Nintendo says large portion of Switch owners are new to Nintendo, talks video-on-demand and Virtual Console

The following comes from a FastCompany interview with Reggie Fils-Aime...

FC: Do you have a sense as to whether the people buying the Switch are classic Nintendo fans? Or also people who either aren’t Nintendo fans or maybe were once Nintendo fans but not so much in recent years?

RFA: We look at our demographics constantly and certainly there’s a group that are Nintendo fans. There’s a very large group that are new to Nintendo, and that’s very exciting to see. For these consumers to get exposure to our intellectual property, to be able to play games that they can’t play anywhere else. That’s another signal to us that we’ve really struck a chord with the Nintendo Switch.

FC: When we did our Switch review, we said lots of nice things, but we also said that there’s things it doesn’t have yet, like the Virtual Console, and there’s no entertainment beyond gaming. There’s some online stuff it doesn’t have yet, too. Is the experience going to get richer as time goes on?

RFA: Absolutely. Let me address those in reverse order. We just did a network update that continues to give additional features. Now it’s easier to transfer content from one Switch to another, and so we’re going to continue to build out the infrastructure for the system just to make it easier and easier for our consumers to utilize.

In terms of other entertainment, we were clear, at launch, that we wanted this to be a gaming device and to deliver on that proposition, but we also said that VOD [Video on Demand] services would come in due time. And they will.

In terms of Virtual Console, we’ve said that with the launch of Nintendo Online and that service, that there will be executions on legacy content as part of that, and that’s something that’s going to launch next year. And so we’ll detail that at the appropriate time.

But we’re aware of these criticisms and certainly, our focus is to continue making Nintendo Switch a product that people want to spend time on and can say, “This is a great innovation and something I’m proud to have.”