Every Nintendo Development Team EXPLAINED

This video should explode and the EPD terms should become standard in any discussion of upcoming Nintendo games, it'll make it MUCH easier to know what to expect and know which games to purchase based on what games from each studio resonated with the player

Crazy. I always thought Miyamoto crafted Pikmin 4 by himself out of wood and wires. I had a lot of fun watching, and the editing and pacing was really nice and puts a sweet bow on everything.

"Nintendo isn't a Monolith" Missed a prime opportunity to say "however it does own a Monolith"

Honestly seeing nintendos teams layed out like this makes some of their more weird decisions kinda make sense

Nice in-depth analysis, but you forgot EPD11 which is the team that develops mainline F-Zero games. They are locked in a basement in Kyoto and aren't allowed to go near a computer.

Hey, the algorithm is doing something right for once... it's been recommending smaller channels with gems like these! Great vid :)

My doctor: "When did the throbbing pressure in your head start?" Me: "When I watched this awesome video from Back Log Banter teaching me about every Nintendo Development team." My doctor [speaking into walkie talkie, for some reason]: "Inform the CDC we've got another BLB case."

The video I never knew I wanted. I do love how many of these just "make sense", like a team only for zelda, or the helper teams with a million credits. But be almost a different company depending on which one you work on.

My cousin's husband works at the Nintendo team at Paris and they worked on the Mario Kart Live Home Circuit motion controls and a bunch of other projects that never came to light

My takeaway from this is let EPD9 assist on a Pokemon game. Because they seriously know how to make visually stunning games which also perform well, and God knows Pokemon needs some of that.

A follow-up video with Nintendos long-standing partners and external studios would be nice ^^. While those are kinda more well-known (HAL doing Kirby games, Intelligent Systems Fire Emblem etc.), their role in support is often overlooked (Monolith helps a ton, Retro Studios did as well in the past). Personally I can't really grasp what 1UP-Studio really does. An overview over which studios Nintendo actually owns (not that many compared to other publishers) and which are just very close partners, but formally independent might be helpful aswell. Oh, and this video is great by the way :D (Thanks to Jon Cartwright for the recommendation)

Forgot to mention the most famous division of Nintendo, the Seattle Mariners

Oh yeah, a funny thing about NST is that you can just see the developers/artists/producers on Twitter just tweeting about "I did X Y Z for the newest game", the girl who made the design and model for Mario in the latest Mario and Donkey Kong game just tweeted her contributions out and that she's proud, which is really cool.

One of the stranger things about the EPD studios is the way the numbers are assigned. You'd think the 3D Mario team would be team 1 or 2, but they're team 8 and the first 2 teams are teams that assist outside developers.

Just a couple notes. For EPD 2, the head seems to be Toyokazu Nonaka and has been for several years. several of the Western projects which were under the purview of Tanabe and Terasaki were moved to EPD 2 (namely NST and also the Switch port of DKCTF along with stuff like Stretchers, Snipperclips and Good Job). Also worth noting many series under EPD 2 have dedicated producer like Akira Kinashi for Pokemon, Genki Yokota for Fire Emblem and Xenoblade and Toshiaki Suzuki for Mario Party. For EPD6, we should mention that this Switch for Warioware happened when SPD1 and SDD joined EAD shortly after Tomodachi Life. Goro Abe stayed behind with SPD3 and the series became led by Intelligent Systems rather than codeveloped with Nintendo. Tomodachi Life and Rhythm Heaven are theoretically supposed to be under EPD7 under this understanding. For EPD8, you neglect to mention Koichi Hayashida who was the producer on the 3D Mario's until Super Mario Maker 2 where he and small team joined EPD10. For EPD9, you didn't mention Bandai Namco, which has been critical for Mario Kart 8, ARMS and the Booster Course Pass. For EPD10, you mention Shiro Mori but he directed NSMBUDX not Super Mario Maker 2. The director of Maker 2 (and Run) was Yosuke Oshino, who left and directed Pokemon Smile

No idea how I missed the EPD restructuring. This whole time I was under the impression that EAD was still a thing. Amazing breakdown, super informative. Thank you!

I desperately hope this spreads, especially so that people would stop carelessly saying things like "Why can't Nintendo just _____?" and "What was Nintendo thinking when they _______?!" They can still argue this stuff, but at least have more of an informed opinion about it. The answer to questions like those above has been, and always has been: Nintendo is not just one massive team. It's multiple teams made up of groups of varied backgrounds working towards common goals, but not always the same project. They're practically different tribes flying under a unified banner, with one tribe leading. And yes, this individuality includes Nintendo Legal. Some can argue Nintendo Legal is practically an entirely different tribe altogether, much like how The Pokémon Company is practically its own ecosystem. They work in parallel with Nintendo, to assist and protect them, but they do not represent the developers of Nintendo. Sakurai is not out there killing your fan games. He likely played them and enjoyed them.

Something interesting, bowser's fury being supported by NST was mentioned, but to what extent wasnt mentioned. However by digging through game files many of bowser's fury's assets are named in english, implying that NST (the US-based team) made not the port itself, but the bowser's fury expansion.

This is very interesting. Imma throw some hats to what each might be developing rn: EPD1-Probably inside EPD2, but could return individually EPD2-May be helping other titles like Pokémon Legends Z-A EPD3-Very likely in early development of the new console's Zelda EPD4-Might be developing the switch 2's main included game, like Nintendo Land in Wii U EPD5-Working on Splatoon 3 updates and probably developing a new Animal Crossing EPD6-Probably helping with Mario Sports games, Metroid Prime 4 and TTYD EPD7-Might be working on Metroid 6 as we speak, or a remake? EPD8-Very very likely developing soon to completion a new 3D Mario game as a release title EPD9-Probably preparing the next Mario Kart title, or maybe an ARMS sequel EPD10-Maybe early developing on Pikmin 5 or Super Mario Maker 3 EPDMobile-Strangely silent for a while, might drop a new mobile game by the next gen NST-Just launched Mario vs DK, might continue on that franchise

I've been a fan of Nintendo for years and it never occurred to me just how many teams comprise the game development company.