Without much fanfare, PlatinumGames seems to have acquired the The Wonderful 101 rights from Nintendo in recent months, through an operation whose documentation has now emerged but dates back to August 19 of this year.
According to reports, it appears that the intellectual property of the particular action game released on Wii U is now completely owned by the development team that created it, while before it was officially owned by Nintendo, at least for a large part: the acquisition should have closed already in August, but there have been no official announcements from the team yet.
That there were agreements between the two parties had also become quite evident in 2020, when PlatinumGames launched The Wonderful 101 Remastered without Nintendo’s direct involvement, but the matter should now have been definitively settled.
Is there a future for The Wonderful 101?
At the time, it was thought that there had been a deal whereby PlatinumGames would obtain the rights to The Wonderful 101 and Nintendo would obtain the rights to Astral Chain, another title developed by the studio in question, but there is no confirmation of this reciprocal exchange.
There is, however, evidence of the definitive transfer of the first game to the team that created it, which should free up the possibility of possible sequels or other developments for the franchise after The Wonderful 101 Remastered.
The desire to regain the rights to various titles developed had already been previously reported by PlatinumGames and in particular by Hideki Kamiya, and apparently a part of this operation has been concluded, although the designer has no longer been part of the team since October 2023. At this point we await any news on the future of the franchise in question, whose latest development was the free DLC The Wonderful One: After School Hero.
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