Former Nintendo dev on why the company doesn’t often release new IPs

When you think of Nintendo, popular franchises like Mario and The Legend of Zelda come to mind. The company does tinker with new series and IPs here and there, but there’s definitely a reliance on ongoing franchises.

Ken Watanabe, a former Nintendo software developer, has now spoken about the approach. Speaking with Bloomberg, he said that gameplay comes first – something that is well known and has been stressed repeatedly. Mechanics are always the top priority, and Watanabe noted that when it comes to “the skin or the wrapper”, the teams at Nintendo “don’t really fuss over it.”

Watanabe’s full words:

“New franchises haven’t come out simply because there’s no real need to make them,” said Ken Watanabe, a former Nintendo software developer. “When Nintendo wants to do something new, it’s basically about the gameplay mechanics first — about creating a new way to play. As for the skin or the wrapper, they don’t really fuss over it. They just pick whatever fits that new gameplay best.”

Of course, keeping this in mind, Nintendo does experiment with new IPs from time to time. Drag x Drive, while it saw a mixed reception, is one example of this. ARMS was a standout from the original Nintendo Switch generation, though Nintendo hasn’t touched it since 2017. You can say that Splatoon is Nintendo’s most successful new IP over the past decade.

Aside from the above, Watanabe also shared an interesting tidbit about Nintendo’s work culture and freedom, and how working on something in secret can lead to it actually be adopted for a real product:

“The company culture, or whatever you’d call it, embraces people taking initiative. For example, it’s not unusual for someone to secretly work on something without telling their boss – like, ‘I made this in secret’ – and then it turns out to be interesting, so it gets turned into a real product. In that sense, there really is a lot of freedom.”