‘It is important to continue to provide new titles regularly without long gaps’
Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima is taking off his gloves to defend the Switch. There might be another pair of soft gloves underneath, but he felt the need to say something about the Switch’s lineup.
Speaking to the launch, Kimishima states, “Some of those who have seen this lineup have expressed the opinion that the launch lineup is weak. Our thinking in arranging the 2017 software lineup is that it is important to continue to provide new titles regularly without long gaps. This encourages consumers to continue actively playing the system, maintains buzz, and spurs continued sales momentum for Nintendo Switch. For that reason, we will be releasing Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Arms, which is making its debut on the Nintendo Switch during the first half of 2017, and Splatoon 2, which attracted consumers’ attention most during the hands-on events in Japan, in summer 2017. We believe that these titles exemplify the concept of the Nintendo Switch, which is to be able to play anywhere with anyone and at any time, and will expand and invigorate competition between players.”
So there’s a few takeaways here. Splatoon 2 was apparently the biggest hit with crowds, but Kimishima seems confident that there won’t be any major content droughts, similar to what the Wii U experienced. Without frontloading everything people won’t get tired of blazing through every game at launch, and will actually look forward to bigger titles that they might have missed, or couldn’t afford.
For the most part, I think I’ll be playing Zelda for a full month before I care about anything else, so I’m good too (Xenoblade 2 coming this soon, if it isn’t delayed, is insane). I just hope they keep this pace up in 2018.
Corporate Management Policy Briefing [Nintendo]
