Japanese developer Monolith Soft has confirmed it is opening a second studio. In a statement on the company’s official website (thanks, Japanese Nintendo), the Xenoblade developer confirmed the new studio will be established in Tokyo, which has been the company’s base since it was established in 1999. The new premises will be to the north of the city in Osaki.
The statement doesn’t add much else, but the company has posted a number of professional openings across a range of development disciplines, some of which are marked “emergency”, suggesting a desire to get the posts filled as quickly as possible.
The company recently published its financial report for the period ending March 31st, 2019. It reports a highly successful year that saw the firm’s profits double. The developer – which has also contributed to critically-acclaimed projects such as Nintendo Switch games Splatoon 2 and Zelda: Breath of the Wild – saw its earning jump to ¥274 million ($2.5m) in the last fiscal year, doubling its prior performance.
On the topic of Nintendo Switch, Nintendo of Japan has revealed that while cloud technologies are “definitely advancing”, it does not believe “all games to become cloud games any time soon”. In a Q&A summary for the company’s 79th Annual General Meeting of Shareholders, the company formally responded to a number of questions, including the advent of cloud streaming games and how the company intends to respond to this fresh competition.
A recent report suggested Nintendo has two new Switch models in production. Anonymous sources said to be involved in Nintendo’s supply chain have intimated that while one of the new models will look much like the current version it will be much more powerful, whilst the other is a cheaper, more economical design. It is thought the cheaper of the two models may retail for around $200 USD. Nintendo said in the Q&A that while it was “aware there has been coverage” about the rumours, it “cannot comment in regards to speculation and rumors about new hardware or software”.
Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa stated back in January that Nintendo was “not fixated on [its] consoles” and may be interested in creating more mobile games in the future. Furukawa said he was “thinking about little ways [he] can reduce that kind of instability” created by market fluctuations and said he’d “like to increase” Nintendo’s smartphone game development to secure “a continuous stream of revenue”.
