Mario and Luigi RPG developer, AlphaDream, files for bankruptcy

The developer of Mario and Luigi RPG, AlphaDream, has filed for bankruptcy.

As reported by Yahoo! Japan (thanks, Kotaku), the 19-year-old company behind games like Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story, Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, and Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam has shuttered after “revenue was sluggish and development costs drove the studio into the red”.

The studio also worked on the remakes of Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser’s Minions and Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story + Bowser Jr.’s Journey. The latter was AlphaDream’s final game, releasing in Japan in December 2018, and the rest of the world in January 2019.

Despite recording an annual income of 300 million yen in the fiscal year ending March 2014, by the same period in March 2018, AlphaDream was ‎¥400 million yen ($3.7m) in debt. It’s unclear how many staff are affected by the bankruptcy.

This closure sadly comes on the back of several other closures and cutbacks we’ve seen across studios in recent months, most recently PayDay developer Starbreeze and Amazon Game Studios. Other layoffs and closures include Iron Tiger Studios, ArenaNet, Next Games, Forgotten Key, Define Human Studios, Bandai Namco Vancouver, and Trion Worlds. Telltale Games also laid off its staff in a studio closure back in September 2018.

In other Nintendo news, despite selling over 160,000 Nintendo Switch Lite units in its debut week in Japan, Nintendo’s share price was sent tumbling, falling 4.37 per cent – it’s lowest point in eight months – as sales failed to hit Citibank’s 300,000 projection. Its thought the stock drop is partly attributed to Media Create, which originally reported the Lite’s first week of sales as 114,000, not 160,000.

Nintendo announced the Nintendo Switch Lite, a new iteration of its handheld console, in July. The new system – available in yellow, grey, and turquoise – went on sale September 20, 2019. In line with recent rumours that Nintendo had two new Switch models in production, the Nintendo Switch Lite is smaller than the original version and does will not include a stand nor a dock.