Nintendo Reveals How It Plans to Deal With “Unavoidable” Wait Between Sequels

Video video games take a very long time to make, however Nintendo is searching for workarounds.

As technological leaps grow to be higher, it is taking studios increasingly more time to complete highly-anticipated sequels. This has been significantly noticeable within the Nintendo Change era; six years handed between the releases of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, and it’ll have been eight years or extra between the unique announcement of Metroid Prime 4: Past and the sport’s precise launch in 2025. In a current shareholder Q&A, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa stated that these wait occasions are “unavoidable” but in addition revealed that steps are being taken to cope with the problem. 

“Recreation growth immediately is extra extended, extra advanced, and extra superior. That’s unavoidable. To cope with this, we’re regularly increasing our growth sources and making the mandatory investments,” stated Furukawa. 

Whereas Furukawa didn’t go into additional element, these growth sources and investments appear to incorporate spin-off video games and different associated initiatives. The wait between Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom nonetheless noticed a number of Zelda video games launched on Change, together with Skyward Sword HD, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, and Cadence of Hyrule. All of these video games had been developed in collaboration with exterior studios, together with Tantalus Media, Omega Power, and Brace Your self Video games. In the meantime, Metroid Dread was developed as a part of a collaboration between Nintendo EPD and MercurySteam, and Iron Galaxy was concerned with Metroid Prime Remastered. These video games may not be precisely what followers had been ready for, however they did hold followers of Zelda and Metroid engaged with the system. 

A lot of these investments have helped Nintendo preserve a gradual stream of first-party releases on Change, whereas sustaining the extent of high quality gamers have come to count on from the corporate’s greatest releases. It stays to be seen whether or not Metroid Prime 4 will show well worth the wait, however Tears of the Kingdom appeared to stay as much as expectations. 

With a brand new Nintendo System set to be revealed throughout the subsequent yr, it will likely be attention-grabbing to see if this technique continues. We don’t know what to anticipate by way of the system’s first yr of video games, nevertheless it’s a secure wager {that a} new 3D Mario will probably be obtainable near launch, given the truth that almost eight years could have handed because the launch of Tremendous Mario Odyssey. Fortunately, Mario followers have had rather a lot to maintain them busy since, and so they’ll have much more this yr with video games like Tremendous Mario Celebration Jamboree and Mario & Luigi: Brothership. 

Do you suppose the wait time between Nintendo sequels is just too lengthy? Has Nintendo’s present technique made it simpler to attend? Share your ideas with me immediately on Twitter at @Marcdachamp, on Bluesky at @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!