Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa has made an interesting comment when it comes to the company making new hardware.
As reported by GoNintendo, Furukawa was asked about how the Switch’s ongoing success is affecting the pending announcement and release of the Nintendo Switch 2.
Once again, Furukawa’s answer was evasive on the issue:
“Concerning new hardware, our company is constantly researching and developing new hardware and software, so I’m not able to comment any further.”
Furukawa also took this opportunity to warn investors about news and rumors that look like official statements from Nintendo:
“Also, as I mentioned before in the past, recently, there have been many articles posted by media on the internet that may appear to be official information from our company. We would like our investors to take a look at information that is published on our official website and social media channels and make the appropriate decision.”
But finally, Furukawa made this interesting statement about how they are preparing the Nintendo Switch:
“Furthermore, concerning the preparation of new hardware which takes a long time, it is something that we want to properly plan and proceed with, thus our other businesses (Nintendo Switch, mobile, etc) do not affect our plans for new hardware.”
So Furukawa is referring to something that many fans, games media, and insiders have been thinking about. It seems that Nintendo has fallen in a strange cycle, where they will go through a successful platform for one console generation, only to follow it up with a less successful platform for the next.
Most gamers, given the most recent timeline, will see this statement and think how it is referring to how the Wii was good for Nintendo, the Wii U was bad, and the Switch was good again. It feels like a cycle they can easily fall into, because of one particular uncertainty they are under now.
And that is the fact that Shuntaro Furukawa has mainly overseen a success conceived of by the president of Nintendo that came before him, the late and beloved Satoru Iwata. Now, there are definitely people at Nintendo who worked on the Switch, and possibly the Wii U, who are still in the company, and worked on the next console.
But Furukawa essentially has big shoes to fill here, in that he actually has to outdo Iwata in escaping that cycle. Some gamers think this is as simple as just making a new Switch with more powerful hardware, but with the increased competition from the new PC and retro gaming handhelds in the market, there’s no certainty that that would work for them.
In so many words, Furukawa is telling their investors they don’t want to screw up the announcement. That’s certainly worth making it so that, not only should the device and its supply be prepared well in advance, but that Nintendo needs to wait for the most auspicious time to make their announcement.
Is that auspicious time next month, well into the year of the Wood Dragon? Nintendo may once again have to leave all their luck to heaven.
