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Wataru Tanaka

In a previous interview, Nintendo confirmed that Donkey Kong Bananza was initially in development for Switch 1 before it was moved to Switch 2. In fact, we even got a screenshot showing how things looked on the older hardware. But now in another interview, we get to hear more about why Donkey Kong Bananza really wouldn’t have been possible on Nintendo Switch 1 at the end of the day – especially in its final state.

Donkey Kong Bananza generally runs at 60 frames per second on Nintendo Switch 2. On Switch 1, 30 FPS would have been the target – but it sounds like the team was having a tough time even reaching stable performance at that level. Even more interesting though, back when development was happening on Switch 1, Nintendo hadn’t made the lower layers yet and according to co-director Wataru Tanaka, “if we continued making the game like this all the way down it may not be possible.”

Below is our full translation of the Nintendo Dream interview excerpt with Tanaka, artist Daisuke Watanabe, and producer Kenta Motokura: 

In an interview published today, Nintendo went into detail as to how the team behind Donkey Kong Bananza was able to take advantage of Switch 2.

We recently heard that the game was initially in the works for the original Nintendo Switch. However, Kenta Motokura said the team “ran into some challenges” and started thinking about moving to the new console around 2021.


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