Nov. 10 (Portaltic/EP) –
Nintendo does not yet anticipate the arrival of a new next-generation hardware that will take over from Switch, but he hopes that the console they release in the future will be backwards compatible and have new ways to play.
The Nintendo Switch video game console has sold 114.33 million units since its launch in March 2017, 6.68 million in the whole of the first half of its fiscal year, which ended in September.
The video console is heading towards its sixth year with a good sales trend towards the end of the year, which will be driven by splatoon 3 titles (September 9) and Pokemon Scarlet and Purple (November 18), which also have a special ‘hardware’ edition, as highlighted by the president and representative director of Nintendo, Shuntaro Furukawa, in a round of questions and answers with shareholders.
Furukawa has also pointed out that the service Nintendo Switch Online has 36 million paying usersand has anticipated that, to promote it, the company is considering various initiatives, including improving the content of the service.
In reference to a possible increase in the price of the console, Furukawa has confirmed that “no plans to increase hardware prices at this time”, but it has also indicated that they are monitoring the situation, in which the yen is depreciating, and also the impact it may have on the sale of their products.
Regarding the life cycle of Switch, the representative director, Shigeru Miyamoto, has not anticipated the arrival of a new console, but has explained that the software development environment itself has been unified, and that in the future, he wants “to be able to play software for older hardware on newer hardware.
He has also clarified that “Nintendo’s strength lies in creating new ways to play. So when we release new hardware in the future, I’d like to come up with unique ways to play the game that can’t be achieved with existing hardware,” Miyamoto said.
