In 2014, Nintendo met with a financial shortage when Wii was much worse. To avoid exemptions, the then President of Nintendo Satoru Iwata announced that he would take a 50% reduction to avoid cutting staff. This decision saved thousands of jobs, and Nintendo employees could stay to assist develop another console: Nintendo Switch, the most successful home console of the company of all time. This is a legendary moment in the history of the game industry, which emphasizes the clear Nintendo approach at times of crisis. Almost a decade later, the modern President Nintendo Shuntaro Furukawa offers its own pragmatic solution to confront the turbulence that currently connects the game industry.
In the latest questions and answers with investors, in order to discuss the latest quarterly finances, the concerned investor told Furukawy that they are afraid that better performance of Nintendo Switch 2 will lead to increased game development times, which in turn will escalate the costs of developing Nintendo. This is an critical worry – increased efficiency unlocks the possibility of more detailed graphics, deeper gameplay systems and more ambitious campaign projects, all of which last longer. You just have to look at the 13-year waiting between the Grand Theft Auto 5 and Grand Theft Auto 6 to see how the change of technology causes the games to take many, much longer.
But these extended schedules are not bad for fans who have to wait long for a long time to continue their favorite game. Because the time of the game’s development lasts longer and longer, budgets are growing with him. And when a game, which costs hundreds of millions of dollars and takes nine years, so as not to achieve lofty financial goals, the exemptions quickly follow. After almost a decade, the development of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League finally ended in 2024, the game began for summer reviews and average sales. As a result, Rockstsyada suffered severe releases. STUDIES STUDENT COMPANY, Warner Bros. Games, specially cited a loss of $ 200 million she undertook in a suicide team, discussing her own tragic finances – a situation that led to closing studies such as Monolith Productions.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Credit: WB games, RockstsyadyReturning to the interested investor Nintendo, Furukawa responded with such a reasonable plan that it is hard to believe that more Directors of General Video Games do not say the same.
“The last development of the game software has become higher on a scale and longer, which causes higher development costs,” he said. “The game industry has always been a high -risk business and we are aware that rising development costs escalate this risk.” In order to alleviate this, he explained that Nintendo “develops various ways to maintain our customary approach to creating games within the growing scale and length of development … We also believe that it is possible to develop software for the game with shorter development periods, which still offer consumers a sense of news.”
In short, Furukawa claims that Nintendo will not only try to maintain its current development dates, but also to find ways to create probably smaller games with a shorter development time and the same level of appeal for Nintendo fans.
The question is, therefore, whether Nintendo can fulfill these two promises, especially considering that the company’s development schedule for its biggest games also seem longer. But although it is too early in the SWITCH 2 era to know that there are positive signs from the whole story of Nintendo.
As I have already noted, Nintendo is not very resistant to long developmental times. Each new main game of legend of Zelda lasts longer than the previous one. Nintendo took six years to continue the breath of Wild with tears of the Kingdom. Meanwhile, everyone is still waiting for Metroid Prime 4: Beyond to spend later in 2025, eight years after its announcement.
But Furukawa probably did not talk about the editions of Major Zelda and Metroid when he raised the idea of creating smaller games with shorter development times. Instead, it probably refers to games such as Mario Party, which may not have the known charm of Mainline Zelda, but is no less important for Nintendo. You don’t believe me? Consider last year’s Jamboree Mario Party 21.16 million units were sold. It’s only 570,000 less than The Legend of Zelda: Tears 21.73 million kingdom. In addition, Nintendo released Mario Party Conseal every three years since 2012 Mario Party 9.
The constant success of Mario Party helps the unique advantage of Nintendo in the stability of highly flexible characters with a mascot. Mario can manage her excellent 3D hit 3D platforms, while appearing in the series of party games or any sports game that he and his friends decide to manage in a given year. The Italian Hydraulik Everyman is a real chameleon that can play in every Nintendo game, to him, increasing all kinds of medium -sized games about your power supergim.
Fortunately for Nintendo, this shift shape is not limited to Mario. The link is also not alien to filling the gaps between his own main games with people with smaller adventures. Games such as The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, Spirit Tracks, the relationship between the worlds and the wake -up of the link keep fans nicely busy between games such as Skyward Sword and tears of the kingdom. Count these games, and suddenly the term of release of the legend of Zeldy begins to resemble Party Mario, and the adventure with the leading link comes every three years.
In games such as Mario Party Jamboree and The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom and countless other smaller Nintendo games first, there is a set plan that would maintain Switch 2 and full of games for many years, especially if Nintendo can get closer to publishing the publishing of the publishing house during the Switch 1. A joke.
In 2024, Sony Interactive Entertainment published nine games. Xbox Game Studios has only published six games – or nine if you attach ports to other consoles. Meanwhile, Nintendo published 12 games in the last year of Switch. As you can see in the chart below, the Nintendo Publishing House usually dealt with the advantage against the annual Xbox and PlayStation editions. The only exception is in 2020, when Xbox changed the brand of all its first page studies under the new Xbox Game Studios banner.
Maintaining a regular schedule of publishing 10 or more games is probably what has helped maintain a change for as long as it was, and it can be a goal that Furukawa is striving for when he talks about “developing the game software with shorter development periods, which still offer consumers a sense of novelty.”
To be honest, this strategy of publishing smaller games in a shorter time is not only for Nintendo. Earlier I was in favor of subsequent “half -thousands”, such as Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, as one solution to the swollen development pipeline in the industry. And although Kratos probably will not appear in a golf game, Sony was once quite good in publishing games the size of a bite in the most popular franchises before he made public lively lives. Although I can’t say for sure if this gambit paid for Sony, this movement seems to start the chain reaction of canceled games in studies such as Naughty Dog, Bend Studio and BLEPOINT.
At that time, many in the industry it seemed Down agree With my call to smaller games, but this idea has not yet materialized in the review. Instead, the general strategy of bosses of game companies seems to fight the constantly growing size of AAA games, including greater artificial intelligence and development at sea to help fighting programmers in meeting the deadlines. Either this or create a game in the field of live services so that they are successful, that it can generate profit for years after launching.
Furukawa Nintendo has already ruled out the use of artificial intelligence to develop games In separate questions and answers With investors in 2024, so if Nintendo seriously approaches investing in his developers, it may not be too late to give up the dream of controlling the game industry in the direction easier to control. And although no general director of Game Company has reported to reduce the salary (yet), Nintendo once again approaches the chaos with a reasonable plan for the future, if it actually goes with it.
Matt Who is the Senior Feature editor.
