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Nintendo buys developer behind terrible Mortal Kombat 1 port… for some reason-GameCentral-Entertainment – Metro
In a very rare event, Nintendo has decided to spend its money on an external studio but the one it’s chosen is not what you’d expect.
Mortal Kombat 1 on Switch – did Nintendo make a drunk purchase? (Twitter)
In a very rare event, Nintendo has decided to spend its money on an external studio but the one it’s chosen is not what you’d expect.
Video game publishers have been spending money like it’s going out of fashion lately, with Microsoft buying up Activision Blizzard for an inconceivable $75.4 billion and Sony paying $3.6 billion for Bungie.
Nintendo famously has a massive war chest, that it saves for a rainy day (and to prevent a hostile takeover), but it does very occasionally buy developers, such as Retro Studios, Monolith Soft, and Next Level Games.
None of them are very expensive though and while Nintendo hasn’t said how much its latest acquisition cost it, Shiver Entertainment – the developer behind the Switch ports of Mortal Kombat 1 and Hogwarts Legacy – is unlikely to have cost them very much.
You’ve probably never heard of Shiver, but they’ve been around since 2012 and have also worked on Mortal Kombat 11 and the Lucius horror series.
The Switch version of Mortal Kombat 1 was famously bad but to be fair to be them, that was probably a mix of budgetary constraints and the fact that the original game was too technically advanced for the Switch – and should never have been attempted.
That was certainly the case for Hogwarts Legacy, which they tried to do their best with but where they ended up all but removing the open world elements.
The only original game they seem to have made is the awful Scribblenauts Showdown from 2018, but apparently they’re working on something new at the moment – so perhaps that caught Nintendo’s attention, whatever it is.
No matter which way you look at it though, this is certainly a peculiar decision, especially as Nintendo’s brief announcement of the purchase states that Shiver will still make ports and develop software for ‘multiple platforms including Nintendo Switch.’
Why they would continue to make multiformat games, even after they become a fully owned subsidiary of Nintendo is a mystery, although it’s possible that something has been lost in translation and Nintendo just mean that they’ll finish what they’re currently working on. Or perhaps that’s an awkward attempt to avoid not mentioning the Switch 2.
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Either way, Shiver is likely to have been a very cheap purchase, as Nintendo bought them from the beleaguered Embracer Group, which has been selling off many of its purchases lately.
Or, as Nintendo puts it, ‘The acquisition will have only a minor effect on Nintendo’s results for this fiscal year.’
Hogwarts Legacy on Switch wasn’t as bad as you’d think (Warner Bros. Games)
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