Journalists of a number of Western publications last fall found out about plans Platinum games on transfer The Wonderful 101 from Wii U on modern platforms. About this after the launch of the Kickstarter campaign to raise funds on The Wonderful 101: Remastered editors said Gematsu and Vgc – they were able to record an interview with the head of the studio Atsushi Inaba and vice president Hideki Camie back in September 2019. The developers answered the other questions just the other day, and all this was published on the evening of February 3.
According to Inaba and Kamiya, The Wonderful 101 is a game dear to their hearts, and they always hoped to provide her with a second chance, since she could not become successful on Wii U.
At the same time, PlatinumGames wanted to see a remaster not on one modern platform, but on several. It was not possible to do this without Nintendo’s permission, as she funded the development of the original.
Nintendo usually does not practice transferring its rights to games to partners, but in the case of The Wonderful 101, based on the words of the developers, an exception was made to the rules.
“Nintendo essentially told us: if you want to transfer the game to another platform, we don’t mind. But you have to do it yourself,” Inaba recalled in an interview with VGC.
“PlatinumGames are developers, not publishers, so we have no way to distribute the games ourselves. That’s why we decided to contact fans on Kickstarter to make this project a reality.”
It is unknown that Nintendo simply donated IP studios, sold or allowed to use the license, retaining its part of the rights. To a direct question from VGC journalists about who owns The Wonderful 101 today, Inaba answered the following:
“Unfortunately, we cannot comment on this issue right now.“
Further, the journalist called the situation “amazing” and completely atypical for Nintendo.
“How did Nintendo allow the game to appear on other platforms? Why?” The browser asked.
“We do not know“Kamiya answered smiling.”They were very kind”
“PlatinumGames has a great relationship with Nintendo. We cooperated with them from the very beginning, launched many games together, including the Astral Chain, which was a great success.
The existing relationship, I believe, led to this exception for us. We ourselves were very surprised. Usually this does not happen in industry. We consider the incident as a unique opportunity provided by Nintendo, and we are very pleased“
In the future, the studio hopes to distribute its original games more often on its own, however this is not an easy task and much work remains to be done. The Kickstarter campaign for The Wonderful 101, among other things, will allow the studio to evaluate how many active fans there are ready to support the development of the team. At the same time, PlatinumGames plans to continue to fulfill orders from third-party publishers, as well as to carry out joint projects with other companies.
To the question of whether one day Astral chain, another Nintendo-sponsored project, one day to appear outside the company’s platforms, Inaba replied that it was too early to talk about it.
“Astral Chain is an IP that is half owned by Nintendo and half PlatinumGames. It has only just started, and it’s too early to talk about it now.”
The journalist asked Inaba to clarify whether the studio excludes the possibility of porting the game to other consoles and computers in the future.
“Ultimately, it all depends on Nintendo, not on us.. Nintendo owns Astral Chain’s copyright, so we can’t say anything about it, “Inaba replied, adding that the studio considers the story with The Wonderful 101 a unique exception.
PlatinumGames is “very pleased with the success of the Astral Chain,” Inaba summed up. Recently, the game has joined the Nintendo millionaire release list.
Nintendo did not comment on the situation with The Wonderful 101. The game will be released on foreign systems almost seven years after the premiere of the original.
At the time of this writing, users have raised money to release a remaster in versions for Switch, PlayStation 4 and PC. The release will take place in April 2023.
Read also: Nintendo is not afraid of the appearance of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.
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