Nintendo of Japan Brings Development Team Under One Roof

Nintendo has invested 16.5 billion yen in a new facility for their Research and Development department. The new facility will be located in Kyoto’s Minami Ward, alongside Nintendo’s main headquarters.

The current R&D facility is located several blocks away from the main facility, and this move should improve the workflow within Nintendo’s development team.

According to Nintendo, the decision to build the new facility next door to Nintendo HQ is to strengthen its hardware and software development team by having the team working side-by-side. The current set-up has the two buildings separated by several blocks; Nintendo’s Kyoto Research Center R&D facility being located in Kyoto’s Higashiyama Ward, and Nintendo’s main office being located in Minami Ward.

Now that we are at the tail-end of the Wii’s lifespan and heading towards the beginning of a new generation with Wii U, this is the perfect time for Nintendo to retailer its team. Once launch time comes around for the Wii U, Nintendo is going to need their team running at top-gear.

With the two facilities essentially becoming one, I hope the improved opportunity for communication will truly improve software quality and mean that Wii U’s launch will be glitch-free. I know from experience that a skype chat can’t beat walking down the hall to someone’s desk, especially in a gaming pipeline.

The new facility will be operational come January 2012.

Source: Andriasang