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Gearbox head Randy Pitchford is enthusiastic about the Nintendo Switch 2. And he has thoughts about where it sits in Nintendo’s hardware history in general.
He said this in an interview with GamesRadar:
The Nintendo Switch 2 is an awesome, awesome machine. I’m so grateful for it.
In the same interview, Pitchford said he really wants to bring more Gearbox games to the console. But he fell short of confirming anything tangible. So we’ll just have to wait for when they’re ready to tell us.
But, he didn’t stop there.
Nintendo Does ‘Interesting’ Things
I remember when I was first briefed by Nintendo about this platform, and I was so excited, because what we’re always expecting is that Nintendo’s gonna do something really interesting, and sometimes there’s an incredible innovation, like the Wii, which just exploded.
While we think that Nintendo’s run in the 1980s through the 1990s was interesting in itself, it’s clear that Pitchford is talking about something else. Gearbox was founded in 1999, around the time Nintendo’s market dominance gave way to the PlayStation.
Gearbox became viable enough to start making their own games in 2005. But in the GamCube era, they were not interested in bringing their games to Nintendo’s platforms.
Gearbox would then make their name on Borderlands and Borderlands 2, and both of those games also didn’t come to the Nintendo Wii. But Pitchford is clearly one of many third party developers who were fascinated with Nintendo’s success. He probably wishes Gearbox had the foresight and imagination to join in on Iwata’s revolution.
From Innovation To Perfection
Pitchford then brought us up to speed with the last 15 years. He said this:
…And other times the innovation, like I was saying sometimes, like the Wii U didn’t work as well as the Wii. The Switch 2 is just brilliant. It’s less about innovating and more about perfecting and giving us what we want and what works.
There’s no dispute regarding the market failure of the Wii U. It was also snubbed by third parties as a whole. But it took the Nintendo Switch for Gearbox to finally come on board with Nintendo, and they seem to be both impressed and satisfied with that console and its accomplishments.
Gearbox rushed to bring the Borderlands games to the console. They even took the effort to downport Borderlands 3. And we now know they did this knowing the Switch 2, and their game Borderlands 4, was on the horizon.
That reflects how much confidence Gearbox has in Nintendo now. It probably also speaks to how much money they made with Nintendo.
While Gearbox only recently came on board with Nintendo, it looks like they had always been fascinated by the company this whole time. We suspect that’s true for many game companies whether they want to admit it or not.
