Retro Studios
Retro Studios' former headquarters in Austin, Texas. The company moved to a new location in 2011.
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| Subsidiary | |
| Industry | Video games |
| Founded | October 1998 Austin, Texas, U.S. |
| Founder | Jeff Spangenberg |
| Headquarters | Austin, Texas, United States |
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Key people
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Michael Kelbaugh (President & CEO) Tim Little Vince Joly Ryan Harris |
| Products |
Metroid Prime series Donkey Kong Country series |
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Number of employees
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70 (2016) |
| Parent | Nintendo (2002–present) |
| Website | www |
Retro Studios, Inc. is an American first-party video game developer and division of Nintendo based in Austin, Texas. The studio is best known for its work on the Metroid Prime series and the Donkey Kong Country series, and has contributed to several other Nintendo game projects, such as Metroid Prime Hunters and Mario Kart 7.
Retro was founded in 1998 as an alliance between Nintendo and former Iguana Entertainment founder Jeff Spangenberg, hoping to create titles for the then-upcoming GameCube aiming at an older demographic. The company began working on four different titles, all of which were finally cancelled once Retro focused their resources on Metroid Prime, the first Metroid title developed outside Japan. The success of Metroid Prime led Retro to work on two sequels, and later to become involved with reviving the Donkey Kong series with Donkey Kong Country Returns.
Retro Studios was founded in October 1998 as an alliance between Nintendo and former Iguana Entertainment founder Jeff Spangenberg. Nintendo saw an opportunity for the new studio to create games for the upcoming Nintendo GameCube targeting an older demographic, in the same vein as Iguana Entertainment's successful Turok series for the Nintendo 64. Retro began with 4 key people in late 1998 and opened an office in Austin, Texas in early 1999 with a staff of 25 people, including several former Iguana employees. Despite not having access to GameCube development kits, the studio immediately began work on four projects for the GameCube: an untitled action adventure game (with a working title of Action-Adventure), a vehicular combat game with the working title Car Combat (also known as Thunder Rally), an American football simulator named NFL Retro Football, and role-playing game Raven Blade. By the time development began, the studio had already grown in size to 120 employees. The company continued to grow during production, eventually peaking at over 200 employees.
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