Talk:Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development

Untitled

I removed the following games because they were NOT developed by Nintendo EAD: Sheriff, Popeye, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr, Donkey Kong 3, Mario Bros were all developed before EAD even existed. F-Zero GP Legend and F-Zero Climax were also not developed by Nintendo EAD.

Why is there a reference to Matt Casamassina at that foot of this page? 83.71.3.52 14:58, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Big List Edit

The article's title is "Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development" not "EAD Before Restructuring", so I edited the list to include every game developed by EAD. If there really was any marked difference worth pointing out then every single page in wikipedia that says "developed by EAD" should be edited to "developed by EAD before/after restructuring". That would be absurd.

I tried to complete the list as best I could. If anyone notices a game missing, please add it.

Star Fox was developed by EAD with Argonaut doing the programming and designing the chip FX. The directors, designers, etc. are all from EAD.

Stunt Race FX is for the SNES and Argonaut had nothing to do with it.

I removed Star Fox 2 because if it was going to be included then every other game that was ever started and cancelled by EAD would have to be included too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Link floyd (talk • contribs) 00:09, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Takashi Tezuka MIA

Why isn't Takashi Tezuka mentioned anywhere in this article? So far as I am aware he is second in command to Miyamoto (head of Nintendo EAD) and was promoted to General Producer a few years ago. Furthermore, the Wikipedia article on Tezuka states he is the head of the NEAD department that creates all mario games yet he isn't mentioned as such in this article nor does he have a place as any of the heads of any department. I would correct the error myself but I don't know much about the structure of Nintendo and secondly, I'm not a member of Wikipedia and have no place to make changes to a main article. 208.102.181.15 (talk) 09:46, 26 December 2007 (UTC) Joshua

Japanese title of former "Research and Development Departments"

The Japanese version of "Iwata Asks - Punch-Out!!" gives the title of Research and Development Department 3 as Kaihatsu Sanbu (開発三部). Several instances on the official Japanese Nintendo site confirm this applies to the other teams as well, hence Kaihatsu Ichibu (開発一部) for R&D 1 and Kaihatsu Nibu (開発二部) for R&D 2. However, I couldn't find anything mentioning an R&D4 team. Is there an interview with one of the employees that confirms it ever existed or is this just a logical conclusion from the other team names, picked up by many, many sites? Prime Blue (talk) 18:58, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

"Research and Development Department 4 / R&D4"

As mentioned above already: This alleged former name of Nintendo EAD originally came from N-Sider before it was picked up by other sites. Given that there is not a single primary source like a development interview that mentioned this name or its Japanese counterpart (開発四部), I guess this was just an educated, but wrong guess – just like how they said R&D2 was merged into EAD but it was merged into the SPD. I will rename all instances of this to Nintendo EAD. Prime Blue (talk) 23:20, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Sources for Tokyo Development Group No. 1/2

Are there any sources that verify that EAD Tokyo is divided into two development groups? As far as I see only The Kyoto Report writes that. Anyway, who is running that Blog? That would be interesting, AFAIK the site doesn't tell. But well, to me it doesn't make that much sense to claim EAD Tokyo is divided. Why should that be? The Iwata Asks Interview on Super Mario Galaxy talks a bit on EAD Tokyos history, and as far as I remember it doesn't explain a divided development department. I'm just afraid that information is wrong, so again my questions: Are there any reputabel sources for that information? I hope I'll get an answer, and excuse my bad englisch! Umweltschützen (talk) 11:45, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Nintendo's E3 Press Site has confirmed it, and several others every year on the producer's bios. "Tokyo Software Development Group No. ?" etc. Basically every EAD Producer / SPD Producer usually coincides with a "Development Group No" title. NOAWiki (talk) 04:54, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Compehensive Development Group

Can someone please explain what's with this team? Why do they have such a huge gap between Super Mario 64 DS and Star Fox Wii U? Have they even been doing anything else all this time at all? 108.71.237.182 (talk) 16:59, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

