Talk:Monolith Soft

Um,

is the date April 28th, 2007 really correct for the purchase by Nintendo, considering today is only April 26th PST? Or is that the day in which the purchase becomes effective? --Dragonjimmyy2k 05:08, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Is {{future game}} really needed in the games section? (I know I'm the one that changed it over from {{future product}}, but that is part of another campain). ~ Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 10:50, 2005 August 9 (UTC)

"Pre-Monolithsoft" games

Chrono Trigger, Radical Dreamers, Xenogears and Chrono Cross were all created by Square and should not be credited to any other company. While it's true that some of the employees who worked on those games later left Square and formed Monolithsoft, it is not accurate to say that Monolithsoft created those earlier games. You can't credit games to a company that didn't exist at the time they were developed. I can understand mentioning those games in the article, but please do so without crediting them to the wrong developer. It gives the false impression that Monolithsoft was an outside contractor that collaborated with Square, a la Dream Factory (Tobal, The Bouncer) or Lightweight (Bushido Blade). Druff 06:09, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Dirge of Cerberus?

Is there a source for that credit? I couldn't find anything online suggesting that Monolith had collaborated with Square on that game. Logalot 02:12, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

The companies didn't collaborate on the project (creatively, that is). However, Monolithsoft is indeed credited as a 3rd party contractor for background art assets. G005 23:37, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Aren't those sites unofficial? The validity of their information may be questionable. And where is Monolith Soft mentioned anyway? is it written in non-Latin? Kariteh 01:04, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Those sites are unofficial, but they offer full transcripts of the ending credits. Monolith Software (written in Japanese) is specifically credited under Background Graphics: 3rd-Party Contractor. In addition to that listing, their president and two artists are acknowledged under Special Thanks. In this case, Monolithsoft provided background graphics, so for the sake of comprehensiveness, I opted to list the game under Contractual Work. The arrangement can be compared to how tri-Crescendo programmed the sound for all post-1998 tri-Ace games (as already entered into the tri-Crescendo wiki page), or how Kusanagi Inc. contributes concept art to many game projects. This kind of work doesn't tend to be mentioned on company websites, but it exists, and the parties involved are usually acknowledged in the end credits. G005 02:02, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Looks like the listing is in the English credits too - [1] G005 02:33, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Now a second party to Nintendo

Source: [2]. magiciandude 19:40, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, they're a first-party. They're outright-owned by Nintendo. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.122.213.37 (talk) 02:10, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I changed the article to say first-party, since second party would be incorrect by Wikipedia's current definition of second-party. --Dragonjimmyy2k (talk) 07:16, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

"The first-party developer is considered part of the manufacturer, not a separate entity, and is fully owned by the console manufacturer." Monolith Soft are not considered "part of the manufacturer". They are privately held and not fully owned by Nintendo, so they are second-party. --89.246.190.155 (talk) 08:26, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

This contradicts the article List of Nintendo developers:

A first party developer is a subsidiary of Nintendo and one in which Nintendo has a controlling interest in (51% or more ownership).

--Evice (talk) 02:35, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Status of IPs?

Anyone know if Monolith Soft owns the rights to anything they created while under Namco? Did Namco retain the rights to all on Monolith Soft's previous works when they sold their shares to Nintendo? Sima Yi 11:48, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, I wouldnt think so. Usually, when a developer creates something, they retain the rights to it. Like if Nintendo sold NOISE, NOISE would still own Custom Robo. But there are allways those few acceptions. Just wait and see if any Baten Kaitos or Xenosaga games are made for the Wii. Doesnt Monolith have a Wii game in development, other than Disastar, right now? 66.191.170.129 17:27, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Namco Bandai still holds rights to Xenosaga series?

