Nintendo's president recognizes the challenges of transitioning to new hardware, says they'll offer "unique propositions"
Nintendo: The Next Generation
While Nintendo isn’t ready to talk about what comes after the Switch in terms of hardware, we all know that they’ve been cooking something up for years now. While it seems like a reveal will be coming sometime this year, fans will need to be patient until Nintendo finally feels like pulling back the curtain.
This move from Switch to its successor will be a very important one for Nintendo, as the Big N has somewhat struggled with the move to new hardware in the past. The jump from Wii to Wii U went terribly, and the move from DS to 3DS wasn’t without its struggles. Will Nintendo be able to pull off a successful transition from Switch to its successor? Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa is certainly planning for things to go that way.
In a fiscal results briefing, Nintendo’s president opened up about the challenges of shifting from one piece of hardware to the next. While recognizing the challenges that move presents as well as the constant fight for consumer free time, Furukawa says Nintendo will be offering people something unique in order to capture their attention.
You can see a loose translation of Furukawa’s statement below, as provided by VGC and Sephazon.
“We approach our business every day with a profound sense of urgency. The generational transition of platforms in the dedicated gaming console business is never easy. We have experienced significant challenges following successful platforms multiple times, so we never consider our current situation to be totally secure.
Furthermore, as you pointed out, our business is always exposed to great competition. From a broader entertainment perspective, not only video games but also various forms of leisure are competitors in this industry. In this environment, there’s an increasing need, more than ever before, to continue offering unique propositions to become a brand that customers choose.”
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kuribo
3M agoI’d argue Nintendo have always done a great job transitioning to their next handheld system and a large part of that has been down to backwards compatibility in my opinion. I hope Nintendo looks at what worked in the past, and what didn’t when thinking how to position the next system.
That or Mario Kart 9. Whichever is easier.
What I absolutely HATE about moving your data from one Switch to another and what would probably be the same for the next Nintendo console (if it backwards compatible) is that you can't just move your account and save data and then plug your microSD card in the new console. No, you have to redownload ALL your updates, ALL you DLCs and ALL your digital games.
My original Switch's battery is getting kinda twitchy after literally thousands of hours of use and hundreds of recharge cycles and I am genuinely scared of moving on to a new Switch due to 500 GB worth of data to redownload.
So I'm having some mixed feelings on the whole backwards compatibility thing. I personally might be better off with a fresh start.
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