Nintendo talks increased length of game development

Recently, Nintendo was asked about its take regarding increased game development times. President Shuntaro Furukawa, along with executive officer Takashi Tezuka and senior managing officer Shinya Takahashi commented on the situation.

One notable remark came from Furukawa, who said that Nintendo is “expanding our development resources and making the necessary investments.” Meanwhile, Takahashi said the company is “steadily improving the development environment following the release of the hardware”, which can shorten development cycles. Also, Tezuka indicated that some future games will take longer, but others are expected to have a shorter development period.

Here’s the full translation:

Furukawa: 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.

Takahashi: As hardware advances, it is inevitable that software development takes longer. But I believe we are succeeding in our efforts to shorten development cycles, for example by steadily improving the development environment following the release of the hardware.

Whether titles take a long time or a short time to develop, we want to make games that are fun. It is not as if Super Mario Bros. Wonder was under continuous development for nearly a decade. There was a long gap between the release of the previous title, New Super Mario Bros. U, and the current title because various initiatives and studies were made in the meantime. Going forward, we aim to continue with a variety of new offerings, and we hope you look forward to them.

Tezuka: After we finished Super Mario Bros. Wonder, I was reminded 11 years had gone by since the previous game. However, that doesn’t mean we did nothing during that time. We developed several new Mario games, such as the Super Mario Maker series and the 3D Mario series.

To reiterate Nintendo’s creative philosophy, first we think about creating entertainment that has never been done before, regardless of whether it is a Mario series game or not. Then we think about how we can make it fun for everyone so they fall in love with Nintendo.

All of our games involving Mario, not just Super Mario Bros. Wonder, are created with the goal of encouraging as many people as possible to enjoy them.

As for upcoming new titles, some will take time to develop and others will be made in a short period of time. I hope you look forward to our new offerings.