Nintendo now owns 100% of Xenoblade studio Monolith Soft
The developer’s founders still owned 4% until recently
Nintendo now fully owns Monolith Soft, according to the company’s records.
As spotted by Automaton, the company page on the Xenoblade studio’s website says it has a total of 2,400 shares, and that 100% of these are owned by Nintendo.
While there’s no indication of exactly when this took place, it appears to have been some time in the past couple of months, because until recently Nintendo had 96% of the shares.
Archived versions of the page from the Wayback Machine show that as recently as October 1, the company’s records still showed Nintendo owning 2,320 shares of the total 2,400.
The remaining 80 shares had been owned by Monolith Soft‘s co-founders Hirohide Sugiura, Tetsuya Takahashi and Yasuyuki Honne.
By the time the Wayback Machine next archived the page on November 21, the records had been changed to show Nintendo owning all 100% of the shares.
For the past 15 years, Monolith Soft has mainly been focused on development of the Xenoblade Chronicles series, though it was also responsible for the two Project X Zone crossover RPGs on the 3DS.
It’s also provided Nintendo with developmental support on a number of games, including The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and the Splatoon and Animal Crossing games.
Its next release will be Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition, a port of the 2015 Wii U spin-off.
Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition will release for Switch on March 20, 2025, featuring enhanced visuals, added story elements and more, according to Nintendo.