Does Namco Bandai still hold the rights to the Xenosaga series? Will there be any possibilities of new Xenosaga games or spin offs now that Nintendo is in charge but does Namco/Bandai still have Xenosaga rights? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.103.79.231 (talk) 03:28, August 23, 2007 (UTC)

All the recent Xenosaga figures that have been released say (c)NGBI, so that seems to imply that Bandai Namco still owns the rights to Xenosaga. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.116.36.185 (talk) 06:39, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Mentioning of MS's stance on a new BK

Recently in an interview with MS over Disaster: Day of Crisis, they mention that they are ready to and would like to create a new Baten Kaitos game, all they need is Nintendo's green-light. While I know a new BK shouldn't exactly be listed as an upcoming game, but it's worth mentioning the plans. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.13.39.187 (talk) 17:07, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Wii U's game

Xenoblade Chronicles 2? http://metro.co.uk/2013/01/23/xenoblade-chronicles-2-announced-for-wii-u-3363652/ 173.218.193.210 (talk) 03:43, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Developed Vs. Special Thanks/Assistance Roles

There seems to be some back and forth on which titles should be considered as "developed" by Monolith Soft - mainly, the titles where they just got "special thanks" or had minor "assistance" type roles. I've protected the page, and will try to moderate some.

So, there's options.

1. Include game's they have minor roles in assisting in.
2. Exclude the minor roles.
3. List the minor roles in a separate section, labeled as such.
4. A difference solution.

Thoughts? 3 could be a good compromise approach, and could help keep this issue from recurring. Sergecross73 msg me 20:34, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

• They should still be listed, but I think option 3 is the best way to handle it. Having them listed as "co-developers" gives the impression they did 50% of the game, which isn't true. For 90% of the games they did with Nintendo, they were credited in a special thanks section along with other outsourced companies. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 22:31, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

• I agree. I do think its worth nothing what titles they helped on, but we don't want to make it sound like they were key developers when they just provided minor assistance. We can even note in a comments section something to the capacity of what it was they did ("Special Thanks", "Asset Creation", etc.) Sergecross73 msg me 12:32, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

• Is there any legit reason why we have the studio locations separated? All this is gonna do is provide redundancy, and like the average reader cares what exact studio made the game (it's not that notable, unlike Nintendo's Kyoto and Tokyo studios). I vote to simply have one list of games they've worked on, which will be simpler to maintain, read, and less prone to edit warring (as seen in the history of late). ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 20:11, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

• Since this is still an issue months later, I've just gone ahead and combined the two lists, as none of the listed sources give the exact studio, and even if they did, it's not that important anyway. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 05:27, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

I personally feel as though merging the two lists is not a wise idea. The Kyoto studio was specifically designed as a technical team for Nintendo's first party intellectual properties. The Tokyo studio is the studio that provides original intellectual properties (Like Xeno and Baten Kaitos). Their roles are drastically different to warrant the distinction between the two. The sources for Tokyo and Kyoto discography are on the official Monolith Soft website. Iftekharahmed96 (talk) 20:31, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Where on their website? If it was there the entire time, why hasn't anybody mentioned it before? ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 11:24, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Here are the sources. http://www.monolithsoft.co.jp/kyotostudio/works/ Clearly, this is a webpage in development but it shows that Monolith Soft consider their Kyoto subsidiary a separate branch from their flagship Tokyo branch. http://www.monolithsoft.co.jp/product/listYear.html In the official website for the Tokyo branch, everything that says partial contract or partially commissioned is work provided by the Kyoto studio (as that studio was designed for the intent of quality assuring Nintendo's first party intellectual properties). http://www.monolithsoft.co.jp/kyotostudio/ Iftekharahmed96 (talk) 20:46, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Updated Monolith Soft website

Looks like the Monolith Soft website has been updated. One major change to note is that they're no longer distinguishing the credit of the Tokyo and Kyoto studios, instead, they're using a unified discography. Should we change the discography chart to reflect this? https://www.monolithsoft.co.jp/games/

• Absolutely, this would fix all of that edit warring a while back regarding Breath of the Wild, now that there is no more official source on this. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 19:21, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
  • @Sergecross73: While I do agree that the special thanks games shouldn't be grouped in with the games they actually fully developed for, I don't see why we'd return to the Tokyo/Kyoto division split, as the company themselves does not document that anymore, as far as we can tell. What division would any future game they announce belong in, if it's not clearly shown anymore? But regarding the special thanks games, we could either keep them as they are now, split them into their own separate table, or remove them entirely and write them all into prose. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 20:06, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

1. Have they released any further games since they redid their website? Do we really know that they're not tracking this going forward?
2. If we split it among major projects and these minor "special thanks" type contributions...wouldn't the charts basically be the same as they were before anyways? Sergecross73 msg me 21:15, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

