Since the Wii, the big N has been on a completely different path than Sony and Microsoft, because even then, Nintendo was not aiming for what the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 represented…
Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo’s legendary game designer, gave an interview to Famitsu magazine on the occasion of the opening of the Nintendo Museum on October 2nd (as we reported earlier). Miyamoto spoke of a “performance console war”, which applies to Sony and Microsoft, as resolution, ray tracing and frame rate are terms often used around the PlayStation/Xbox pair.
“If the goal is to preserve all of Nintendo’s past assets so that people can understand what Nintendo is, then it’s not just about the employees; we now have three generations of people who know about Nintendo. It would be great if these people could see it and understand what Nintendo is. I hope that through this, people will understand and refrain from dragging Nintendo into competitions like the so-called “console wars” that focus on high specs and hardware performance (laughs). Nintendo will continue to use the various technologies available today to create things in a way that’s unique to Nintendo. We’re not just limited to games; we’ll also be involved in movies and continue to create a variety of entertainment content. I thought this would be a good opportunity for people to understand that, and that’s why we did this.
I think the most important thing is for different people to visit this museum and come away thinking, “This is a company that has nothing to do with the competition in the game industry or the cutting-edge technology that people usually talk about. Of course we do technology research. In the past, analysts and others have said things like, “Why isn’t Nintendo focusing on networking?” or “What about mobile?” or “Why aren’t you using the latest chips? But if people take a calm look at the exhibits, they’ll see that we’ve actually been working on these things all along. But Nintendo has a history of waiting for the right time to release products, and only releasing them when we think the timing is perfect. I think the museum makes that clear, and it helps build trust in Nintendo. It also serves as a kind of medium- to long-term perspective for our shareholders, showing that they can trust us to manage the company properly,” Miyamoto said.
We would like to draw attention to the phrase “waiting for the right time to release products”. The Nintendo Switch 2 (unofficial name) has reportedly been ready for quite some time, and even Nvidia is wondering why the big N isn’t using the ready-made hardware that the company is sure to announce soon and that will surely hit stores next year…