The Comprehensive Development Group is the EAD managerial group. The group is primarily focused on managing staffs, budgets, and concepts throughout all of Nintendo EAD in Kyoto. The group is rarely involved with the primary development of a game, but it has done so from time to time. However, they will not develop Star Fox for Wii U on their own. That's hwy they're currently looking for a partner to fill that gap.--Arkhandar (Talk • Contribs) 17:16, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Couldn't they just be listed as a "co-producer" on the games they assisted on, rather than having their own "team"? ~ Dissident93 (Talk) 20:12, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

But the team does exist, its just that don't usually "get their hands dirty". They're a managerial group, so it's only natural that they seldom work on games.--Arkhandar (Talk • Contribs) 23:19, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Could you point me to any sources on this? I can't find any evidence that it does exist, at least as a formal group with its own name. Dancter (talk) 17:15, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

@Dancter: They probably do exist, but Arkhandar even admitted they don't directly work on games. (therefore they shouldn't have games listed below them) ~ Dissident93 (talk) 01:11, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

@Dancter: They do exist. Or did. Although that upper-tier section may be called something else by now since it was only briefly mentioned years ago on GC-Inside. However, some of the information on the wikipedia is inaccurate. For one, Star Fox U is being handled by the same production group that did Star Fox 64 3D. EAD Group No. 5. That was obvious from day one. The "comprehensive group" doesn't develop games (anymore), but instead they existed more to work on public space initiatives in Japan like the Shigureden Museum, DS Classroom, and DS Guides. I'm not sure why the original wikipedia author called Star Fox U a comprehensive group game (because Miyamoto is doing the PR? he also did Pikmin 3 and that wasn't a comprehensive group game). The external developer possibility being involved means nothing, since every Japanese game has a myriad of external companies cooperating in the production. NOAWiki (talk) 01:05, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Is there a link you could direct me to, or even just a description of the article in which this group was mentioned? I want to go over it myself, if possible. There is some content in this article that is very poorly referenced, suspect, and difficult to verify. For one thing, that logo does not look authentic at all. It does not seem to exist at the cited source (or anywhere else that I could find), the kerning is very poor, and I can find no evidence that Nintendo ever spelled "Entertainement" that way. Dancter (talk) 17:45, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

On the same token, Project Guard and Project Giant Robot are also both Group No. 5 games. Project Guard is being directed by Yugo Hayashi, Star Fox U by Takaya Imamura, and Project Giant Robot is likely being directed by Hiroshi Matsunaga. Those are all guys who have headed up teams at EAD Group No. 5 under Tadashi Sugiyama. Although, I still think EAD will intergrate Project Guard into Star Fox as a side mode like Nintendo has hinted. NOAWiki (talk) 01:15, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

This section cannot continue to remain unverified like this. If no verification is provided, it will push for its removal. Dancter (talk) 17:48, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Music composers

@Dissident93:Thank you for your work in helping Wikipedia be a better place for accurate video game music information. You have done a great job in this article in listing composers. However, there were some minor hiccups. No worries though. Here are my sources:

• Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree - Music: Ryo Nagamatsu
• New Super Mario Bros. Wii - Music: Shiho Fujii, Ryo Nagamatsu

@Arkhandar:While I'm not sure 100% anymore if Wakai composed for Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree (some sites say he did however), I know for a fact Nagata (Sound Director) did for New Super Mario Bros. Wii. While Mobygames is a great source of info (since they get their credits straight from the game), for VGM and it's composers however, it can be worthwhile to also check out VGMdb (where they have liner notes from OSTs, which are generally more accurate regarding video game composers). ~ Dissident93 (talk) 15:42, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Major Re-Edit

I really would like to re-edit the "producers / development group" sections. I admire the original editors passion, but this list is just gross with a lot of unnecessary information. "Co-developers" (which in many of these cases aren't even co-developers, but rather actual developers within the developer, or cooperative developers" don't need to be mentioned on this page with littering tags. Those can be saved on the individual games page. I mean this doesn't happen on any other developers page, for example Platinum Games, you don't see their page littered with co-developers that worked on every game. It's not what the page is about. NOAWiki (talk) 04:58, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

@NOAWiki: 100% agree. I tried to remove most of the unnecessary stuff last year, but it was always reverted back. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 06:29, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

(Preview, of my cleaner and less cluttered format)

Software Development Group No. 2

Group Manager / Producer: Yoshiaki Koizumi

The second production unit of the Tokyo Software Development Department at EAD, is responsible for the Super Mario 3D and Flipnote Studio series. The Group Manager and Producer, Yoshiaki Koizumi, was originally a graphic artist and planner that worked on Super Mario 64 and several titles in the Zelda series.

