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Nintendo president talks eSports, Switch sales, Nintendo Labo response, continued 3DS support, China, mobile plans, and much more

by rawmeatcowboy
17 January 2019
GN Version 5.0

Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa recently did an interview with Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun, which we've covered a bit already. Furukawa made statements on Smash Bros. Ultimate sales and Switch momentum in general. Now we have a full rundown of what was said in the interview, and it contains a bunch of different topics. Check out the summary below.

- Nintendo has taken elements of eSports into consideration when developing games
- this includes the perspective of the audience and competitors
- Nintendo is looking into making eSports events not about “large prize money”, but to increase its “contact points” with fans
- Nintendo forecasts future growth (for Switch) in Asia, as the market that hasn’t been particularly strong
- Nintendo has “things yet to be done” in Asia
- if possible, Furukawa wants to tackle the challenge of entering the mainland Chinese market
- Furukawa wants to bring more Nintendo smartphone apps overseas
- 3DS has turned into an affordable console for entry-level players and children
- compared to the Switch form factor, the 3DS is “light and compact”
- the Switch business is isolated from the 3DS business, and both can co-exist
- Nintendo has no plans to discontinue 3DS at this time and will continue to support it
- Furukawa sales it's “unfavorable” to compare Nintendo Labo sales to the sales of other popular first party titles
- Nintendo Labo sales during the holiday season saw a bump
- Nintendo hopes to turn Nintendo Labo into an evergreen product
- Nintendo does not have plans to connect all of their smartphone apps with games on traditional hardware
- one goal of making smartphone apps is to increase the fans of a certain IP
- monetization of smartphone apps is different from traditional console games
- Nintendo is committed to release “two to three” smartphone apps within the year
- Nintendo is closely monitoring Switch sales trends during the end of year and new year holiday season
- Furukawa does not have the exact figure on how many Switch units were sold
- this means Furukawa isn't yet sure if they'll hit the 20 million Switch units sold in the current fiscal year
- with Switch approaching its 3rd anniversary, it will be more important than ever to deliver “fresh” software to consumers
- Nintendo wants to highlight the versatility of the Switch to consumers