Masahiro Sakurai, the director and creator of Brawl, announced to Famitsu in 2005 that the famed Nintendo franchise would be developed by a secret developer.  Just two weeks before the game's release in Japan and the mystery is finally over.  As it turns out the new Super Smash Bros. title has been developed by the collaboration between Nintendo and GameArts.

GameArts is a Japanese game developer that is known for their high quality RPG series Lunar and Grandia.  In fact, Nintendo used portions of GameArts staff to develop the franchise after they finished work on Grandia III.  According to an interview between Satoru Iwata and Masahiro Sakurai posted on Wii.com, the development team was formed specifically for this game without any other projects in sight.  That meant developers of the title were going to be employed on a temporary basis; pretty scary stuff.

Sakurai wasn’t worried though and wanted to get the game developed just right.  As such, he felt that a wholly independent and focused development team made up of portions of GameArts studio, freelancers, and Nintendo developers would form a special bond and lavish the appropriate amount of attention required for such a high-profile game.  In other words, Nintendo’s fighter has been in very good hands.