Nintendo brings Wii Party dev in-house

Nintendo has a knack for churning out evergreen titles for its platforms, and the publisher appears to have scored yet one more success with ND Cube's Wii Party. Since launching in Japan during the first week of July, Wii Party has consistently placed near the top of Media Create's weekly sales chart, having sold close to 125,000 units during the stat-tracking firm's most recent accounting.

Nintendo has apparently taken note of ND Cube's success with Wii Party. As part of a recent Iwata Asks feature, the publisher revealed that it had acquired a 96 percent stake in ND Cube as of August 2010. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

ND Cube was founded in 2000 and is perhaps best known for its work on the well-regarded Game Boy Advance title F-Zero: Maximum Velocity. The studio also crafted 2003's GameCube title Tube Slider, as well as a handful of other Japanese-only releases.

Wii Party is Nintendo's first stab at the genre for the Wii since 2007's Mario Party 8, which has sold more than 7.6 million units worldwide. The game, which is set for North American launch on October 3, will feature 13 different game modes and more than 70 individual minigames.

For more information, check out GameSpot's previous coverage of Wii Party.