Nintendo buys majority share of Monolith Soft.
Word from Japan is that Nintendo now owns an 80% share of Monolith Soft, the developer behind the long-running series of Xenosaga games on Sony consoles and Baten Kaitos games on Nintendo consoles. Recent titles in development by them for Nintendo platforms include Xenosaga Episode I and II for Nintendo DS, a Baten Kaitos title that at last report was “on hold,” also for DS, and Disaster: Day of Crisis which is supposed to release this year despite there being next to no information on the game’s current status.
It’s unclear whether any pre-existing properties actually belong to Monolith Soft instead of previous majority shareholder Namco-Bandai. It would be interesting to see some more Xenosaga games on Nintendo platforms, but what I’m really hoping at this point is that Baten Kaitos for DS will actually rematerialize and complete development. This is probably the best news in that direction anyone could hope for.
Food for thought: when Nintendo stomped into Retro Studios a lot of heads rolled, a lot of games were canceled, and one of the greatest games ever made was the result. You can imagine I’ll be watching what comes of this very closely. Click through to see some footage of works in progress and recent work by Monolith Soft.
Nintendo buys Xenosaga dev Monolith Soft at Joystiq.
TBA: XENOSAGA I & II (no news in forever…) – Nintendo DS
2007: DISASTER: DAY OF CRISIS (no news in forever…) – Nintendo Wii
2006: BATEN KAITOS ORIGINS – Nintendo Gamecube
2005: BATEN KAITOS: ETERNAL WINGS AND THE LOST OCEAN – Nintendo Gamecube
Tags: baten kaitos, baten kaitos origins, disaster: day of crisis, monolith soft, namco, xenosaga
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