Reggie on innovation, 3DS’ continued importance, third-party games for Switch
TIME was among the outlets granted an interview with Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime this week. The interview included a few different topics, including how Wii and Wii U led to Switch with innovation being key, 3DS’ continued importance, and third-party games for Switch.
You can read Reggie’s comments about these subjects below. The full interview is located here.
On how Wii U and Wii informed the development of the Switch…
Certainly a key differentiator for Nintendo is that you have hardware developers sitting side-by-side with the [operating system] developers, sitting with the game content creators. They’re all housed in the same building [and they] all talk to each other. So it does create this mechanic that discussions happen around, ‘Hey there’s this interesting new tech, how do we leverage it? How do we maximize the opportunity?’ All of that constantly happens.
That’s why you’re able to see this legacy of innovation and how it ties back to the content. This goes back all the way to the original Nintendo Entertainment System [NES] in terms of thinking about, ‘How do we continue to innovate? Let’s have a second controller within the system.’ So that was one of the transitions. ‘This [directional] pad is nice, but what about a joystick?’ Low and behold that shows up on Nintendo 64. There’s been this steady pace of innovation and each time it’s linked to a piece of content that leverages that.
On the 3DS…
The Nintendo Switch, being a system that’s been in the marketplace now only seven months, certainly that’s a system that our teams will continue to develop for and bring fantastic new experiences. We have to do that to keep driving that platform forward. We view the 3DS as a very important part of our lineup, but really targeted against a different consumer. That product is really focused against new consumers in the Nintendo family, [such as] five, six, seven or 10-year olds [who want] their own dedicated system. And a system [on which] they can play all of these great games. So it’s going to have a different focus: entry consumers and consumers looking for a little bit more value.
So that’s how they’re differentiated. There will be new games for the 3DS line, so we’re not in any way stopping our activity for that platform. But it’s just focused on a different type of consumer.
On whether Nintendo hopes to get games like this to be available for the Switch when they initially launch…
We absolutely are. [There are] things we need to do as a platform holder first. We need to make the platform vibrant, and we’re doing that. The fact that the Nintendo Switch is the top-selling system when you look at March through September sales, we’ve created a vibrant platform that consumers want to get their hands on.
The second thing we need to do is to have a development environment that these developers can make content for. We’re doing that, whether it’s with the Unreal engine or with the Unity development platform.
Then thirdly we work hard to market this content alongside great first-party content to help consumers be aware and compelled. To create for the Nintendo Switch is different than other home consoles. And so at times that creates a small gap in time. Wolfenstein 2 is going to come out on the Switch, but a little later than on other platforms. But our goal is to shrink that gap as much as possible.
