Nintendo Finally Buys Mario & Animal Crossing Studio After 40 Years

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SRD Co., Ltd (Systems Research and Development) has officially been acquired by Nintendo following nearly four decades of cooperation on franchises like Animal Crossing and Super Mario Bros. This is after Nintendo said it wasn't interested in acquisitions, following recent speculation that the company would expand in the same manner as its competition.

Talk of video game acquisitions has been heating up since Microsoft purchased ZeniMax Media in 2021, adding studios like Bethesda Softworks and id Software to the Xbox Game Studios lineup. Sony had made some minor acquisitions, such as purchasing Firesprite to make VR games, but Microsoft recently shook the world when it announced its intentions to purchase Activision Blizzard, in a deal that's expected to close in 2023. This purchase lit a fire throughout the industry, as Microsoft will soon own franchises like Call of Duty, Candy Crush Saga, Overwatch, and World of Warcraft. Sony then purchased Bungie, which will give it ownership over the Destiny franchise, and a company that is well-suited for making live service games.

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While all of this has been happening, Nintendo has been downplaying the need for acquisitions, but it has now announced its intentions to acquire SRD. According to Nintendo (via Kotaku), the deal is expected to be completed on April 1, 2022. Once the deal is complete, SRD will officially become part of Nintendo.

SRD is a studio that has been working with Nintendo for nearly forty years, starting with the port of Donkey Kong on the NES. Since then, the company has worked on numerous Nintendo games across multiple franchises, including Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Animal