Nintendo will focus more on creating new IPs as well as supporting existing ones, according to company president Shuntaro Furukawa
In an interview with Nikkei (via VGC), Furukawa stated that “In the future, we will focus on creating new game series as well as long-sellers such as Mario and Zelda.” He also detailed the company’s hardware plans for the future noting that “we are constantly building up ideas for the new consoles the market is expecting,”
Furukawa also mentioned that Nintendo would need to continue to innovate in order to survive in the now competitive gaming market, noting that “with the expansion of time spent at home, the range of ‘entertainment’ as an object of consumption is expanding.” He continues with “games are not a necessity of life. In order for customers to choose games in their finite time, they have to be interesting. Competition is tough, and I am not optimistic.”
According to Furukawa, it takes a lot of preparation and several years to create a single piece of hardware, however, the company is apparently “working without stopping” on what’s next for Nintendo. He also gave a small insight into the teams that are working on these developments adding that “the hardware and software development teams are in the same building, communicating closely and thinking about how we can propose new forms of entertainment,”
As for what this means for the future of Nintendo’s consoles, the constantly rumoured (but yet to be officially announced) Nintendo Switch Pro could be on the horizon, and is rumoured to support 4K visuals, contain a large full 1080p display, and have an increased battery life. A recent firmware update also hinted at possible future features for the Nintendo Switch including Bluetooth headphone support.
In the meantime, Nintendo fans have several upcoming Switch games to look forward to including Splatoon 3 (which was recently announced at a February Nintendo Direct), a The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and Pokemon Legends: Arceus
To catch up on any games you may have missed, take a look at our best Nintendo Switch games list.