1. No, but they don't seem to have this sort of information for any of their previous titles anymore, unless it was moved onto a new page. But even before the updated website, I argued many months ago that we should have consolidated the list, as seen in the discussions above.
2. Kind of, it was a bit redundant since some of the titles appeared twice, like Breath of the Wild. I think the best course of action here would be to not include a table for only special thanks games, and instead place all of that into prose, ideally with each game sourced. Nearly every big game release these days have multiple, if not 10+ contracted companies involved, simply being given special thanks isn't really that big of a deal. Does their own website even make note of these games? ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 21:53, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

We seem to at least agree that some sort of change needs to happen. I do agree that "special thanks" isn't all that notable - that can mean almost anything. But I think its going to be a maintenance headache to remove them from the list outright, especially considering they are listed on their website.

Pinging ProtoDrake for input, as I know he expressed interest at WP:VG in reworking the entire article anyways. Perhaps he already has thoughts on it? Or is willing to weigh in? Sergecross73 msg me 17:24, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Sergecross73, my approach (when I get round to it) will be this; if there's a list, it will only include titles Monolith Soft has had a major involvement in developing, so either full development or co-development as with the Baten Kaitos games - "Special Thanks" don't count. As to the Kyoto branch, I'm going to incorporate that into the history section, giving a brief rundown of that studio has assisted with as it's more a support studio ala the now-defunct BioWare Montreal pre-Andromeda rather than an active developer of major original titles as the main Monolith Soft studio is.

In the most basic terms, this article needs rewriting from the ground-up: as I'm learning through my work on the Xenosaga series, some of the information is either miscommunication, ignored, or bordering on untrue due to being based on suppositions. Oh, and Sergecross, since you were interested in what I could do with the series, I've finished major work on Xenosaga Episode III and have nominated it as a GA - you might learn a few interesting things. --ProtoDrake (talk) 17:34, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Fine with me. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 17:51, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Alright, it sounds like you're on the same page as Dissident then. I'm fine with doing that then. (and yes, I will definitely read over your Xenosaga 3 work.) Sergecross73 msg me 17:58, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

This is apparently still an issue, as an IP user keeps reverting it back to the Tokyo/Kyoto table. I've already stated my arguments against it above, and it seems that nobody else agrees it should go back to the old table anymore, so they should probably discuss it here before they get blocked for being disruptive. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 19:39, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

ProtoDrake's rewrite

Amazing work on the rewrite, ProtoDrake. Just about everything I read lines up with prior things I've read about the company of the years, and I learned some interesting new stuff as well. (I didn't realize the retirement of a Namco exec lead to them splitting with the company, I just thought it was Xenosaga series not doing well. Didn't realize they were one of the rare company's against the intense "working overtime during crunch time" either, which is obviously a rarity in the industry.

A couple minor thoughts:

1. The line in lead that goes "the majority of its games have released on Nintendo platforms including the Nintendo DS and Wii, without any future mention of the Wii U or Nintendo Switch, could come off as making it sound more like they may have only made games for Nintendo platforms during the 7th gen. I wasn't sure how best to fix it (I'm usually a big proponent of trimming "list bloat", so I hate to suggest "just tag on all Nintendo platforms" so I figured I'd mention it here for ideas on any other possibilities first.
2. Towards the end of the "Origins" section, there's a sentence that reads: Monolith Soft is noted as being one of a group of video game companies which branched off from Square and were founded by staff from Square titles produced during the 1990s. I know Square lost a lot of talent in this era, for sure, but this current wording makes it sound like a number of employees went off to create their own companies. I am aware of many leaving, but I wasn't aware of many of them starting their companies (outside of Sakaguchi creating Mistwalker, but that wasn't until 2004.) Neither the prose or the source given had any examples listed. I wondered if the statement should be tweaked some, whether it just to be a more general comment about "lost employees", or a tweaking of the timeframes, or if I'm mistaken in all of this, it'd be good to list the other companies started off like Monolith.

