• Bloomberg News, Friday, November 10, 2006 12:30 PM

The Walt Disney company is opening a video game studio that will exclusively produce titles for Nintendo systems, including the portable GameBoy Color, DS and the next-generation Wii, which is slated for a release later this month.

The studio, called Fall Line, will be based in Salt Lake City, Utah, and will be run by Scott Novis, leader of the team that created the game based on Pixar's hit film "Cars." Nintendo is a natural partner for the Burbank, Calif. company because Nintendo's game products cater to a younger audience than Sony's PlayStation or Microsoft's Xbox.

Disney chief Bob Iger hinted at the move in September, saying the media giant could earn more from video games by developing its own titles than licensing its characters and content to game developers. In the past two years, Disney has spent $200 million on game development, and another $200 million will be spent on game development in the next two years, executives said.

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