List of software developed by Nintendo EAD Tokyo Software Development Group No. 2

Title	Genre(s)	Platform(s)	Year	Notes
Flipnote Studio 3D	Editor App	Nintendo 3DS	2013	Cooperation with Hatena
Super Mario 3D World	Platform	Wii U	2013	Cooperation with 1-Up Studio

Software Development Group No. 3

Group Manager / Producer: Koichi Hayashida

The third production unit of the Tokyo Software Development Department at EAD, is responsible for the NES Remix series as well as spin-off titles like Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. The Group Manager and Producer, Koichi Hayahida, was originally a programmer as well as a level designer on Super Mario Galaxy and Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat. Even more notably, Hayashida programmed and designed most of NES Remix by himself as a side project before officially getting approval from the company.

List of software developed by Nintendo EAD Tokyo Software Development Group No. 3

Title	Genre(s)	Platform(s)	Year	Notes
Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker	Puzzle	Wii U	2014	Cooperation with 1-Up Studio
Ultimate NES Remix	Retro Variety	Nintendo 3DS	2014	Cooperation with Indies Zero

~ NOAWiki (talk) 05:30, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

2019 edits

@Arkhandar: if you are going to restructure the page, then you need to get rid of all these subgroups, which apparently are a fan-created thing as no source officially stated that EAD was divided into groups like this, or at least, no source attributed a game to a group besides the overall Tokyo or Kyoto studio. If you don't get around to it, I'll do it sometime later this week ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 18:15, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

@Dissident93: Hi! Thanks for the feedback. I've been trying to remove as much unsourced material as possible that looks to be without a doubt fan-created, or at the very least just pure speculation. Most other material seems to be somewhat accurate (such as the "History" section), so "citation needed" tags would be more appropriate for that. As for the "groups" conundrum, I've been searching a lot about the matter and although the developed games are not directly credited to a specific group in the in-game credits, I think that there's some basis to say that most sources do group the EAD games by producer at least. I think that that much could be relatively easy to reliably source. Maybe the ideal solution would be to change the "groups" name's (which seem to be original research) into something like "Producer X team". What do you think? Arkhandar (Talk • Contribs) 18:28, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

I think it would just be better to group them in a single list and get rid of any mention of director or producer, like pretty much any other studio's game list. The user(s) who used to run this page basically never should have formatted it this way, because they assumed that a game having a certain producer meant it was specifically by Group 4 or whatever, which is WP:OR without sources directly stating this. Yes, each producer may have had their own specialized team that worked with them, but that's the case in pretty much any large company. There seems to be some overlap here with Kyoto Report, a forum that investigates this sort of stuff, and while they have accurate info sourced from Japanese interviews and game credits, they also assume much as well. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 18:36, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

@Dissident93: I'm somewhat guilty of that, since I contributed a lot to the current page's layout hahaha. But I agree with you. Even though these groups most likely exist as a corporate structure, unsourced as is, it constitutes WP:OR. Although I'm open to the idea of a single table of the gameography (even merging with List of software developed by Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development), I don't agree with removing the directors and producers. They're usually the most reported developer personalities, and it would be a nice compromise for the "groups" thing, since the table could be sorted by producer. Arkhandar (Talk • Contribs) 18:53, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

@Dissident93: Looks like the groups might be able to be sourced after all. A shout out to @NOAWiki: for pointing this out on this very talk page years ago. Take a look at this: Wii U Developer Direct - The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD @E3 2013 @ 0:11. (Note: The group mention doesn't seem to be present on the original? Japanese version. Could it be that the North-American video producers just sourced it out of Wikipedia?) Arkhandar (Talk • Contribs) 20:42, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

