Luigi’s Mansion studio boss announces retirement
Next Level Games loses its president a year after sale to Nintendo
The president and co-founder of Nintendo’s Next Level Games has announced his retirement.
Douglas Tronsgard acted as CEO of the Vancouver, Canada-based Luigi’s Mansion 3 developer for 20 years up until the sale of the company to Nintendo last year, at which point his role changed to president.
“After over 20 years in the Video Game Industry, I am happy to announce my retirement,” he said in a statement. “I wanted to say ‘thank you’ to everyone who helped me on my journey to get here. A special thank you to Nintendo for believing in me and Next Level Games. It’s truly been my honour to be a part of NLG’s incredible history.
“I look forward to a new chapter in my life that should involve lots of travelling with my wife. :).”
Next Level Games has worked on several Nintendo franchises over the past 15 years, including Mario Strikers Charged, Punch Out!!, Metroid Prime: Federation Force and Luigi’s Mansion 2 and 3, many of which Tronsgard produced.
Earlier this month it announced Mario Strikers Battle League for Nintendo Switch, which is planned for release in June.
The developer has worked exclusively on Nintendo games for a decade. Its last release on rival console platforms was 2011’s Captain America: Super Solider for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
In 2019 it released the critically acclaimed Luigi’s Mansion 3, which sold around 8 million copies during its first year – significantly more than Nintendo’s other big 2019 releases Super Mario Maker 2 (5.5m) and Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (4.4m).
