@@pipeliner8969 it’s far better than the Wii u or 3DS eshop

[@Ozzianman]

​@@pipeliner8969 Yep. The Wii U eShop was a superior experience to the Switch eShop. Same goes for the 3DS eShop. Horrible to navigate and it is so slow when loading.

[@NowRacattackForce]

You imply that Warpstar is mostly a legacy business move with not a lot going on in present, but it should be noted that Warpstar is still a pretty active company. Kirby is a *highly* merchandised franchise in Japan, with tons of toys, clothing, and even a long-running series of children's novels. They very much hold the same role as The Pokémon Company; a joint venture company made for managing all multimedia aspects of the brand so the rights holders, in this case HAL and Nintendo, can focus on just developing and publishing the games.

[@nintendoforecast]

You're right: I was focusing on the "animation management" rather than the "intellectual property development" aspect of kirby although I didn't realise quite how merchandised Kirby is in Japan. Thank you for the comment!

[@iXiTeZz]

This list is missing some companies. For Instance, Nintendo owns 5% of CyGames, has an undisclosed stake in Creatures, and has invested in Niantic. There are other deals too like Nintendo offering financial support to publishers like Forever Entertainment.

[@nintendoforecast]

Great post. The difficulty is that if the shares are private, acquired through a third party or just small in number it's hard to say more and in some cases "investments" have been announced but potentially this might not involve equity. I've stuck with those Nintendo and partners have declared as of 2023 but there will be many undeclared (at least six). I have a separate video coming on the Forever deal in the next few weeks and if anyone can shed more light on Cygames, Niantic, Creatures or any others I'd be very interested.

[@BubblegumCrash332]

It is kind of crazy Nintendo does not own Pokemon.

[@JsYTA]

They own 1/3rd of the IP. They just aren't in charge of it's brand management.

[@erickmaverick3128]

Right? Like, Pokémon is essentially synonymous with Nintendo themselves and have their games on their systems, yet they own 1/3rd of it.

[@SB-ex8nt]

Yea, that's always seemed a bit strange. But I get the sense that I'm not seeing the full picture either. Can we talk about that more? ***Actually, what even is Nintendo and Pokemon's relationship.

[@BubblegumCrash332]

@@SB-ex8nt Nintendo maybe could have bought the IP when it was less expensive but it's worth something like 90 billion dollars now.

[@cooljoe1920]

They should use all that cash they have to buy out Pokémon entirely.

[@wishonpleiades6288]

The part that is most fascinating to me about this is the steps Nintendo has taken to prevent its own acquisition. I agree that it would best for the company if they remained independent. It probably won't happen anytime soon with the current interest rates, but Nintendo has always struck me as a company that focuses on the long term.

[@IISuzakuII]

​@pixelshroom3413 Universal tried but mostly with the Donkey Kong Ip

[@mr.j3rs3y]

Considering that Nintendo was originally founded in 1889 (when they were manufacturing playing cards), they have been playing the long game for a long time, and are incredibly adept at it.

[@KBroly]

The holdings of Square, Konami and Koei Tecmo are very surprising.

[@jstoffer111]

I do find these more technical discussions of Nintendo quite fascinating.

[@Goldmight]

Chris meledandri is suprsingly a welcome edition to being a board of director outside of nintendo. Sure he brought us minions, but he also the rare case of a studio ceo who value his craft, unlike the shithole like david Zaslav. Has a strong hold against AI, supports healthy working enviroment, tried his best to reduced crunch time for his employees, and actually paying their salaries.

[@NoxideActive]

Western influence for Nintendo is something of a mix bag of feelings for me. I love the few Studios outside of Japan that give classic Nintendo properties new flavors and for the most part both fans and companies been happy with that cross pollination, when it comes to the upper management however I'm a bit concerned. I'm one of the fans that didn't enjoy the Mario movie and the more 'Hollywood" approach to the characterization and script. I'm a bit of a film snob but I also hold the things I enjoy to a high standard and the movie was a missed opportunity to really do something great, not simply have a bunch of references on top of a cookie cutter "fish out of water/ isekai" plot. Basically I didn't enjoy the stale western influence of Hollywood in Nintendo and I hope this won't infect their games. Various studios with their own culture adding something to the grand Nintendo Potluck, I'm down for that!

[@Yoshizuyuner]

the original video game is based on literally a isekai plot, Mario was never from mushroom kingdom at all

[@RiqMoran]

Well videogame fans will literally be fed the bottom of the barrel writing quality and be perfectly fine with it. Which is why stuff like Sonic Pikachu and Mario movies are received well.

[@therealjaystone2344]

@@RiqMoranthey get away with it because they don’t require too much writing to get things right unlike JRPGs

[@FTChomp9980]

Nintendo should stay Japanese we don't need another Sony.

[@shadowsquid1351]

100% agree, the new Zelda movie announcement is one of my most hated moments from Nintendo lol, I just don't care for Hollywood at all & wished Zelda at least be animated in Japan or by Ghibli.

[@calvinbrinenestoris2357]

HOLY GUACAMOLE you do so much research for this. How do you upload so often with this stuff? I think I'm gonna have to call the NSA and tell them we've got a Martian in our midst, because you're definitely not human.

[@alphamarigi]

No mention of Blackrock or Vanguard is surprising.

[@connormclernon26]

I seem to recall Blackrock is one of the companies on Nintendo’s “Do Not Sell Stocks To,” list

[@jackronesto8182]

Great video, very thoroughly researched, but you missed Nintendo’s 5% stake in Cygames, the studio primarily known for gacha games (Granblue Fantasu, Princess Connect, Shadowverse) and who collaborated with Nintendo to make Dragalia Lost. This is probably a legacy investment from when they pushed into the mobile sphere, but it’s interesting that they’ve kept their stake in the company.