That's the thing, how can we be sure the groups weren't just cited off Wikipedia? That is something that is more common than you might think, so we would at least need a Nintendo of Japan document that confirms this (something that has never been sourced before, AFAIK). As for the directors/producers, I'm only suggesting removing them due to them not being included on any other game studio's worklist. But yeah, your idea of keeping them makes sense, I'd just like to see more support for it first. Also, I thought I redirected the List of software developed by Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development page here years ago? There's no reason why that list needs to still exist, as all the games are listed here too. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 00:21, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Just a random guy here, sorry to intrude, but I feel like we're still missing some stuff. From my understanding, in the NES era, their in-house games were either by R&D1 or EAD. But where's Shin Onigashima and its sequel Yuyuki? They aren't on either of those department's game lists despite being listed as made by EAD on their own pages. I can only assume that if those are missing, there are others I don't know about that are also missing. Pro Wrestling is missing from the R&D3 list as well. Is there an easy way to search for every game with a certain department listed as its developer on the game's own page? And then put those that are missing from the department's page, onto the department's page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:204:DE00:F82:FD25:85E0:883B:D8C5 (talk) 22:37, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure as I'm not that familiar with early Nintendo studio history. They may have just been forgotten to be added to the list. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 01:13, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

@Arkhandar and Dissident93: I think we may need to have another look at the issue of the development groups. After reading this discussion I recalled seeing a reference to development groups in an official Nintendo publication and after some digging found that in the NOA version of the Iwata Asks interview for Wii Sports some of the interviewees are explicitly listed as being members of 'Entertainment Analysis & Development Divison EAD Software Development Department, Software Development Group No. 2'. This seemingly confirms the existence, inside the EAD Division, of an 'EAD Software Development Department', and a 'Software Development Group No. 2' within that department. This article (seemingly) correctly attributed Wii Sports to Software Development Group No. 2 before the development group information was removed. The Japanese version of the interview published by NCL doesn't appear to make reference to Software Development Group No. 2, as far as I can tell, but we can dismiss fears of NOA localisers sourcing the group information from this article by noting that in 2006 the article did not yet contain any information on the development groups. In fact, many of the (NOA versions of) the original run of Iwata Asks interviews published surrounding the launch of the Wii give a similarly detailed look into how Nintendo R&D divisions were internally organised: the first ever interview, on the Wii hardware, confirms the existence of a similar structure inside Nintendo's former console hardware development division, IRD, with reference to Development Groups 2 and 3 inside of IRD's 'Product Development Department'. This interview has been captured by the Internet Archive in its original form. We might be concerned that the versions of these interviews on the live web could have been modified or retranslated in later years (which would provide an opportunity for this article to bias said modification). Comparing the Internet Archive and live versions of the interview on Wii hardware linked above, we can see that while there has been reformatting of the image containing our information of interest no language in the image has been altered. I feel this gives us a pretty good level of confidence that the current live versions of these interviews can be taken as representative of original publication/localisation. With all this in mind, I think we can say that the existence of some form of development group structure inside EAD (including the existence specifically of group 2) and that group 2 was involved in the development of Wii Sports has been verified. Of course, all(?) the original development group information wasn't cited, and it's unclear how much of that information was original research or was instead referenced in an obscure source somewhere, so I appreciate the motivation behind its removal. That being said, if verifiable, any information on the group structure strikes me as very relevant to this article, as it provides a much better understanding of how EAD was actually run, so although it might cause the article to differ from the standard on Wikipedia for articles on video game studios I would strongly support its inclusion. I understand that Kyoto Report, which Dissident93 mentioned, have done much of the work on putting this information together. I wonder whether reaching out to the owner of that site to see whether they'd be able to lend their expertise for some collaborative work on sourcing might be helpful? Namely, whether we can find sources verifying the existence of Kyoto groups 1, 3, 4 and 5 and the Tokyo group structure, the implied concept of EAD's producers also being 'group managers' (and so, in 2006, Katsuya Eguchi being manager of group 2), and that games were developed by individual groups only (for example, that Wii Sports was developed only by group 2, and not also other numbered Kyoto or Tokyo groups). In the meantime, I wonder if a small reference to the group structure should be reintroduced to the article now? What are your thoughts? MarioFanNo1 (talk) 02:47, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

