Retro Studios

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Retro Studios
Type privately held
Founded 1998
Headquarters 1835A Kramer Lane, Suite 100 Austin, Texas 78758, USA
Key people Michael Kelbaugh, president
Industry computer and video game industry
Products Metroid Prime series games for Nintendo video game consoles
Employees ≥72
Parent Nintendo
Website http://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 (and is thus a first-party developer, rather than a second-party one as it once was), with over 50 employees.

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[edit] History

Retro struggled in its early years, dealing with several cancelled projects and lay-offs. Then 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, a game that 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 success as the first game. Retro is currently creating Metroid Prime 3: Corruption for Nintendo's Wii, due to be released in 2007.

[edit] Games developed by Retro Studios

[edit] Nintendo GameCube

[edit] Wii

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Nintendo Developers
In-house & first-party : Integrated R&D | R&D 1 | R&D 2 | EAD | Intelligent Systems | EAD Tokyo | NST | Retro Studios | Brownie Brown
Second-party: HAL Laboratory | Camelot | Genius Sonority | Creatures Inc. | AlphaDream | Game Freak | NOISE