One criticism that’s been levelled at Nintendo quite often over the years is how the company tends to focus primarily on its established major properties like Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon, often at the cost of creating new IP. Though Nintendo has certainly introduced new properties in recent years, with the likes of Splatoon, ARMS, Xenoblade Chronicles, and Ring Fit Adventure being notable examples, that’s a criticism they still haven’t been able to shake.
Going forward, however, it looks like Nintendo will be looking to change that. Speaking in a recent interview with Nikkei (translated by VGC), Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa said that in order to remain competitive, Nintendo is going to focus on creating more new original IP going forward. The company will, of course, also continue to invest in the likes of Mario and Zelda at the same time.
“Games are not a necessity of life,” Furukawa said. “In order for customers to choose games in their finite time, they have to be interesting. Competition is tough, and I am not optimistic. I myself am looking at and studying various forms of entertainment. In the future, we will focus on creating new game series as well as long-sellers such as Mario and Zelda.”
Of course, whether or not these new properties manage to break into the top rungs of Nintendo’s hierarchy of properties remains to be seen, but it’ll certainly be interesting to see what they come up with.
