Retro Studios is an American video game developer based in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1998 by Jeff Spangenberg as an independent studio making games exclusively for Japan-based video game company Nintendo. It is currently wholly owned by Nintendo (thus a first-party developer), with about 80 employees.
Retro Studios struggled in its early years, dealing with several canceled projects and lay-offs. In 2000, Nintendo offered the company the l...
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Retro Studios is an American video game developer based in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1998 by Jeff Spangenberg as an independent studio making games exclusively for Japan-based video game company Nintendo. It is currently wholly owned by Nintendo (thus a first-party developer), with about 80 employees.
Retro Studios struggled in its early years, dealing with several canceled 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...
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