Nintendo Acquires Partner Studio SRD Co

Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros, Zelda: As a developer, if you can claim to be involved in such cult titles, you earn real respect. Nintendo now honors gaming forge SRD Co. Ltd and takes over.

4 Decades of partnership

Aside from a massive acquisition of the caliber of Activision and Microsoft, this is the story of two partners who have shaped gaming history together for more than four decades. SRD Co. Ltd., now based in Tokyo. was founded in Osaka in 1979 and the company was first featured on a Nintendo game box in 1983 thanks to the NES port of Donkey Kong.

Since then, the studio has been a regular development partner for Nintendo in almost all major ventures and has been involved with Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr, as well as Super Mario Bros and various parts of The Legend of Zelda. Recent projects include Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and the programming game Game Builder Garage.

Long iconic story

Now for example game industry reported, Nintendo will now fully acquire the long-term partner. A purchase price was not communicated, but Nintendo speaks of “only minor effects” on the balance sheet. The deal should be officially closed on April 1, 2022. The announcement states that the acquisition will “strengthen SRD’s management base and ensure the availability of software development resources for Nintendo”.

How important these resources were to Nintendo in the past, an Interview with Mario’s father Shigeru Miyamoto impressively displayed. He had SRD Co. Ltd. In 1984, he was given the trusted task of developing a prototype for the now legendary jumping mechanism in Mario Bros. “I asked SRD’s programmers to create a trial version – something where Mario jumps with the press of a button and also jumps in the air with repeated presses. And that turned out to work quite well.”