Following the surprise announcement of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 exclusively for Switch , Nintendo has shed a little bit of light on how that deal came together.

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In an interview following The Game Awards, we asked Nintendo of America president and COO Reggie Fils-Aime about working with Koei Tecmo, who is developing Ultimate Alliance 3, and if previous collaborations on Hyrule Warriors and Fire Emblem Warriors helped make this project happen.“It did. What happens in the world of development is you have companies who have positive experiences in working together, coupled with franchises being available, and the franchise owner wanting to do something with a particular franchise,” Fils-Aime told IGN. “And in this case, those three elements came together in order to create the opportunity for that game."“And we love that," he added. "And we're constantly looking for those types of opportunities. It's the Team Ninja portion of Koei Tecmo that's working on this. They've got a lot of skills, and it really helped paint a picture of what that game is going to be. We're tremendously excited about it.”While this is the third entry in the Marvel Ultimate Alliance series, it’s the first developed by Koei Tecmo, as the original games were developed under Activision. We asked Fils-Aime if those original titles could also eventually make their way to Switch.“I really can't comment on that. That's not been an area of focus for us,” he said. “What we want to do is we want to make this game a great experience, and certainly with all of the excitement around the overall Marvel universe, we think it's going to be a great opportunity.”As for other Game Awards moments, Fils-Aime also addressed his appearance on stage alongside Xbox and PlayStation heads Phil Spencer and Shawn Layden.“Here's what's so important, from my perspective,” he said. “Our industry is the most vibrant across all of entertainment. The opportunity to speak to all the players and to deliver a message of community, a message of inclusion, a message that all of us are looking to immerse ourselves in the best content, the best entertainment available today."That was a really important message. And to drive home a thought of community and inclusion, that in many regards was carried throughout the entire show. I thought was really positive.”For more from our interview with Fils-Aime, read his comments about half of all Switch owners purchasing Mario Kart, Mario, and Zelda how Joker is emblematic of Smash Bros. Ultimate’s DLC approach , and why E3 is still important to Nintendo

Andrew is IGN’s executive editor of news and will never say no to more games with Spider-Man in them. You can find him rambling about Persona and cute animals on Twitter