Grasshopper Manufacture Joins Chinese Video Game Giant NetEase

Just a day after we heard how the famous video game creator Goichi “Suda51” Suda would love to reboot or remake Nintendo’s older IP, he’s now announced his development studio will be working under the Chinese video game giant NetEase.

Yes, that’s right – Grasshopper Manufacturer is ending its partnership with the Japanese publisher and developer GungHo Online Entertainment to join the NetEase Group – one of the biggest internet and video game companies in the world that also partners with western companies like Blizzard.

Here’s the announcement from Suda himself – who promises the developer will continue to create new and exciting games, just as it always has:

Grasshopper Manufacture most recently wrapped up work on the Switch title, No More Heroes 3. The plan now is to work on three new original IP projects over the next decade.

Here is Suda51’s full statement announcing this new partnership with NetEase:

Grasshopper Manufacture Inc. has just celebrated its 23rd anniversary in March this year. For the past 23 years, our team of creators with various backgrounds and personalities have presented a variety of games to gamers. We are now given a unique opportunity to rethink the game development and organization structure of Grasshopper Manufacture Inc. moving forward. While understanding our own advantages and unique position, we were presented with new possibilities in game creation.

As we all know, NetEase Games has developed many excellent games in the past, and I have long been aware of NetEase’s creative capabilities. When talking with NetEase about “developing more unique console games together”, we resonated. After a lot of thoughts, we’ve unanimously decided to “get together” in the long term through deeper cooperation to create more good content for gamers.

NetEase Games understands the strengths of Grasshopper Manufacture Inc. and is willing to support us, and is an extremely reliable partner. NetEase Games will be mainly responsible for advising on our business planning activities and providing sufficient funding for game development. We will be responsible for the creativity and production of games to ensure that we are able to continue to maintain the consistent “Grasshopper Manufacture flavor” and game quality for which we are known. In addition, we will also receive strong support from the NetEase team composed of thousands of artists and technical experts in terms of game art and quality assurance. We will make the most of this support and strive to offer three even higher-quality “Grasshopper Manufacture Games” to all gamers in the next ten years.

Grasshopper Manufacture Inc., moving towards the brand-new future of game development, is now reborn and will continue to create history. Stay tuned.

It follows on from the news that the Monkey Ball and Yakuza creator Toshihori Nagoshi was leaving Sega to join NetEase.

What are your thoughts about this announcement? Leave a comment down below.