Nintendo has a couple of outside subsidiaries under their wing, but they also have three major development partners that aren’t technically owned by them: those being Intelligent Systems (Fire Emblem and Paper Mario), HAL Labs (Kirby), and finally Camelot. Founded by two brothers who still oversee the company to this day, this studio has had quite the wild ride to the present day, having started out as a subsidiary of Sega under the name “Sonic! Software Planning” in 1990. Under Sega, they developed a staggering amount of entries in the Shining series of RPGs spanning across different subgenres (some of which you can actually play right now on Switch). But in 1997 after rebranding themselves as Camelot Software Planning, they teamed up with Sony to work on two games for the original PlayStation: the original Hot Shots Golf and an RPG called Beyond the Beyond. These helped set them on the path they are on today.
Having experience working on sports games like Hot Shots Golf, Camelot got to flex their talents by partnering with Nintendo to bring Mario into the world of arcade sports games. This started in 1999 with the release of Mario Golf for the Nintendo 64 and Game Boy Color, followed by Mario Tennis one year later. They then took these sports to the next level with Mario Power Tennis and Mario Golf Toadstool Tour on the GameCube, along with similar companion releases on the Game Boy Advance.
Meanwhile, their experience with RPGs like the Shining series and Beyond the Beyond translated into another cult favorite: the long forgotten turn based RPG series [Golden Sun](https://youtu.be/_9qzEFbbM9U). The first two games on GBA were originally intended to be one bigger game, but cartridge limitations caused the games to be split into two releases instead. And going back to the Mario sports games on handhelds real quick: those GBC and GBA games actually feature a fully featured single player RPG mode, complete with experience points and leveling up. The third and final Golden Sun game, Dark Dawn, was released for the DS in 2010 after an 8 year hiatus, but was lukewarmly received.
Ever since Dark Dawn, Camelot has largely been seen as the “Mario Sports” team, having worked on all subsequent Mario Golf and Tennis games for the 3DS, Wii U, and now Switch. The most recent entries of [Tennis](https://youtu.be/4_DlHwDc55s) and [Golf](https://youtu.be/aucAzFWpvMc) did try to bring back the RPG elements of the previous handheld games, with mixed results. As for their future, they most likely aren’t going to work with other publishers or make another Golden Sun game for quite a while, because Mario Sports is their biggest money maker.