Mario Party is the first of several Mario games planned for this year that are being created by developers outside of Nintendo. In this case, the developer is Hudson, a company best known for the Bomberman series, while the others are HAL Systems, the creator of the Kirby line (which is handling the Mario fighting game, Smash Brothers), and Hot Shots Golf maker Camelot (which is doing Mario Golf). Each of the games' focus plays to what the developers know best, in this case, Hudson's knowledge of good multiplayer game modes gleaned from producing countless incarnations of Bomberman, the seminal party-game series