Nintendo has entered an agreement with Bandai Namco to buy out all of its shares in its Bandai Namco Singapore development studio, bringing it under Nintendo’s fold by spring 2026. Nintendo and Bandai Namco have shown a longstanding cooperative history with each other, and this business deal should open up new possibilities for the future of the Switch 2.
Bandai Namco’s Singapore-based operations were founded in 2013 to ramp up development of games in Asia, while a Vancouver-based branch was established at the same time to cover the western market. Its biggest sales success by far has been Splatoon 3, which was developed in collaboration with Nintendo EPD and released in September 2022 exclusively for Nintendo Switch. The Singapore studio has also led some solo developments of late-stage entries in a few popular series, with credits for Soul Calibur 6, Ace Combat 7: Skies Unkown, and Taiko no Tatsujin: VR Festival under its belt.
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Games Developed By Bandai Namco Singapore
- Splatoon 3 (with Nintendo EPD)
- Soul Calibur 6
- Ace Combat 7: Skies Unkown
- Taiko no Tatsujin: VR Festival
Nintendo has officially announced that it will be acquiring the majority of shares in Bandai Namco Singpore early next year. According to a press release, 80 percent of the studio’s shares will fall into Nintendo’s possession on April 1, 2026, with the remaining 20 percent planned to be transferred under Nintendo’s control at an unspecified date that will occur after time has been granted for stabilization of the studio. The acquisition of the studio, which will be rebranded as Nintendo Studios Singapore, is expected to have only a “minor effect” on Nintendo’s finances for the current fiscal year, but it opens up a lot of possibilities for the future, especially considering the end of regular updates for Splatoon 3 was announced more than a year ago.
Compared to rival console developers Sony and Microsoft, Nintedo has not been nearly as active in the business of acquiring new development studios. Sony has more than 20 first-party development studios, notably adding Bungie and Firewalk Studios to the list in 2023 and Kadokawa Corporation in 2024. Likewise, the Xbox brand has also been growing in recent years, most prominently with its $75.4 billion buyout of Activision Blizzard, which was completed in 2023 and brought massive franchises like Call of Duty, Warcraft, and Diablo under its banner.
Meanwhile, one of Nintendo’s last big pick-ups was in May 2024, when it entered into a deal with Embracer Group to acquire Shiver Entertainment, a company most well-known for porting games such as Hogwarts Legacy, Mortal Kombat 1, and entries in the Guitar Hero series to new platforms. Later that year, Nintendo fully acquired Xenoblade Chronicles developer Monolift Soft, although it had already owned 96 percent of the company since 2011. Other game-based acquisitions by Nintendo this decade include SRD, a company that has aided Nintendo in creation since the days of the NES, and Next Level Games, which is the primary developer of Luigi’s Mansion 3, multiple Mario Strikers games, Metroid Prime: Federation Force, and the 2009 Punch-Out for the Wii. Additionally, Nintendo’s 2022 pick-up of the animation studio formerly known as Dynamo Pictures has earned it credits in games, anime, and short films, including providing a link to Death Stranding 2 through its motion capture work.
The business deal between Nintendo and Bandai Namco could be a sign that the former is ready to step up to stacked competition presented by other first-party developers. While the Switch 2 is outselling the PS5 and Xbox Series X, Nintendo famously lost one of its most well-known second-party developers when Microsoft acquired Rare back in 2002 for $375 million after Nintendo turned down a similar deal. With the recent success of Donkey Kong Bananza, many fans’ thoughts have been drawn back to Rare’s glory days with the Donkey Kong Country series on the SNES and N64, and the establishment of Nintendo Studios Singapore could be meant to protect the Splatoon franchise from a similar future.
