Nintendo says Metroid Prime 4 is "proceeding well," more game announcements coming, keeping up Switch supply, 3DS is a "key part of business"

Tired of hearing from Reggie Fils-Aime yet? The big guy had plenty of interviews to do during E3 2018, including one with Game Informer. In snippets from their interview below, you can read about how Nintendo decides what to show at E3, Metroid Prime 4 development, keeping up Switch supply, and continued support for the 3DS.

GI: Talk to me a little bit about your philosophy for the Nintendo Direct. Last year we saw some games that were kind of far out, holding the promise that a series was coming back. This year, it seems like, even with games in the hopper, you scaled back.

RFA: Broadly speaking, our focus at every E3 is driven by a handful of factors. One, we want to show games that are typically near in and our fans can look forward to purchasing relatively soon. Second, we always look at the total array of content, and decide what is the best thing to do – whether it’s a competition like we have this year, or some other key tactic. Every year is different, and every year is based on the content that is available.

Last year was important to us to message to the Metroid fan that there was a Metroid Prime experience in development, as we showed Metroid: Samus Returns for the 3DS. We didn’t want that fan to say “You just launched a new system, when are you going to bring me a Metroid on that platform?” We said it was coming. This year, with so many games launching effectively between [now] and the first half of next year, we wanted to focus on those games. Rest assured, Metroid Prime 4 is still in development and proceeding well. Yoshi is still in development. We said that is a 2019 title. So for us, it really is making sure we can highlight a new Super Mario Party game, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, give more hands-on opportunities for Pokémon: Let’s Go Pikachu and Let’s Go Eevee, but also make sure that we spend more time on third-party content, and independent developer content to paint that total picture of what we have coming effectively in the here and now.

GI: Switch continues to snowball and build on its base. I still see stores selling out of hardware. You have Smash Bros. coming out this holiday. You focused the messaging of the Direct to what is coming soon. Can we expect more announcements for this timeframe in the months ahead, or is what we saw at E3 the bulk of the lineup?

RFA: We’re going to continue to make announcements. E3 is not the only opportunity that we use to break news. We break news in Nintendo Directs when we want. Historically we’ve broken news at San Diego Comic Con, at PAX Prime, at Gamescom in Europe. We’re always looking for the right opportunity to share information about a particular game. Certainly for the holidays our lineup is set with Super Mario Party in October with Pokémon: Let’s Go Pikachu and Let’s Go Eevee in November right before Black Friday, and with Super Smash Bros. Ultimate on December 7. We believe that pacing is going to give us tremendous momentum during the holiday season.

GI: With Super Smash Bros. Ultimate hitting this holiday, let’s talk about hardware. Switch is still selling like mad. Are you going to be sending out more during the holiday [to meet demand]?

RFA: Absolutely. Our goal as a business is to drive momentum and create excitement to get people who have heard about the hardware, but haven’t yet bought it, to jump in. Our biggest failure is when the consumer goes to the shelf and it isn’t there. We’re focused on making sure the supply chain is going to be robust. As we sit here today, we are highly confident that we are going to be able to meet the demand. Part of what we do is to try to drive demand as high as possible, and to therefore drive our business as strong as possible.

GI: Is 3DS still a big focus for Nintendo?

RFA: Absolutely. In the month of December, we had 27 percent growth versus last year in the U.S.

Here in the U.S., through May, it’s up 10 percent year on year. It continues to be a vibrant system. The reasons are, for the target audience we are going after – parents with kids – we see this as a great first device for that five, six, seven, and eight-year-old. The portability, the ability for the hardware to take damage and survive the drop test, over a thousand games available with new ones coming, that’s what’s driving the performance. It becomes a gateway for these kids that turn 10, 11, and 12 to then jump on to Nintendo Switch. It’s a strategy that’s working, and we’re going to continue to support that platform. We have more games coming, and certainly into 2019, we see it as a key part of our business.