Retro Studios
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Retro Studios | |
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| Type | Private |
| Founded | 1998 |
| Headquarters | Austin, Texas |
| Key people | Michael Kelbaugh, president |
| Industry | computer and video game industry |
| Products | Metroid Prime series games for Nintendo video game consoles |
| Employees | around 60 |
| Parent | Nintendo |
| Website | www.retrostudios.com |
Retro Studios is an American video game developer based in Austin, Texas, USA. It was founded in 1998 by Jeff Spangenberg as a second-party developer to Japan-based video game company Nintendo. It is currently wholly owned by Nintendo (thus a first-party developer), with about 60 employees.
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[edit] History
Retro struggled in its early years, dealing with several cancelled projects and lay-offs. In 2000, Nintendo offered the company the license to the long-dormant Metroid franchise which proved to be a turning point for the company. The first big project that Retro Studios worked on with Nintendo was Metroid Prime. This game would become one of the biggest titles for the Nintendo GameCube, receiving both critical and public acclaim. In 2001, then-president Jeff Spangenberg sold his share of stock in the company to Nintendo and left shortly thereafter. In 2003, Michael Kelbaugh was named president of Retro Studios. In 2004 Retro released Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, which proved to be just as much of a critical success as the first game. Retro’s latest release is Metroid Prime 3: Corruption for the Wii, which was released towards the end of 2007 in North America and Europe. Soon after the release, Retro confirmed that they will be "taking a break" from the Metroid series.[1] It's unknown what they are currently working on.[2]
On January 16, 2008 it was announced that one of Retro Studios' key programmers, Mark Haigh-Hutchinson, had died of pancreatic cancer the previous day at age 43. Haigh-Hutchinson has been a senior engineer on all three of the studio's Metroid Prime games.[3]
[edit] Games developed
[edit] Canceled projects
In Retro’s early days, they had several cancelled projects for the Nintendo GameCube.
- Action Adventure
- Car Combat (Thunder Rally)
- NFL Retro Football
- Raven Blade
[edit] Nintendo GameCube
[edit] Nintendo DS
- Metroid Prime Hunters (2006) (involved with art direction and general supervision, though actual development took place at NST)
[edit] Wii
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Mark Pacini at Yahoo! Games: “We are taking a break from Metroid series and from Samus.” Source (August 31, 2007)
- ^ Wii News: Retro Studios takes a break from Metroid - ComputerAndVideoGames.com
- ^ IGN: Famed Industry Veteran, Retro Studios Programmer Dies
- IGN’s Retro Studios page
- N-Sider: The Art of Prime (November 18, 2002)
- N-Sider: A Retrospective: The Story of Retro Studios (December 17, 2004) (engl.) (Mirror available at [1])
[edit] External links
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