Intelligent Systems

For the divested computer company formerly known as Intelligent Systems, see Intelligent Systems (American company).

Not to be confused with Intelligent Games.

Intelligent Systems Co., Ltd.^[a] is a Japanese video game developer best known for developing games published by Nintendo with the Fire Emblem, Paper Mario, WarioWare, and Wars video game series.

Intelligent Systems Co., Ltd.

Logotype
Native name	株式会社インテリジェントシステムズ
Romanized name	Kabushiki gaisha Interijento Shisutemuzu
Company type	Kabushiki gaisha
Industry	Video games
Founded	1983; 42 years ago (1983) (As a division under Iwasaki Giken Kogyo.) December 1986; 39 years ago (1986-12) (As a separate entity.) [1]
Founder	Toru Narihiro
Headquarters	Minami-ku, Kyoto , Japan
Key people	Ryouichi Kitanishi (chairman) Toshiyuki Nakamura (president)
Products	Fire Emblem series Paper Mario series WarioWare series Wars series
Number of employees	208 (2025)
Subsidiaries	Purejio Co., Ltd. (株式会社プレジオ)[2]
Website	intsys.co.jp/english intsys.co.jp

The company has a reputation for working closely with Nintendo, but not all games developed by Intelligent Systems are published by Nintendo. Cubivore: Survival of the Fittest (which was co-developed by Intelligent Systems) was published by Atlus in North America under license from Nintendo.^[3] It has also worked on Dragon Quest games, which were published by Square Enix.^[4][5]

History

Intelligent Systems originated as Iwasaki Giken in 1983 to develop games for Nintendo. This original group of developers worked on titles like Mario Bros., Wild Gunman, Duck Hunt, Hogan's Alley, Donkey Kong 3, Devil World, Wrecking Crew, Metroid, and more.^[4][6]

When the Nintendo Research & Development team was reorganized during the production of the Game Boy, the team was officially separated. In 1986, this group was established as Intelligent Systems.^[7] Ryoichi Kitanishi served as company CEO.^[4]

The team became an auxiliary program unit for Nintendo that provided system tools and hired people to program, fix, or port Nintendo-developed software. Much of the team's original work was developed alongside Nintendo R&D1. During this time, Intelligent Systems was one of four companies that Nintendo used to code the majority of its games. Others included Pax Softnica, SRD, and HAL Laboratory.^[6]

Under game designer Shouzou Kaga, Intelligent Systems and Nintendo R&D1 released Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light in 1990.^[8] It was the first time that the company took the lead on game design and graphics. Intelligent Systems began to hire graphic designers, programmers, and musicians to extend the company from an auxiliary–tool developer to a game development group.^[6] During development of the Super NES, Intelligent Systems was split into four smaller teams in order to develop games like Super Scope 6, Mario Paint, and Super Metroid. Following the success of Fire Emblem, multiple Fire Emblem titles were released under Kaga.^[7]

Intelligent Systems struggled to adjust to 3D game development during the Nintendo 64 era. Kaga left the company after Thracia 776, the fifth game in the series.^[9] After five years of development, Fire Emblem 64 was cancelled, though Paper Mario was released in 2000.^[7][8]

In 2001, the company released Mario Kart: Super Circuit, the first Mario Kart game to be developed outside of Nintendo.^[6] In 2003, the company had 81 employees^[10] and moved to Nintendo's Kyoto Research Center in Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto,^[4][11] where it share space with Nintendo’s Software Planning & Development division.^[12] It also released Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade on the Game Boy Advance, the first game in the series to be localized for the West.^[8]

Toshiyuki Nakamura was named president and CEO in April 2010. In October 2013, Intelligent Systems moved to a newly constructed office near Nintendo's new headquarters.^[4][6] The company had 130 employees at this time.^[10][12]

In February 2017, Intelligent Systems released a free-to-play gacha mobile game, called Fire Emblem Heroes.^[13] Nintendo and DeNA assisted in development.^[14] By the end of 2018, it had grossed an estimated $452 million worldwide.^[15] To celebrate the game's third year, Intelligent Systems unveiled a subscription plan that would give players cosmetics, extra missions, and power boosts.^[16]

In 2020, Intelligent Systems finally released a localized version of Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light in the West for the 30th anniversary of the game.^[8] It remained in the Nintendo eShop for four months before being delisted.^[17]

Development tools

Intelligent Systems has produced development support tools for most Nintendo consoles.^[4][6] These include emulators, debuggers, software CDs, and more.^[18][19]

It developed the Wide Boy development tool, which allowed developers to play Game Boy games on a television. Nintendo later released it to the public as the Super Game Boy. Intelligent Systems also created the Wide Boy 64 for the Nintendo 64 console.^[7][20] It created software CDs for Game Boy Advance developers.^[6]

The company helped to develope the camera app for the Nintendo 3DS, contributing to the feature that allowed users to merge the faces of two people together.^[10][21]

