NINTENDO – WE NEED A POWER-UP!
THE COMING YEAR is one of much anticipation and excitement for those of us engrossed in the gaming industry. Like many, many people I am waiting with baited breath to see what the long vaunted Switch 2 announcement will bring – hopefully seeing the light of day in the first half of 2025. Switch is a hard act to follow. An absolute belter of a console, it was the first hybrid handheld/home console which has become the third best-selling console of all time with well over 140 million units sold around the world.
Rabid, excitable media outlets are doing the usual
The console space is in need of some excitement. Eight years since the last Switch is a long time, especially as PS5 and XBox are entering a somewhat dull middle age
Dawn Paine, CEO and co-founder of Aurora
predict-a-thon – from the pricing to the tech specs. But–as anyone familiar with Nintendo even a smidge will know, it is highly unpredictable, making it almost impossible to second guess what it has up its sleeve. This is hardly surprising for a company which is close to a real life Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Shigeru Miyamoto, whose quirky, delightful creativity make him a Willy Wonka for the video games age.
AGEING EMPIRES I was lucky to be part of previous Nintendo president
Iwata-san’s global leadership team for ten
years.That experience gave me a deep-rooted understanding and insight into what makes Nintendo tick and crucially the role of its history and philosophy in underpinning its product development strategy.
The console space is in need of some excitement. Eight years since the last Switch is a long time, especially as the PS5 and XBox Series X are entering a somewhat dull middle age as well. Some of the best Switch games –Mario Kart and Animal Crossing: New Horizons came out an age ago. And while the past few years have seen some truly gorgeous games – not least The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which is a personal favourite, I’m in need of some disruption in my gaming life. But my marketing
background means I consider the games industry through the lens of the consumer
28 | MCV/DEVELOP December/January 2025
and that means thinking about the mainstream, Nintendo’s sweet spot.
It seems Switch 2 will be iterative not revolutionary. Hmm, let’s just think about that. Part of me hopes it’s not in the same vein as Wii U or 3DS. But equally, Nintendo’s take on iterative can be VERY interesting.
Nintendo has never played the technology arms race of specs, graphics and performance. We have to go deeper into the very DNA of the company to gain some insight into what its approach to iterative gaming might be. This means going all the way back into its roots and to its much lesser known designer and disruptive innovator Gunpei Yokoi.
WATCH AND GAME Back in the 60s, 70s and
80s, Yokoi transformed Nintendo with his focus on “lateral thinking with withered technology”. The antithesis of cutting edge, he eschewed creating new technology in favour of finding ways to give life to existing formats.
This rather unsexy but highly commercial approach produced truly break-out innovations like the Game &
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