Let’s rewind the clocks back to 2016. The Wii U was failing, hard, and many wondered whether Nintendo had “any tricks left” in their quiver in order to bounce back. Some even said that the Big N might just go and do software titles from then on much like SEGA had done after the failure of the Dreamcast. But then, the Nintendo Switch was born, and while many predicted a “low start” for it, it soon became one of the most-desired platforms in the world.
Fast forward to today, and it has over 107 million copies sold in just over 5 years of life, and that’s pretty awesome considering it at least has 2-3 years left to go. All the while, the software sales are killer and are likely to keep booming based on the titles we know are coming next.
Yet, in an investors call, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa notes that Nintendo is worried about the next generation of systems:
“Unlike the past, we continue to have a large variety of games scheduled to be released, even beyond five years of release. This is because the Nintendo Switch has had such a smooth launch, allowing us to focus all of our development resources on a single platform,” Furukawa said. “However, the question of whether we will be able to just as smoothly transition from the Nintendo Switch to the next generation of hardware is a major concern for us. Based on our experiences with the Wii, Nintendo DS, and other hardware, it is very clear that one of the major obstacles is how to easily transition from one hardware to the next.”
Indeed, while Nintendo does have a reputation of making great systems, not all of them do as well after major sellers like the SNES, Wii, and more than likely, the Nintendo Switch. That doesn’t mean it WON’T be good…but they are very understandably nervous about what they have to do to top the Switch.
Source: VGC