List of games developed

List of video games developed by Intelligent Systems

Year	Title	Platform(s)	Note	Ref.
1983	Mario Bros.	NES	Co-developed with Nintendo R&D1	[22]
1984	Tennis
	Wild Gunman
	Duck Hunt
	Hogan's Alley
	Donkey Kong 3
	Devil World		Co-developed with Nintendo R&D1
1985	Soccer
	Wrecking Crew
	Stack-Up		Co-developed with Nintendo R&D1
	Gyromite
1986	Tennis	Famicom Disk System
	Soccer
	Metroid		Co-developed with Nintendo R&D1	[23]
1988	Famicom Wars	Famicom		[22]
	Kaettekita Mario Bros.	Famicom Disk System
	Wrecking Crew
1989	Alleyway	Game Boy	Co-developed with Nintendo R&D1
	Baseball		Responsible for porting the original game to the Game Boy.
	Yakuman
	Golf
1990	Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light	Famicom	Co-developed with Nintendo R&D1
	Backgammon	Famicom Disk System
1991	SimCity	Super NES
	Game Boy Wars	Game Boy	Co-developed with Nintendo R&D1
1992	Super Scope 6	Super NES		[7]
	Fire Emblem Gaiden	Famicom		[24]
	Mario Paint	Super NES		[7]
	Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru	Game Boy	Co-developed with Nintendo R&D1	[22]
	Battle Clash	Super NES		[7]
1993	Metal Combat: Falcon's Revenge
1994	Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem	Super Famicom		[24]
	Super Metroid	Super NES	Co-developed with Nintendo R&D1	[7]
	Wario's Woods	Super NES		[22]
1995	Galactic Pinball	Virtual Boy		[7]
	Panel de Pon	Super Famicom		[25]
1996	Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War			[24]
	Tetris Attack	Super NES	Co-developed with Nintendo R&D1	[25]
1998	Super Famicom Wars	Super Famicom		[22]
1999	Fire Emblem: Thracia 776			[24]
2000	Trade & Battle: Card Hero	Game Boy Color	Co-developed with Nintendo R&D1	[22]
	Paper Mario	Nintendo 64		[26]
	Pokémon Puzzle Challenge	Game Boy Color		[27]
2001	Advance Wars	Game Boy Advance	Released as Game Boy Wars Advance 1+2 in Japan on 2004.	[28][29]
	Mario Kart: Super Circuit			[30]
2002	Cubivore: Survival of the Fittest	GameCube	Co-developed with Saru Brunei	[22]
	Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade	Game Boy Advance		[24]
2003	Nintendo Puzzle Collection	GameCube	Co-developed with Nintendo R&D1	[30]
	Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade	Game Boy Advance		[24]
	Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising		Released as Game Boy Wars Advance 1+2 in Japan on 2004.	[29]
	WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Party Games!	GameCube	Co-developed with Nintendo R&D1	[31]
2004	Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door			[26]
	Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones	Game Boy Advance		[24]
	WarioWare: Twisted!		Co-developed with Nintendo SPD Group No. 1	[32]
	WarioWare: Touched!	Nintendo DS	Co-developed with Nintendo SPD Group No. 1	[33]
2005	Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance	GameCube		[24]
	Advance Wars: Dual Strike	Nintendo DS		[28]
	Dr. Mario & Puzzle League	Game Boy Advance		[34]
2006	WarioWare: Smooth Moves	Wii	Co-developed with Nintendo SPD Group No. 1	[35]
2007	Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn			[24]
	Super Paper Mario			[26]
	Planet Puzzle League	Nintendo DS		[36]
	Face Training			[37]
	Kousoku Card Battle: Card Hero		Co-developed with Nintendo SPD Group No. 1	[38]
2008	Advance Wars: Days of Ruin			[39]
	Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon			[24]
	WarioWare: Snapped!	Nintendo DS	Co-developed with Nintendo SPD Group No. 1	[40]
2009	WarioWare D.I.Y.			[41]
	WarioWare D.I.Y. Showcase	Wii	Co-developed with Nintendo SPD Group No. 1
	Dragon Quest Wars	Nintendo DS		[42]
	Eco Shooter: Plant 530	Wii		[43]
	Nintendo DSi Instrument Tuner	Nintendo DSi		[44]
	Nintendo DSi Metronome			[45]
	Dictionary 6 in 1 with Camera Function			[46]
	Link 'n' Launch			[36]
	Spotto!			[47]
2010	Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem	Nintendo DS		[24]
2011	Pushmo	Nintendo 3DS		[48]
	Dragon Quest 25th Anniversary Collection [jp]	Wii		[49]
2012	Fire Emblem Awakening	Nintendo 3DS		[6]
	Crashmo			[48]
	Paper Mario: Sticker Star			[6]
2013	Game & Wario	Wii U	Co-developed with Nintendo SPD Group No. 1
	Daigasso! Band Brothers P	Nintendo 3DS	Co-developed with Nintendo SDD
2014	Pushmo World	Wii U		[50]
2015	Code Name: S.T.E.A.M.	Nintendo 3DS		[51]
	Stretchmo			[52]
	Fire Emblem Fates			[53]
2016	Paper Mario: Color Splash	Wii U		[26]
2017	Fire Emblem Heroes	iOS, Android	Co-developed with DeNA	[54]
	Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia	Nintendo 3DS		[55]
2018	WarioWare Gold			[56]
2019	Fire Emblem: Three Houses	Nintendo Switch	Co-developed with Koei Tecmo	[57]
2020	Paper Mario: The Origami King
2021	WarioWare: Get It Together!
2023	Fire Emblem Engage
	WarioWare: Move It!
2024	Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
2025	Fire Emblem Shadows	iOS, Android	Co-developed with DeNA	[54]
2026	Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave	Nintendo Switch 2		[58]

Cancelled

Title	System	Ref(s)
Dragon Hopper	Virtual Boy	[59]
Fire Emblem 64	Nintendo 64DD	[60]
Untitled Fire Emblem game	Wii	[61]
Crashmo World	Wii U	[62]

See also

• OrCAD (distributed by Intelligent Systems Japan, KK)

Notes

1. Japanese: 株式会社インテリジェントシステムズ, Hepburn: Kabushiki gaisha Interijento Shisutemuzu