@MarioFanNo1: Wow! You can't begin to imagine how grateful and exited I am after reading that. Thank you so much for your research work. As a matter of fact, while researching for the Nintendo SPD article, I came across the Japanese Iwata Asks for Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, which also confirms the existence of the SPD Production Group No.3, headed by Kensuke Tanabe. You can find it here. That's one of the reasons I didn't do the same to the SPD article as was done here. So, in all, it's nice to see when a calculated assumption pays off and can be 100% confirmed hahah. As for this article, I think we now have enough grounds for a strong mention of the production groups in prose. After all, we do already have Groups No. 2, 3 (thanks to the Aonuma video), and Tokyo Group No. 2 confirmed and their respective head producers. As for the Kyoto Report editor, I think it's a great idea to contact him and see what we can get from there. I remember seeing that he sources some info from Iwata Asks and other interviews, but also "Kyoto Report investigation methods" or something like that. So I'll make an educated guess that he either has contacts inside Nintendo or... also makes educated guesses. Could you try messaging him? ~ Arkhandar ^{(message me)} 15:46, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

@Arkhandar: It's a pleasure! That's a great find on SPD 3. It's the first NCL source I'm aware of that mentions production groups, though I'm sure there are more out there. I'll add a reference to the production groups in prose, unless you'd prefer to. I'll try to get in touch with Kyoto Report's editor in the next few days. All the best! MarioFanNo1 (talk) 02:53, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Yes, if we can find verifiable information about the groups, then it should be included in the article. However, I don't think we should return to the per-group tables we previously had unless they can all individually be sourced to a group. If you want to go ahead and contact the people at Kyoto Report for help, go ahead. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 08:38, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

@Dissident93: While it would be pretty hard to have a direct quote that Group No. X developed game Y, I think that wouldn't be necessary. If we can get a source that states that Group No. X is lead by producer Z, than we can infer that games developed on EAD and produced by Z were developed (at least to some extent) by that producer's group. And that doesn't necessarily constitutes as OR either, because we're going by sources that state that game X was developed by EAD, produced by Z (via tertiary source or game credits) and that producer Z leads Group No. Y. Just like we can infer that EAD hasn't shut down and continues developing game until a source says otherwise, we can do the same for the groups and its producers. What do you think? ~ Arkhandar ^{(message me)} 15:54, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

That's still too much assuming though. A producer can lead a group but could be placed on other projects, nothing would technically prevent that, so we can't automatically assume the opposite. Other companies have producers that lead a specific team, but we only had it organized that way here on these Nintendo pages. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 18:21, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

@Dissident93: But that's an assumption you're making, not something that's sourced. Until sources state otherwise, a lead producer produces games in its group. If that much can be sourced, whatever else are just assumptions. ~ Arkhandar ^{(message me)} 19:08, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Exactly, which is why I don't think the per group tables should return. Keep all of that info in prose and just let the reader make the connections. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 19:15, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

@Dissident93: But the thing is that the groups are no longer just an assumption. They're actually backed by sources. You're concept that producers wobble around groups is not however. Hence, the table groups should probably return. ~ Arkhandar ^{(message me)} 19:35, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

@Arkhandar and Dissident93: Reading through our discussion it seems we agree that EAD had a small group of individuals who consistently acted as producers across the various titles the studio developed, and that EAD had a structure of development groups. The problem seems to be regarding the return of the group tables, and namely:

• What information we would need to be able to verify for their reintroduction to be possible and not constitute original research.
• Whether that reintroduction would be desirable in the first place due to it breaking format with other articles on video game studios on Wikipedia.

