The Nintendo Switch has been succeeding on virtually every level imaginable. However, the level that has surprised gamers and reporters the most is in the indie games market. Nintendo didn’t really invest in indie games until later into the Wii’s lifecycle, then they did more with the Wii U, but with the Switch, it’s exploded. Games that did decently on Steam or other platforms would come to Switch and sell many times more. It’s an odd thing, but Nintendo is loving it, and they want to keep bringing in more indie titles.
Nintendo held a Q&A session for their shareholders, and numerous people from Nintendo talked about how important it was to keep bringing indie developers onto the Nintendo Switch. For example, Former president Tatsumi Kimishima noted:
Offering enjoyable first-party games throughout the world will continue to be one of our strengths, but increasing the number of people who make games to be played on Nintendo platforms is also very important for growing our business. That is why we are working to create an environment that makes development easier, and simplifying the process of publishing games on Nintendo Switch. This has resulted in a large number of people playing an array of indie games on Nintendo Switch.
Adding to that, director / managing officer Shinya Takahashi stated:
During development on Nintendo Switch, creating a development environment where it would be easy to create games was one of our top priorities. One of the good things to come from this is the large number of indie games, especially in Europe and North America.
And their end game or goal? Well, senior executive officer Susumu Tanaka revealed this:
In the future, we are looking to release around 20 to 30 indie games on Nintendo Switch per week, and we definitely expect to see some great games among them.
That’s a lot of indie games, but given the success of titles like Hollow Knight, Death Squared, Golf Story, Shovel Knight and more, it’s not hard to see why they would want to bring more hits to the Nintendo Switch.
