Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa recently spoke with Japanese news publication The Nikkei about what’s next for the Animal Crossing franchise after the immensely successful Animal Crossing: New Horizons for the Nintendo Switch. Mr. Furukawa says that they realise space in the video game industry is extremely fierce so they are always looking for new ideas and concepts. When Mr. Furukawa was asked about a new Switch model he said they are always exploring new technologies, but they want to keep the pricing of such things as consumer friendly as possible.
“As we spend more time in our homes, we are becoming increasingly spoiled for choice when it comes to entertainment. For people to choose to play our games with their limited free time, the games must be interesting. Competition is fierce and we’re not looking at the current situation lightly. We are constantly looking out for new ideas and researching what we can utilize next. In future, we want to not only work on our staple series like Mario and Zelda but also work on new games and new series.
(Regarding the calls for a new Switch model) We’re constantly thinking about ideas for new consoles, but many ideas simply aren’t feasible because of cost or limitations in technology. We devote a lot of resources into developing technology in case any of these ideas become feasible in future.”
New IPs and affordable technologies eh? Sounds like a huge stretch to me so, I can’t argue with that. It won’t be long until we see the future of what Nintendo holds for there beloved fans and consumers.
VR, AR, hybrid home console/handheld… I don’t see how you can go beyond those. Except for the holodeck in Star Trek: The Next Generation (or the Danger Room from X-Men) but that isn’t gonna happen in our lifetime, if ever. Sooner or later, Nintendo has to run into a dead end with the “new & affordable technologies” tactic & will HAVE to improve on what came before. Hopefully they are fast approaching said dead end if not already there.
Or maybe I’m just not seeing what else can be done that will be new & affordable & some guy is gonna appear & shock the system with some magically radical new tech…
You have the imagination capacity of a slug. VR is not a dead end. It’s not even an end, it’s a gimmick. Technology has to match people’s life style. VR needs dedication and the trend clearly shows that people dedicate less and less effort to consuming media. They rather watch a Netflix show while checking facebook, TikTok or whatever than dedicating 2+ hours to a movie that demands full attention. Same goes for games. People spend short bursts of time on simple and rewarding games, rather than set up their VR environment to dive into an epic adventure of a medieval warrior. Nintendo has to figure out what technologies people use in the future and how to incorporate them into games. That’s not at all obvious!
Makes me think of games like Ringfit Adventures
Yea i didn’t see ring fit adventure, labo or the mario Kart thing coming. They’ll always do some wacky thing that you didn’t see coming, and sometimes it will hit big and sometimes it will be a gameboy printer. They never sell us the newest biggest computer chips of the day. Rather wait until they can bring the price down. A $400 Switch plus or Super Nintendo Switch would surprise me.