My personal view, as mentioned in my last message, is that it would be desirable to reintroduce the group tables (if we can do so in a way which doesn't constitute original research) as they give insight into the workings of EAD. Regarding what needs to be verified to permit reintroduction, it's probably impossible to find sources explicitly tying each EAD game to one of the groups. However, I think if we can answer yes to two questions (and verify those answers!) we can reintroduce the tables without also introducing original research. Those questions, to my mind, are:

1. Did (some?) producers act as the managers of the development groups?
2. If so, when a title credits (as its producer) one of the group managers does this also mean that the game was developed (at least in part) by that manager's group?

• I feel we need a source either confirming or disproving this second question, as simply assuming it probably does constitute original research.

I've found a source which explicitly states that that, as of 2013, Hideki Konno, Eiji Aonuma and Yoshiaki Koizumi were the managers of Group 1, Group 3 and Tokyo Group 2 respectively. It's the biographies section of the NOA E3 2013 press site, which (for some reason) is still up here. This source actually gives their titles (if you click the links through to the full biography of each person) as 'Manager / Producer of (Tokyo) Software Development Group x'. This source comes from NOA but should be the original document rather than a localisation as I believe NOA is tasked with creating the E3 press kit rather than NCL. Regarding question 1, above, this source confirms that some of EAD's producers did act as group managers. Regarding question 2, to me, the job title 'Manager / Producer of (Tokyo) Software Development Group x' heavily suggests that games that credit that individual as producer were developed (at least in part) by their development group, but isn't quite explicit enough to confirm it. Now, there's an additional issue on article accuracy. Even if we confirm question 2, we have to ask:

• Would it be acceptable for a title to be credited to a particular group in this article even if it was developed by multiple groups (including the one credited)? Consequently, do we need to verify whether titles were, typically, developed by a single or multiple groups inside EAD?

Regarding this final point, my feeling is that it would be preferable to get group attribution completely right, which would involve verifying whether multiple groups sometimes developed titles and if that were the case attempting, on a per-title basis, to correctly credit the game to its multiple groups (maybe via co-producers). If that wasn't possible, we could perhaps include a disclaimer in the article. Of course, all of this is before the more in-depth research work we might undertake, possibly with the help of Kyoto Report (who I'll get in touch with), so hopefully that'll help us deal with the remaining issues. I think if we can just nail down question 2 a bit more and confirm the managers of the other groups we'll be in a position to reintroduce the tables, should there be consensus for them to be brought back. Sorry for another long message! Any thoughts or concerns? MarioFanNo1 (talk) 02:53, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

@MarioFanNo1: Amazing find! I remember reading through those bios back in the day. Never added them to the article as back then I didn't how how the citation system worked hahah. Since this whole thing came up about restructuring the article I've been looking for those bios again (thanks to a mention by NOAWiki) but I couldn't seem to find them. So thank you! As for concerns that this might be derived from what was on Wikipedia at the time, I think it's safe to say that it's pretty much confirmed that this isn't a localization appropriation. From the several Iwata Asks interviews to the press material released on two different E3s, I think we're safe. As for your concern regarding titles developed by multiple groups, I don't think that there were any, so it's a problem that solves itself I guess hahaha. As a final note, I also share you're feeling that group attribution would preferably be done on a per game basis, but it might not be needed. ~ Arkhandar ^{(message me)} 10:51, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

On reflection I'm concerned that even if Q2 can be confirmed that using just the verified information from Q1 and Q2 would still constitute synthesis, in which case if we wanted to reintroduce the group tables we would need to find a source for each and every title stating which group(s) it was developed by. The information about the existence of the groups, their managers (Q1) and (if confirmed) that games produced by a group manager were developed by that manager's group (Q2) could still be included, though, possibly in prose. MarioFanNo1 (talk) 04:29, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

@MarioFanNo1: While I do understand you're concern regarding synthesis, I don't think its quite the same case here. At least it's not 100% the same, or not as bad. We're not really concluding C from completely different A and B facts. It's more like, in this case, A and B are similar, but arranged in a different way. Our A is that Hideki Konno is manager and producer of Group No. 1 for example, and B is that he is the producer of Mario Kart 8 (as source in credits or news article). As you can see, we're dealing with the same terminology here, and with closely coupled facts. To make it a stronger case we could even add a B2 source to this, stating that Mario Kart 8 was indeed developed by EAD Kyoto, so that there's no space for doubt (or WP:OR for the matter). What I'm basically saying is, if there's a source stating that Konno is manager and producer of Group No.1, then by terminology, we can source those games safely to that group/producer until a source states otherwise. ~ Arkhandar ^{(message me)} 11:22, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

