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Nintendo President Doesn’t Rule Out a Future Where the Company Doesn’t Make Home Consoles

Nintendo President Doesn’t Rule Out a Future Where the Company Doesn’t Make Home Consoles

By Rishi Alwani | Updated: 7 January 2019 16:32 IST

Highlights

Nintendo could leverage its characters for theme parks and movies
It isn't entirely fixated on consoles
Furukawa wants to increase the number of smartphone games it has

Nintendo could stop making home consoles. According to a recent interview, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa stated that the company isn't "really fixated" on consoles. Instead, he thinks the company will consider ways to deliver an experience that's unique to what Nintendo is known for through other means. In addition to this, the company is considering options outside of gaming such as theme parks and movies, which would leverage its characters like Mario and Link. Furthermore, Furukawa seems interested in increasing the number of Nintendo-developed smartphone games that have a "continuous revenue stream".

"We aren't really fixated on our consoles," he said in conversation with Nikkei (translated via NintendoEverything). "At the moment we're offering the uniquely developed Nintendo Switch and its software – and that's what we're basing how we deliver the 'Nintendo experience' on. That being said, technology changes. We'll continue to think flexibly about how to deliver that experience as time goes on."

"It has been over 30 years since we started developing consoles. Nintendo's history goes back even farther than that, and through all the struggles that they faced the only thing that they thought about was what to make next. In the long-term, perhaps our focus as a business could shift away from home consoles – flexibility is just as important as ingenuity."

Later on in the same interview, Furukawa was asked if he expected fluctuations in Nintendo's business performance to continue. He felt that the company could look beyond gaming to reduce these irregularities.

"I'm thinking about little ways we can reduce that kind of instability," he said. "I'd like to increase the (amount of) games on smartphones that have a continuous stream of revenue. We're also dabbling in theme parks and movies – different ways to have our characters be a part of everyday life. I'm anticipating a strong synergy like that."

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