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Andrew Webster is an entertainment editor covering streaming, virtual worlds, and every single Pokémon video game. Andrew joined The Verge in 2012, writing over 4,000 stories.
A bigger, more powerful Switch means bigger, more intensive games that take more time and money to make. But as development costs skyrocket across the industry, Nintendo seems to have a plan to keep things in control as it transitions into the Switch 2 era.
In response to a question during a recent shareholders meeting about the increased costs of making games for its new console, Nintendo president Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa admitted that “recent game software development has become larger in scale and longer in duration, resulting in higher development costs. The game business has always been a high-risk business, and we recognize that rising development costs are increasing that risk.”
However, he said that Nintendo’s development teams are “currently devising various ways to maintain our traditional approach to creating games amidst the increasing scale and length of development. We believe it is important to make the necessary investments for more efficient development.”
“The game business has always been a high-risk business.”
The early lineup of first-party Switch 2 games has already shown Nintendo being more ambitious with its franchises on the enhanced hardware. Mario Kart World introduced an open-world structure to the long-running racing series, while the upcoming Donkey Kong Bananza adds an impressive destructive element to a more traditional 3D platforming experience. This has come with increased costs for consumers; World sells for $79.99, $10 more than most Nintendo games, while the Switch 2 itself is $449.99, a $100 jump over the Switch OLED. (In response to a question about these prices making it harder to reach younger audiences, Furukawa said that “we are closely monitoring to what degree the price of the system might become a barrier.”)
Of course, Nintendo is not alone, and the increased scale of game development has been disastrous for many of its competitors. Just last week Microsoft’s gaming division was hit hard by layoffs and game cancellations, while high-profile games like Black Panther and Concord were both shut down alongside their development studios. Nintendo has been one of the rare exceptions in the floundering game industry, but keeping that up will become increasingly challenging as games get bigger. Then again, Furukawa offered one concrete way of combatting this: more smaller games.
”We also believe it is possible to develop game software with shorter development periods that still offer consumers a sense of novelty,“ Furukawa said. ”We see this as one potential solution to the concern aboutrising development costs and software prices, and we will explore it from various angles within thecompany.“
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