Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa has been fielding questions from investors and one of those is about migrating users from the Nintendo Switch over to a new platform. Mr. Furukawa says that Nintendo Accounts will play a vital role in this, presumably allowing purchases to transfer over to a newer system. He also says it provides a good way for them to reestablish contact with customers who have been away from Nintendo systems for a while via promotions and keeping them up to date with what the company has in store.
Question: Since the release of the Nintendo Switch, I think Nintendo’s way of thinking about the hardware lifecycle has changed. Please tell us how it differs from past platforms and what you are focusing on as you proceed with the research and development of next-generation consoles.
Furukawa: The big difference between the Nintendo Switch and past platforms is that we have integrated two platforms, a handheld game console and a home console, into one. This allowed us to focus our software development resources on the Nintendo Switch. The fact that we are able to continuously release new software has resulted in a longer life cycle than in the past. For the future, the most important thing for us is to provide entertainment with new fun and surprises that are unique to Nintendo. In order to continue to propose Nintendo’s unique entertainment offerings, we believe that the dedicated game console business that integrates hardware and software is the best business at this time, and we will continue to engage in research and development based on this policy. Another difference from past platforms is the Nintendo Switch Even before the game’s release, we have been working with DeNA to promote the use of Nintendo Accounts. Nintendo Accounts are an important point of contact for long-term connections with customers, and we believe that they can be used not only during hardware migrations, but also as a means of reconnecting with customers who have been away from games for a while and at some point become interested in Nintendo’s unique entertainment proposals. From this point of view, I believe that the importance of Nintendo accounts will not change in the future.
No! Dont force customers into accounts and apps!!! Take mine money and gime internetfree game device with physical games! Then i dont need account for digital trash => “games like services”!
Games like services = i must start jailbrake next nintendo console and steal digital copies!
Don’t force me to do it Nintendo!
Honestly, the fact that my Switch games should automatically transfer over seamlessly to new hardware is a big reason why I’ll be ordering the Switch successor as soon as it launches.
I just wish they allowed you to do something like Apple’s family sharing. Right now I have a Switch and I buy a lot of first party games whenever they’re on sale whether or not I’ll even play them because I’ve got a switch set up at a buddy’s house and his kids have access to my games. I honestly don’t have tons of time to play, but his kids love the switch and I know they don’t have tons of extra cash to burn on games. But right now, if I want to play online in a totally different game, I have to boot them off.
I know Nintendo would rather the kids just not have access to a library of games that their parents wouldn’t justify the money for anyway. But if anything, Nintendo makes more money this way.
I just wish they’d accept that families should all have to purchase their own licenses for things. Set a limited number of people within a city or whatever and call it a day.
I’ll believe this when it’s used to allow backwards compatibility with digital purchases, so you can seamlessly transfer them to the next new system whenever it releases.