Otherwise, great work, as always. Let me know if you're doing any other projects in the JRPG area. I'll stop working on it immediately, as to not waste my time writing something inferior to what you're working on! ;) Sergecross73 msg me 16:58, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

@Sergecross73: First point's been fixed. As to the second... Sacnoth was founded by Hiroki Kikuta and a number of other Square staff he brought with him, and while Kikuta left after the completion of Koudelka the rest stayed on and created the Shadow Hearts series prior to the company being folded in 2007 (even now they're still developing games in different studios). Yes, there's Mistwalker and Monolith Soft, but in addition there's the shortlived Love-de-Lic created by Kenichi Nishi, the staff of which have formed further studios. So it's not just two, but four studios with notable names from the classic Square days. I've tweaked this slightly too; it just seemed like something that should be mentioned, as it's more studios than one game developer usually produces in its lifetime. --ProtoDrake (talk) 17:45, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Perfect. Looks good. (Forgot about Sacnoth. Not sure I ever knew about Love-de-Lic.) Sergecross73 msg me 17:48, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Good job on all the citations and additional explanations regarding the company ProtoDrake, I wonder if this article can now be considered as a "good article". At the very least, I believe that it should be nominated as one, and even if it doesn't quite fit the criteria, we can make improvements to ensure that it can. However, I do have one query about your edit to the article but it's more to do with grammatical structure as opposed to the objectivity of the information provided. When I was correcting the changes on your article, I identified a lot of grammatical inaccuracies and or weak sentence structures. Is English a second language to you, because the way that you written some of these sentences made it seem like it is. I'm not trying to highlight it as an issue, just wanted to point it out. Iftekharahmed96 (talk) 11:27, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

@Iftekharahmed96: Those are things I missed, combined with some grammatical habits I'm still in the process of breaking. Thanks for picking them up, but you did forget to add a link to Nakamura's involvement outside the lead. I've fixed that, and it can be further tweaked if you see fit. --ProtoDrake (talk) 12:14, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Monolith Soft/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: TarkusAB (talk · contribs) 15:26, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Namco era

• the latter a project influenced by the younger developers at Monolith Soft. - I don't think "influenced" is the right word here. Maybe "fueled" or "driven" would work better.
• began development following the release of Episode I under a new team - Reorder: "began development under a new team following the release of Episode I"
• While developing Xenosaga Episode II shifted their focus to help tell the story through multiple media. - I think this sentence is unfinished, or missing a word...sounds funny
• The game was co-developed Tom Create with collaboration from multiple staff - "co-developed WITH Tome Create IN collaboration"...I think that's what you're trying to say
• You start out by saying the Xenosaga series was planned as a hexalogy, but when they begin development on Episode III, you say it was their last planned entry. Was their any reason they decided to cut the series length in half?

Nintendo era

• According to Sugiura, Monolith Soft's relations with Namco had undergone a negative change after Nakamura retired. - Did he retire when they merged with Bandai? This is the first time it's mentioned, a note when retired would be nice because it seems important.

2010s

• ...working on a followup titled Xenoblade Chronicles X. A spiritual successor to the first game for the Wii U, and the company's... - move the Wii U piece earlier, it sounds like the first game was for the Wii U, which it wasn't: ...working on a followup titled Xenoblade Chronicles X for the Wii U. A spiritual successor to the first game, and the company's...

Philosophy

• in addition to "hiring younger hands" - Can we sum this up to remove the quote, maybe say "in addition to hiring young staff"
• In the same interview, Kojima stated that younger developers were preferred as they could bring interesting ideas to a project. This sentence sounds like it would fit better in the first paragraph of the section where they talk more about the young staff.

Other

• Would be nice to get a picture or two in here to help illustrate the article. Maybe you already tried looking, but see if you can find any free pictures of key Monolith staff.

Fantastic, cohesive article. See above comments. TarkusAB^talk 21:39, 13 October 2017 (UTC

@TarkusAB: I've addressed all the concerns raised. As to additional images, there are none at present, and I don't know the full procedure for uploading images with the suitable licensing, so I couldn't include any images of key staff. --ProtoDrake (talk) 11:44, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Looks good. Pass! TarkusAB^talk 15:15, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

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Splatoon 3

Can someone add Splatoon 3 to the support development table. Their website shows they worked on it Db9780 (talk) 05:35, 9 September 2022 (UTC)