Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa has done an interview with the Japanese publication Nikkei where he talks about the Nintendo Switch. He re-iterates, once again, that the Switch is only in the middle of its life cycle and that there is much more they can do with the console. He doesn’t go into detail on any new hardware, but his remarks are always insightful and bring light to Nintendo’s inner-workings and how they approach the console business. He doesn’t get in front of the camera like Iwata, and isn’t as enigmatic, but he definitely has a vision and under Furukawa Nintendo has done just fine. Here are some of his remarks. Thank you to Nintendo Everything for the translation.
“As the Switch enters its fifth year on the market, one of our focal points is ensuring it has a long life cycle. It’s very important for us that customers continue to enjoy playing their Switch. This includes Switch owners who bought the console at launch all the way through to those who bought in with recent releases like Animal Crossing. It’s about providing new gameplay experiences for all Switch owners. We need to keep in mind that the console base will continue to expand, as well as the types of games that have already been released for the system.
…We never consider when to release consoles, but we’re always doing technical and market research. Our hardware and software teams work in the same building, constantly communicating and thinking of new ways to ways to have fun. Even when developing one specific piece of hardware, there are so many hurdles to jump through over several years that the reality of it is we never really stop. In the end, the thing that makes an idea a reality is whether we can offer a new experience or not.”
It doesn’t sound like Nintendo will release a new hardware system anytime soon, but with the Switch outpacing the Wii in its trajectory for total sales, it doesn’t have to. The Wii began to peak in its fourth year in its sales with a lot of subpar software, where the Switch is just getting started. It will be interesting to see where it goes from here.