Sony and Microsoft are currently engaged in a fierce competition to promote their next-gen consoles, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, in time for their releases later this year, with it even believed thatMicrosoft have more than one consoleto offer this holiday season. And what’sNintendodoing during all of this?
It’s clear that the company has no interest in developing a new next-gen console for the time being, not while theNintendo Switchcontinues to be a massive sales success, especially with titles likeAnimal Crossing: New Horizons,which broke another sales recordin Japan only this week.
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During a recent shareholders meeting, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa reiterated Nintendo’s dedication to the system and its intention to further extend its lifespan:
“Our current generation game system, Nintendo Switch, has entered its fourth year since launch, but its momentum is increasing. We believe there are two factors behind this. First is the existence of two hardware configurations with different characteristics, in Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch Lite.
“The second factor is that Nintendo’s development resources are concentrated on developing content for a single platform, Nintendo Switch. We want to extend the life cycle of Nintendo Switch while maximising such advantages.”
However, this hasn’t stopped some from wondering what ideas Nintendo may have for its next console. With how successful and unique the Switch is, where can it go from there? One investor apparently suggested that Nintendo should attempt to surpass the “limits” of a TV or an external monitor, whatever that means.
Whatever Nintendo does decide to do with its next console, it sounds as if it won’t be too much of a departure from what the Switch is capable of and instead further expand on its capabilities.
“Through Nintendo Switch, we’ve made many discoveries about where a dedicated video game platform can fit into a consumer’s daily life. We see scenes on social media of children and their families sitting around a game console to play, which gives us a renewed sense of the value of our dedicated video game platform. We will utilise these experiences in carefully considering the form our future game consoles will take.”
As far as new software goes, it feels as if Nintendo has been incredibly quiet this year. So far, it has no confirmed new games for 2020, with the exception ofPaper Mario: The Origami King, which is due for release this month.
Many suspected that Nintendo’s plans were affected by thecurrent coronavirus pandemic, but the company has stated that all of the games it intends to release this year are still on track to do so. What those new games are is anyone’s guess.
There’s newfound hope that we’ll soon learn what some of those games are, as a new rumor suggests that we’ll seea new Nintendo Directby the end of this month. For the time being, Nintendo is continuing to support its already-released titles, with new fighters forSuper Smash Bros. Ultimateand another DLC expansion forPokemon SwordandShieldstill being worked on.
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