There are many issues with the gaming industry right now that may not be fixed for a long time. One of the most significant ones is that game developers and publishers focus on large-scale video games so much that AAA titles can take a LONG time to make, and thus, force gamers to wait a LONG just to play them. It’s a vicious cycle, and Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa knows that all too well. During the recent shareholder Q&A meeting they had, he addressed this issue in an interesting way.
Specifically, he noted that he feels that such long developments are “unavoidable,” but that Nintendo has plans to deal with it:
“Game development today is more prolonged, more complex, and more advanced. That is unavoidable. To deal with this, we are continually expanding our development resources and making the necessary investments.”
One could take that in many ways. We know that The Big N is trying to grow its employee base in meaningful ways, and by that, I mean they’re NOT just trying to buy random developers and hope they can fit the mold or make great games. Another way you could take it is that the company is making more teams so that they can make more games to fill the gaps between the Super Mario Odyssey’s or Tears of the Kingdom-style titles. 2024 went from a rather barren gaming lineup to a fuller one because of the numerous teams they have working on new games.
We’ll just have to see how this plays out with the Switch and its successor going forward.