[@nintendoforecast]

Thanks and great spot. There are definitely some companies not listed and that's just because I can't find current info. In Cygames' case, since the 2018 announcement from Nintendo, I can't find any reference to an association on either Cygames' end or Nintendo's. It's likely they still do hold the stake - I just can't evidence that currently although if anyone can find anything please let me know.

[@joopvanhedel1372]

A new studio has been created called pokemon works in the same building as ILCA. And from the information we know, this is going to be a second game freak. So the Pokemon games are going to get a little better

[@M64bros]

I always find it really interesting that Nintendo has collaborated with these companies!

[@Usith]

I have always wondered about this! Excited to learn :)

[@elliotCloud-f6d]

These vids are amazing. Personally feel much more informed and like I can make better points when talking about Nintendo. Thanks for making such a unique content. I'm surprised I've not seen videos like this before they are very handy.

[@LKBoots15]

Thanks very much for today's video, Forecaster! 😄

[@ausgod538]

I think it would be interesting for you to make a video talking about Nintendo EPD. And the subsidiaries nintendo own that are involved in development of software, just a suggestion

[@nintendoforecast]

Interesting - do you mean a general overview video? If you look through my Developer Deep-Dive playlist, I already have videos specifically on EPD 5, 7 and 3 and NDCube plus partners (or former partners) like Camelot and Vanpool. An EPD 9 video is coming in the next few days and I'm going to do an updated Grezzo video but I'm currently waiting to see if they're the LM2 devs. Eventually I'll get round them all but it's a big list. I'll have a think about a "general" video bringing this all together though. Thanks for the suggestion.

[@ausgod538]

@@nintendoforecast i mean a general one for all epd groups just to give an idea for the fans who don't know the structure or who develop or produce what

[@nintendoforecast]

Thanks. I will definitely look into this although it may be a while away as it's a big one to pull together.

[@Rager825]

Nintendo also owns stakes in Game Freak and Creatures Inc. Try to wrap your head around that.

[@rei3951]

PUX, the secret brain worm that controls Nintendo's 'Software'

[@scamperly]

Very interesting

[@ProjectMirai64]

Nice video!

[@Zveebo]

The treasury shares argument isn’t quite right. These are mostly a legacy of *past* share buy backs (where the shares are bought by the company and can either become treasury shares or be cancelled). They don’t have any voting rights and don’t provide any particular protection against acquisition. Though they are convenient to keep around as it makes it a little easier to eg. issue shares for employee incentivisation schemes in future without needing to issue new shares.

[@Loanshark753]

In Germany companies have employees vote on boards and have 1/3 of the vote with the shareholders having 1/3 and the director also having one third to prevent businesses from leaving and to limit hostile takeovers. However I am unsure if the provided numbers are correct, so please double check if this interests you. As for the Kabushiki Kaisha (K.K.) it is based on the German Aktiengesellschaft (AG) and later deformed after WW2 to resemble corporations under the rules of the state of Illinois, however there are differences in rules and the two have diverged over time.

[@EnigmaticGentleman]

On the topic of Pokemon, i think it still would have struggles if it was wholly owned by Nintendo. TL;DR is they have to create detailed 3D models and animations for every single Pokemon, games like Legends Arceus and SV have to seamlessly load any Pokemon and all its data at any given time (which naturally has a massive technical toll), and on top of that they still have to have the scope of a JRPG. Obviously Ninty would keep things from getting as rough as they are now, but I very much think it'd be either 1 game per generation with live service elements, or some games that are still kinda rough (and no open world Pokemon until the next system either way).

[@RiqMoran]

I have no doubt Nintendo would do a better job and the task of putting 1000 creatures in one game is not at all insurmountable.

[@M4-Z3-R0]

I feel like they would make monolithsoft make the Pokémon games.

[@moyetlicious]

Gamefreak is notorious for being bad at coding even back in the beginning, if it wasn't for Iwata saving the day there wouldn't have been Kanto in the Gold & Silver games because they couldn't get them to work. I've seen analyses of the newer games and there's so much bloat within the code (such as multiple models for the gigantimax Pokémon because each cloud number somehow needs its own model with the Pokémon rather than the 3/2/1 clouds being separate from the main Pokémon's model) which is likely a failure of both time and expertise, I'm sure these issues could be fixed if the games were given more time to cook and if GF was able to expand their miniscule development team.

[@emiel333]

Great 👍 video.

[@aegisleague4053]

Didn't think it was worth updating the video to mention that Disney bought into Epic Games recently?

[@ironicdivinemandatestan4262]

There was also Disney Interactive, but that went bust because of Disney Infinity underperforming.

[@citrufruit]

8th

[@cherubin7th]

Just just skipped the most interesting part: what evil banks own Nintendo.

[@ironicdivinemandatestan4262]

JP Morgan, and Citibank has shares, but that's in a foreign depositary account. Essentially, when someone in America wants to purchase a Nintendo share ($NDTOY on the NYSE), they buy a foreign depositary receipt from Citibank, which will then buy a real share in Japan (7974 on the TSE), and the reciept that they give you is worth the face value of the real share, but doesn't confer any voting rights.

[@-lord1754]

Are you talking about bank of japan or do you notice something else?

[@johnlucas1543]

In other words: *"Nintendo, the biggest indie."*

[@CHanafuda]

Do you know who considered Nintendo an indie company? the creator of the Nes and Snes, Masayuki Uemura

[@nirgunawish]

masayuki was one dumb old fart

[@trianguloid]

the juice

[@StiffAftermath]

BandaiNamco. Darksouls III when?