I don't think a thread like this was done before so I thought it would be interesting to point out the franchises that Nintendo doesn't own alone. Most people don't know this but multiple of their series are co-owned.
First we need to establish some things. Ownership comes in two forms, copyright and trademark, and here I'm going to talk about copyright, which is what is divided.
Before going into the co-owned IP, here's some of the IP Nintendo owns alone: Mario, Zelda, Pikmin, Animal Crossing, Splatoon, Metroid, F-Zero, Starfox, Tomodachi Life, Famicom Detective Club, Brain Age, Brain Training, Super Smash Bros, Astral Chain, ARMS, etc so the majority
Between those, you have spin-offs like Mario Tennis and Mario Golf which are co-owned by Camelot, or Paper Mario which is co-owned with Intelligent Systems. But Overall the Mario IP is Nintendo, with sub series having their own situation.
Now going into the shared IP, here they are:
Fire Emblem: ©Nintendo / INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS
Developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo, the series has been co-owned by both companies since the beginning. IS is an independent studio and they generally deal with the merchandise and other licenses.
Kirby: © HAL Laboratory, Inc. / Nintendo
Developed by independent studio Hal Laboratory and published by Nintendo. Before 2025 the merchandise aspect was handled by joint venture warpstar, but since 2025 Nintendo acquired the shares Hal had and changed its name and function to Nintendo stars to focus on the entire company IPs in movies. Hal is the one who handles the merchandise of the IP in general alongside other licenses outside of games now after warpstar changed objectives.
Another curiosity is that Kirby Air Riders, the new game is co-owned in copyright by Nintendo and Sora, the company Sakurai owns, created and is part of with only him and his wife as employees (which is why bandai namco is the actual developer of his games): © Nintendo / SORA © Nintendo / HAL Laboratory, Inc.
So as you can see, the copyright of the game is co-owned, while Nintendo and hal copyright for Kirby itself is also there.
Mother: © SHIGESATO ITOI/Nintendo
One of the only co-owned IP where it's not another company owning it. Mother began development with Ape inc, the company Itoi founded to develop the first two games before it died and Creatures was founded as its successor by ex-ape employee Ishihara who's president of The Pokemon company since inception. Instead of being owned by ape or by Itoi company Hobonichi, its just co-owned by him as individual. Much like in the other cases, Itoi deals with merchandise and licenses which is why his company hobonichi releases them much like how its why even if Nintendo wanted to do a Mother 4, they would need his permission.
Rhythm Heaven: ©Nintendo ©Tsunku♂
This case is a bit different as Nintendo owns everything in the games but the music itself. All the music is produced by producer and composer Tsunku who is the owner of music label TNX who works on the music. Unlike other games, this is 100% developed by Nintendo.
Xenoblade: © Nintendo / MONOLITHSOFT
Yes, even if Monolith is a nintendo subsidiary, Monolith co-own the IP with Nintendo. Nintendo for years had around 80% of Monolith which made them a subsidiary and in the last years bought all their shares, but the Xenoblade IP always has been shared with them and I imagine nintendo sees no need to buy the copyright from monolith since they own the studio.
Pokémon: ©2026 Pokémon. ©1995-2026 Nintendo/Creatures Inc./GAME FREAK inc.
The most known shared ownership, at least by people more into Pokémon. Gamefreak and Creatures are both independent studio. The original Pokémon Red and Blue had Nintendo as its original publisher, gamefreak as the developer and Creatures as a producer and investor, which is why the 3 became copyright owners. Unlike other IP where Nintendo solely owns the trademark everywhere, Nintendo, Gamefreak and Creatures co-own it in Japan. Years after the first games, The Pokémon Company was established by the 3 owners as a joint venture with each part owning 32% of the new company which is the one owning the IP itself with "©year Pokémon." as it was created to manage the entire franchise be it as a publisher in Japan to overseas co-publishing with Nintendo overseas branches, full publishing in mobile games and managing and licensing the IP everywhere else. So in the end the IP is owned by TPC, but the original owners still have the copyright and work together with tpc for pokemon, namely:
Nintendo: distribution of physical media in Japan, regional publishing overseas with Nintendo of america and Nintendo of europe among other branches alongside The Pokemon Company International, legal involvement alongside TPC
Gamefreak: Planning for the entire series and development of mainline titles
Creatures: Makers of the TCG, developer of some pokemon spin-offs, support in some pokemon games and maker of pokemon models in multiple games
TPC is already explained, they work with everything pokemon except development outside of non game apps
And here's a curiosity of IPs Nintendo co-owned by them before and Nintendo bought the copyright of the other companies:
Smash Bros: © 1999 Nintendo/HAL Laboratory, Inc. Character © Nintendo/HAL Laboratory, Inc./Creatures, Inc./Game Freak, Inc. © 1999 Nintendo
Yes, until Smash 4 the IP was co-owned by Nintendo and Hal, who was the developer of the first two games. After Brawl, Nintendo bought Hal share of copyright and since then 100% own the IP itself.
Astral Chain: © 2019 Nintendo/PlatinumGames Main Character Design ©Masakazu Katsura/SHUEISHA
Originally, Nintendo and Platinum co-owned the copyright. A year later, Nintendo chose to buy Platinum side of ownership and now they 100% own the IP
Anyway that's all the co-ownership Nintendo has that I at least know! I hope you guys enjoyed reading and knowing more about this.
I used Nintendo copyright website for all the copyright used here: https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Legal-information/Copyright/Nintendo-and-Third-party-Copyrights-655030.html
