Nintendo is weathering the storm | The Verge
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The games industry is being rocked by layoffs, rising prices, and studio closures. Then there’s Nintendo.
The games industry is being rocked by layoffs, rising prices, and studio closures. Then there’s Nintendo.
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Things aren’t going so well in the video game industry. Consoles are getting more expensive, games are shutting down, layoffs are prevalent, the live-service space is a mess, major platforms are entering eras of uncertainty, and AI is infiltrating the medium in frustrating ways. Finding a bright spot is rare. But amid all of that, one company has managed to stay the course: Nintendo, which has navigated this tumultuous period by largely ignoring trends and focusing on what it does best.
Let’s look at just the last few weeks as an example. Nintendo has managed to keep a consistent release schedule over the Switch 2’s first year, and in March, that included the much-anticipated Pokémon spinoff Pokopia, which sold more than 2 million copies in four days, and notable updates for both Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Mario Kart World. It also snuck in the launch of a strange talking gadget for good measure. It’s then kicking off April with The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, the sequel to a billion-dollar film that ushered in a new era as Nintendo seeks to establish itself as an entertainment company beyond just games.
Meanwhile, things haven’t been going as well for many of gaming’s other big companies. Here are a few recent examples:
Epic Games laid off more than 1,000 people as Fortnite’s growth stagnated
Sony jacked up the price of all Play Station hardware to contend with rising costs
Microsoft’s gaming division is in a period of upheaval with uncertain new leadership taking charge
EA is laying off developers behind seemingly successful games like Battlefield 6
The ongoing RAM crisis means it’s unclear just what’s going on with Valve’s console-like Steam Machines
So what makes Nintendo different? It’s not as if the company has been completely immune to volatility. The Switch 2 launched at just about the worst possible time, with its initial reveal happening on the exact same day as Donald Trump’s first wave of tariff announcements, leading to a delay for preorders and more expensive accessories. The company has been forced to raise prices on older hardware and is now shifting to charging more money for physical games. Things are serious enough that Nintendo is even suing the US government over the impact of tariffs. But amid all of this, the company has found ways to insulate itself from those outside forces.
For one thing, while most everyone else has been chasing Fornite-like live-service success with disastrous results, Nintendo has mostly focused on what has worked for it in the past: developing good games and selling them to customers. Its biggest hits of the Switch 2 era so far, Mario Kart World, Donkey Kong Bananza, and Pokémon Legends: Z-A, have been follow-ups to reliable system-selling games. The company has dabbled with online experiences through titles like Splatoon and the irregular updates to Animal Crossing, but it never staked its future on chasing trends.
Reliable might be the most apt word to describe Nintendo’s recent form. The company has been sticking with what works, and while that doesn’t mean it’s bereft of new or weird ideas, it does mean that it has largely been avoiding risk in order to avoid a catastrophic flop on the level of the Wii U or, gasp, the Virtual Boy. That concept of playing it safe extends to the Switch 2 itself, a conservative follow-up to Nintendo’s best-selling console, and hit movies that largely retread old ground.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is beautiful but a little too busy
It’s always a good time to revisit Super Mario Bros. Wonder
It’s been a solid run, even if things seem to be slowing down for the Switch 2 after a hot start. But those forces that have so strongly impacted Nintendo’s competitors aren’t going anywhere, and are in fact getting worse. The Switch 2 is the only major video game console that hasn’t seen a price hike yet — even budget devices are feeling the crunch — though that could change. During Nintendo’s most recent earnings briefing in February, president Shuntaro Furukawa admitted that “if this rise in component prices lasts longer than expected and runs through the next fiscal year and beyond, it may put pressure on profitability.” A higher price point isn’t likely to help with getting hardware sales back on track.
Given how uncertain the future is, predicting how Nintendo will react to outside forces is impossible. And the company still has some cards to play: It has yet to release or even announce a major new Super Mario or Legend of Zelda game for the Switch 2. The next pair of mainline Pokémon titles, meanwhile, are still a year away.
What is clear, though, is that the company isn’t going to rush into anything. When asked about the impact of the rising cost of memory, Furukawa explained that “it is not an appropriate approach to be excessively influenced by short-term trends.” That’s one of the reasons Nintendo has been around for more than a century, and it’s part of what has allowed it to weather this ongoing storm.
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