Nintendo acquires the latest studio to depart Embracer’s lovely, hunky-dory friendship group

Hello there. Another games studio has left the warm, er, embrace of the nice little friendship thing Embracer Group recently morphed into, and it’s via an acquisition by Nintendo this time. The studio is Shiver Entertainment, and if you’ve ever played Mortal Kombat 1 on Switch, you’ve enjoyed a bit of their work.

This news follows what’s been an interesting year so far for the publisher that Saber Interactive founder Matthew Karch has argued gets a bit of a bad rap, with Embracer having jettisoned Saber and Borderlands developer Gearbox Software in recent months.

As outlined in Nintendo’s notice of acquisition, its agreed to a deal to “acquire 100% of the outstanding shares” in Shiver – which was founded back in 2012 – thereby making it a full-blown subsidiary of the Switch maker.

What’ll the deal mean for the studio, which is mainly known for having developed the Nintendo Switch ports of games like rap beef litigation medium Mortal Kombat 1 and another title that shall not be named here? Well, a future of doing more ports.

“By welcoming Shiver’s experienced and accomplished development team, Nintendo aims to secure high-level resource for porting and developing software titles. Going forward, even after it becomes a part of the Nintendo group, Shiver’s focus will remain the same, continuing commissions that port and develop software for multiple platforms including Nintendo Switch,” Nintendo’s notice reads.

Interestingly, this is the first major acquisition Nintendo’s made since it bought Japanese production company Dynamo Pictures – which was the relaunched as Nintendo Pictures back in 2022, as part of a bid to increase the world’s familiarity with characters like that cheeky plumber you might have heard of. What’s his name, Marco?

While it’s been busy offloading lots of things, Embracer does still have the rights to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, with a new Gollum-centric movie in the former series currently in active development.