PlatinumGames no longer has any rights to Astral Chain for Nintendo Switch

Japanese studio PlatinumGames confirmed the information that she no longer has any rights to the franchise Astral chain… The publication informs about this. VGC… The only copyright holder was the company Nintendo, with the financial support of which the action for Nintendo Switch and was developed.

The situation is unusual. Typically, by teaming up with third-party studios to create new IPs, Nintendo leaves some of the rights to the franchise or game directly to the developers, but at the same time becomes the sole owner of the copyright and trademark, which ensures it permanent exclusivity. Astral Chain was no exception, but in early January, users discoveredthat on the official website in the line about the copyright holders the mention of PlatinumGames has disappeared.

PlatinumGames CEO Atsushi Inaba confirmedthat this is not a mistake.

“Astral Chain is owned by Nintendo as stated on the site,” he said, adding that he was unable to go into details.

Last February Inaba toldthat Astral Chain is half Nintendo and half PlatinumGames, but only Nintendo can make decisions about where the game can be released and sold.

Previously, Nintendo allowed PlatinumGames to release on Playstation 4 and PC the game The Wonderful 101, which was created for Wii U in the same way as Astral Chain. The case was called “unique” and “unprecedented” because Nintendo is not just scattering the rights to the games it has paid for.

“PlatinumGames has a great relationship with Nintendo. We’ve worked with them since the beginning, launching many games together, including Astral Chain, which was a great success.

The established relationship, I believe, led to this exception [с The Wonderful 101] for us. We were very surprised ourselves. This is not usually the case in the industry. We regard what happened as a unique opportunity given to us by Nintendo, and we are very happy about it, “Inaba said in early 2023.

Prior to the history of the rights to Astral Chain, there was updated another sub-site of PlatinumGames – dedicated to Bayonetta 3… Since the announcement of the game in 2017, only Sega, which owns the series, while Nintendo was celebrated simply as a publisher. However, now Nintendo stands next to Sega as copyright holders. According to the same scheme, it initially passes and Bayonetta 2… Hideki Kamiya has previously confirmed that the third part of Bayonetta is being funded by Nintendo.

As for Astral Chain, this project has become one of the most successful original debuts of PlatinumGames. The action for Switch quickly sold over 1 million copies and surpassed developer expectations.

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