It’s arguably rather hilarious how Nintendo continues to showcase why it’s the best gaming company around just by talking about what they feel is best. We’ve seen Sony and Microsoft struggle with that in 2024, but The Big N is thriving, and there’s been plenty of news about how well the company is doing, while still building up the hype for the upcoming Switch 2 platform. In a special investor Q&A, key executives like Shigeru Miyamoto, Shinya Takahashi, Ko Shiota, and president Shuntaro Furukawa all spoke on the issue of rising development costs within the gaming space and how it affects them.
For example, Miyamoto noted that while costs may be higher, the game’s quality is more important:
Our research and development expenses have been increasing each year. Since our scale of development has grown, a corresponding increase in costs is, in some respects, inevitable. However, our belief is that what we create is more important than the amount spent on development. We continue refining our products until we are confident that we have created something that our consumers will be satisfied with.
Takahashi noted that the size of projects also helps with costs:
I believe unique titles that are small in scale, but worth polishing can be created by expanding on the ideas of a small number of developers, rather than spending large sums of money on every game. While overall research and development costs are rising, there are certain products for which expenses remain relatively stable, depending on our approach.
Shiota pointed out that due to the Switch being a console and handheld device and having plenty of experience with it over the last seven years, the various software and hardware teams are now plenty experienced and know how to push things going forward, which will help Nintendo reduce costs.
Finally, President Shuntaro Furukawa noted that to create the best software and hardware, they need to invest in their “development environment” and help ensure the workers have all they need to make quality products.
Oh, if only other companies would be like Nintendo in this way.
