Lego and Nintendo partnership?!?!

[RyanMe]

Just saw on IG that someone claims to have hacked in to the Nintendo Switch eShop and there is a Lego The Legend of Zelda game listed. Could this mean that Lego has a listening agreement with Nintendo and we could potentially see Nintendo IP Lego sets soon?

Edited September 9, 2018 by RyanMe
Typo

[Khscarymovie4]

I have seen the post too and it just seems off to me. There have been many Lego Zelda Ideas sets that have been rejected, one time I think they even mentioned licencing issues. So it seems off to me that all of a sudden Nintendo is allowing Lego to make a full game off Zelda. I do not think this leak is true. A full scale Lego Zelda game would be interesting though 

[Ultron]

Dont they have something with mega construx?

[Alegrispa]

It's one of dozens of fake leaks 4Chan sh**s out before every Nintendo direct. Nothing to see here folks!

[MatthewRC]

This is obviously fake, since Nintendo is partnered with K’NEX for Mario, and Mega Construx for Pokémon.

But if it turns out to be real, I’ll be really looking forward to it!

Edited September 9, 2018 by MatthewRC

[RyanMe]

Not that the brickfan saying it is proof, as he discusses it as a rumor, but he has a little background on where the rumors come from. 

https://www.thebrickfan.com/lego-the-legend-of-zelda-planned-for-nintendo-direct/

 

also is there a chance the licenses Nintendo already has with other blocks are limited to the Mario games?

[albertbalanza]

Someone claims that the original source of the Instagram image already admitted that it was a fake. Can't find the 'admission' though. 

https://imgur.com/a/gFhTnBK

[BrickSantorum]

22 hours ago, MatthewRC said:

This is obviously fake, since Nintendo is partnered with K’NEX for Mario, and Mega Construx for Pokémon.

But if it turns out to be real, I’ll be really looking forward to it!

Pokémon is a separate company from Nintendo, with their own licensing deals. But yeah, this is definitely a fake rumor. 

[Marvelous Spidey]

If you look at the instagram post, it's almost certainly fake based on some of the other game names: Metroid Equestrian Races, Luigi's Mansion Pop!, Pokemon Diamand and Pearl remakes, etc.

If Metroid Equestrian Races is real, Nintendo has fully jumped the shark. Or alien shark-horse, if you'll excuse my terrible joke.

[General Magma]

My uncle's uncle's brother's friend's uncle's daughter's friend's mother's uncle's brother's friend's acquaintance hacked into the database of a Venezuelan pizza restaurant and found out that LEGO Game of Thro...

...you see where I'm going with this?

Edited September 10, 2018 by General Magma

[MatthewRC]

Well, the Nintendo Direct presentation starts today at 3pm PST/6pm EST. We all doubt this rumor may be true, but let's just wait and find out.

Nintendo Direct 9/13/2018

[RyanMe]

11 hours ago, MatthewRC said:

Well, the Nintendo Direct presentation starts today at 3pm PST/6pm EST. We all doubt this rumor may be true, but let's just wait and find out.

Nintendo Direct 9/13/2018

Only thing I saw mentioned was the already known lego dc villains game. :(  

[MatthewRC]

10 hours ago, RyanMe said:

Only thing I saw mentioned was the already known lego dc villains game. :(  

Yeah, I didn’t want to spoil anything from the presentation.

[Aanchir]

On 9/9/2018 at 6:50 PM, RyanMe said:

Not that the brickfan saying it is proof, as he discusses it as a rumor, but he has a little background on where the rumors come from. 

https://www.thebrickfan.com/lego-the-legend-of-zelda-planned-for-nintendo-direct/

also is there a chance the licenses Nintendo already has with other blocks are limited to the Mario games?

Not just a chance, a near-certainty. Licensing is rarely done on a company-wide basis — each IP tends to be a separate license. Even in the case of things like the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies which you might think would all fall under the same licensing agreement, a license to produce sets based on Avengers: Infinity War would be separate from a license to produce sets based on Black Panther or Ant Man & the Wasp. I learned this from a friend who makes comics for the LEGO Club Magazines and has had to get ones with licensed characters approved by the various license-holders.

K'nex's Nintendo licenses so far seem to include the Super Mario and Mario Kart IPs specifically (and even then, there's no telling whether they cover the entire franchise or just specific games — notably, they haven't released any sets with Super Mario Odyssey branding, which would be a no-brainer if they wanted to maximize the hype for their products, so I suspect it's on a game-by-game basis. Even in the case of game series that share characters, like Mario Kart, Donkey Kong Country, and Super Smash Bros, K'nex can only use those characters in the context of whichever game licenses they've acquired.

