Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa said the company’s possible transition from the Nintendo Switch to the next hardware platform is a “major concern” for the company.
Speaking to Japanese investors’ questions and answers this week (translated by VGC contributor Robert Sefazon), Furukawa said the company plans to mitigate the risks of resetting its over 100 million customer base by building a “long-term relationship” with its users, in part through Nintendo accounts and using its non-gaming IP.
Furukawa was answering a question about how Nintendo has managed to maintain a strong gaming schedule for six years of the Switch’s lifecycle and what he thinks about moving to its next hardware platform.
In its recent history, Nintendo followed great success as the Wii (101.6 million sold) and the DS (154 million sold) with significantly less popular successors (the Wii U sold 13.5 million and the 3DS managed 75 million), and Furukawa said that the company had in mind these experiences.
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“We have already announced part of our software roadmap, which will be released by next spring,” he said. “Unlike in the past, we still have a wide variety of games planned to be released, even five years after they were released. This is because the Nintendo Switch had such a smooth startup that it allowed us to focus all our development resources on one platform.
“However, the question of whether we will be able to move from Nintendo Switch to the next generation of hardware just as smoothly is a major concern for us. Based on our experience with Wii, Nintendo DS and other hardware, it is very clear that one of the main obstacles is how easy it is to switch from one hardware to another.
“To help alleviate this risk, we are focusing on building long-term relationships with our customers. While we will continue to release new Nintendo Switch software, we will also provide services that also use Nintendo and other IP accounts outside of gaming software. We intend to help build a lasting impact on our customers. “
Earlier, it seemed that Furukawa hinted that some form of backward compatibility could be used for its next gaming console to “maintain and expand” Switch’s audience of more than 100 million users.
Speaking to investors in February, the president said of Nintendo’s plans for the next generation of consoles: “There are currently nearly 100 million annual gaming users, and it’s important to think about how we can maintain and expand that number in the future. This will also be essential when considering our plan for the next hardware platform.
On Tuesday, Nintendo announced Switch hardware sales of 23.06 million for its fiscal year ended March 2022, bringing lifelong sales to 107.6 million. The figure brings the company closer to breaking the PS2 record (155 million), but still represents a 20% drop from the previous year, when Switch sales peaked at 28.83 million units.
The company has officially said it believes the Switch is still in the middle phase of its life cycle and is looking for a sixth year of growth, aided by the new OLED model.
Nintendo said last May that investment in the successor to the Switch had contributed to the company’s record annual research and development costs.
And during a briefing on its financial results in November, the company said it was still internally discussing the concept and timing of launching its next gaming system.
President Shuntaro Furukawa discussed Nintendo’s approach to developing and launching new gaming hardware in an interview with Nikkei (paid wall) published last February.
“The hardware and software development teams are in the same building, communicating closely and thinking about how we can offer new forms of entertainment,” he said.
“To create a single piece of hardware, we have to do a lot of preparation a few years in advance, so we work non-stop. Ultimately, the deciding factor in the commercialization of a product is whether it can create a new experience. “
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