Shuntaro Furukawa, the president of Nintendohad the opportunity to talk about the future of the video game industry according to the company he manages during the presentation of its latest financial report, stating that he expects a further increase in development costs and the timing of the creation of video games for the future. He considers it practically inevitable.
The reference is to Nintendo Switch 2, with the house of Mario starting to outline the guidelines in view of the presentation, which will take place during the current fiscal year.
The opportunity to touch on the topic was the question and answer session he had with investors after the publication of the financial data, in which he expressed his belief that it is inevitable that game development will become even “longer, more complex and more sophisticated in the future”.
Internal growth
At the same time, Furukawa reiterated a central concept for Nintendo’s strategy: limit mergers and acquisitions. Of course, he sees them as a means of responding to the situation, which leads to an inexorable increase in development costs, but according to him: “First of all, we must firmly consolidate Nintendo within the company,” that is, he confirmed the policy of wanting to work with developers who understand the brand and who have helped make it what it is over the years. Only in this way will we have human resources capable of taking responsibility for the future of the company.
How can we blame him in the face of the dramatic situation that many of the studios acquired by large companies are going through? Just in the last few days Xbox has announced the closure of prestigious studios such as Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks.
In short, Nintendo’s approach remains more gradual and conservative compared to that of Microsoft and Sony, despite currently being the hardware manufacturer that has achieved the best results in recent years on the traditional market, thanks to the enormous success of Nintendo Switch, on which millions and millions of first party games have been sold, which have enriched the company enormously, leading to record profits, even in years in which theoretically there should be a decline, at least based on the experiences had with previous consoles.