And of course, almost all licensing agreements have an expiration date, so if one or both of the parties chooses not to renew, then that license can be granted to another company — much like how Mega Construx picked up the TMNT license after LEGO's TMNT license expire.

Now as for the LEGO The Legend of Zelda rumor… the original source is a list of supposed future Nintendo Switch game titles posted to 4chan, a site notorious for all the trolling that goes on there. And some of the games on the list are obvious falsehoods, while others (like LEGO The Legend of Zelda) could easily be taking advantage of how much people WANT them to be real.

It's true that ONE of the game titles on the list, Yoshi's Crafted World, was not confirmed prior to the list being posted, but has since been confirmed in the Nintendo Direct. So the person making that list had gotten access to at least that much info before it was public knowledge. But on the other hand, NONE of the other game titles on the list were confirmed in the Nintendo Direct (new Animal Crossing and Luigi's Mansion games were announced, but without titles attached, which makes it unlikely that the titles have even been settled on). Also, numerous titles were announced in the Nintendo Direct that WEREN'T on this list. So it seems likely to me that Yoshi's Crafted World is the only real upcoming title the person posting that list actually knew about, and the rest were fabricated.

[BrickSantorum]

2 hours ago, Aanchir said:

Not just a chance, a near-certainty. Licensing is rarely done on a company-wide basis — each IP tends to be a separate license. Even in the case of things like the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies which you might think would all fall under the same licensing agreement, a license to produce sets based on Avengers: Infinity War would be separate from a license to produce sets based on Black Panther or Ant Man & the Wasp. I learned this from a friend who makes comics for the LEGO Club Magazines and has had to get ones with licensed characters approved by the various license-holders.

K'nex's Nintendo licenses so far seem to include the Super Mario and Mario Kart IPs specifically (and even then, there's no telling whether they cover the entire franchise or just specific games — notably, they haven't released any sets with Super Mario Odyssey branding, which would be a no-brainer if they wanted to maximize the hype for their products, so I suspect it's on a game-by-game basis. Even in the case of game series that share characters, like Mario Kart, Donkey Kong Country, and Super Smash Bros, K'nex can only use those characters in the context of whichever game licenses they've acquired.

And of course, almost all licensing agreements have an expiration date, so if one or both of the parties chooses not to renew, then that license can be granted to another company — much like how Mega Construx picked up the TMNT license after LEGO's TMNT license expire.

Now as for the LEGO The Legend of Zelda rumor… the original source is a list of supposed future Nintendo Switch game titles posted to 4chan, a site notorious for all the trolling that goes on there. And some of the games on the list are obvious falsehoods, while others (like LEGO The Legend of Zelda) could easily be taking advantage of how much people WANT them to be real.

It's true that ONE of the game titles on the list, Yoshi's Crafted World, was not confirmed prior to the list being posted, but has since been confirmed in the Nintendo Direct. So the person making that list had gotten access to at least that much info before it was public knowledge. But on the other hand, NONE of the other game titles on the list were confirmed in the Nintendo Direct (new Animal Crossing and Luigi's Mansion games were announced, but without titles attached, which makes it unlikely that the titles have even been settled on). Also, numerous titles were announced in the Nintendo Direct that WEREN'T on this list. So it seems likely to me that Yoshi's Crafted World is the only real upcoming title the person posting that list actually knew about, and the rest were fabricated.

Excellent summary - thanks for posting! Your friend is right on the money about licensor approval. I spent 12 years writing books about various video games, and the approvals process for companies like Nintendo was rigid, to say the least, even when working with characters from different franchises that are all owned by the same company.

[Agent Kallus]

For those of us who haven't played lego city undercover, it was originally a Nintendo exclusive and it has some cool Nintendo (mostly Mario) references.

Spoiler

 

 

[Digger of Bricks]

For any readers of this topic who may be interested, here's @just2good and @Ashnflash's latest CMF Draft. 

 

[Pchan1983]

6 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

@just2good and @Ashnflash's latest CMF Draft.

Love the draft but imagine if it really happens, the cost for all the new molds =P  

[Digger of Bricks]

On 9/8/2018 at 9:44 PM, RyanMe said:

Just saw on IG that someone claims to have hacked in to the Nintendo Switch eShop and there is a Lego The Legend of Zelda game listed. Could this mean that Lego has a listening agreement with Nintendo and we could potentially see Nintendo IP Lego sets soon?

Well, @just2good has been theorizing about 2020...