My question is why should we format these Nintendo pages differently than other ones in the first place? Every game company has these internal groups, official or informal, and we don't do this on theirs. The separate grouping tables is from an era when we had less standards and guidelines for these sorts of things, so I don't get why people like you insist they should remain in 2019. I've started a new post on WT:VG to hopefully resolve this. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 20:21, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

@Dissident93: If those divisions are notable enough and have sources detailing their internal structure than I don't see why they shouldn't be organized in that way. I see your point in standardizing everything; it improves the overall quality of articles. But if you standardize everything without proper care and attention to context, you may end up doing worse than what you started it, because a lot of important details might be lost in the process. The real world is messy. While we should strive to standardize common elements, we must also strive for poking out differences. ~ Arkhandar ^{(message me)} 20:33, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

@Dissident93: One way to remove the producers column without affecting the quality of the article would be to return to the table per group structure. That way the producer column would be redundant. Looks like a nice compromise to me. ~ Arkhandar ^{(message me)} 21:41, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Merged. MorningThoughts (talk) 19:22, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

---

I propose to merge List of software developed by Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development into Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development. I think that the content in the List of software developed by Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development article can easily be explained in the context of Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development, and the Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development article is of a reasonable size that the merging of List of software developed by Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development will not cause any problems as far as article size is concerned. ~ Arkhandar ^{(message me)} 14:55, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

• Support: I fully support this, the list has no mention of groups (which still has never been properly confirmed to even be real), and follows the standard of other game's list. I'll just go ahead and do it myself, because I don't see who would oppose this. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 01:00, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
• Support – This list can fit in its parent article comfortably. A simple copy+paste job will do! – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 21:59, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
• Support – Per above. flixwito ^(•‿•)^ 12:27, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Various concerns

Hello.

Running through the article in its current state has quickly made a variety of issues evident. Here are some to start:

History section

• There are swathes of unsourced developer information all across the entire section.
• Where there are sources, instances exist wherein the statements made do not necessarily reflect the content of the associated source and/or go beyond what it entails (Sawano is implied to have been Miyamoto's partner for Tech since 2006 outside of being noted as leading two departments. Nothing indicates that Sawano would have lead the department in the period being refrenced. A more suitable source should be used if it exists).
• There are multiple instances of an unreliable source -as established by WP:VG/S- being used in the 1989–2002: Renamed to Entertainment Analysis & Development section (n-sider).

Structure section

• Details of the existence of the splits and department designations of EAD are not sourced.
• The associated staff, timeline, and hierarchy are mentioned without sources.
• Projects worked on are all devoid of any kind of overall sourcing or specific references tying them to the particular subdivisions.
• Co-developers are also just casually mentioned without citation through a smattering of footnotes.
• In fact, the best way to summarize the issues here decisively is that there are no sources for any part of the Structure section. At all.

List of developed games section

• This section reiterates what's already come before it, effectively combining and repeating the lists in the page a second time. This redundant list was removed twice in early April of last year with an explanation of the matter in the edit summary, but it was swiftly reverted in each instance by separate users without and comment or any evident discussion in their own talk pages or here. I'd have suggested the removal myself if it weren't for the fact that the preceding section could very well be considered far more egregious in its lack of sourcing and become a more suitable candidate for removal.

It's fairly surprising to this degree of disregard for basic sourcing requirements in this kind of page and it all really does need to be dealt with. Unfortunately, the extent to which this issue is present is overwhelming and, as mentioned in the last point, clean up attempts have been swatted down without note. I'd like to see some discussion on these matters so the page can be built up into a clean, well-referenced resource as opposed to what it is now. If any of you have any answers, suggestions, or further issues to bring up, please go ahead and type them out. That way solid anchors can be established for proper removals, adjustments, and references. Fact Scanner (talk) 20:50, 1 May 2021 (UTC)