In January 2014, the studio announced that it would work exclusively with Nintendo from then on.[5][6] In that same interview, co-founder Jason Carr and producer Ken Yeeloy revealed that it was Nintendo who approached Next Level Games in the first place to develop Super Mario Strikers for the GameCube due to much of the team's prior work on Sega Soccer Slam at EA Black Box.[7]
In January 2021, Nintendo announced that it had purchased Next Level Games after "A number of owner-directors recently determined that the time is right for them to sell their shares, and NLG therefore began exploring potential sale transactions".[8] According to Nintendo's 2021 annual report, this acquisition took place on March 31st, 2021.[9] Co-founder Tronsgard would later retire from the studio by March 2022.[10]
