Nintendo announces takeover of Splatoon 3’s Bandai Namco Studios to “strengthen development structure”

Nintendo has announced plans to acquire the majority of Bandai Namco Studios Singapore’s shares and turn it into the country’s first Nintendo studio. What could this mean for future games? Let’s have a look.

The Mario-making giant is acquiring shares of Bandai Namco Studios “for the purpose of strengthening development structure”. Nintendo will gain 80% of the studio’s shares on April 1, 2026. The studio will then get renamed to Nintendo Studios Singapore Pte. Ltd, and be a subsidiary of Nintendo itself.

If you’re not sure what Bandai Namco Studios has been up to, you may be more familiar with their work than you think. Switch titles by the studio include Splatoon 3 and New Pokémon Snap, but other platforms’ works span Tekken 7 and 8 and Soul Calibur VI.

This could mean extra hands on deck for Splatoon Raiders, as we really don’t know how far along development is for the game just yet. It could be that another Splatoon project – perhaps Splatoon 4 – is in the works. My hope is for another Pokémon Snap or similar title, as that looked stunning on Switch, especially compared to GameFreak’s own Pokémon games released around the same time…

For now, we’ll need to wait and see what comes out of this – be it new Switch games, like a port of Tekken to match Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter.