Nintendo and the future: how will the Kyoto house face the next-gen?

Nintendo and the future: how will the Kyoto house face the next-gen?

We are now in 2021 and, while Sony and Microsoft have begun their journey within the new generation of consoles, there are still several unknowns about Nintendo and the path it will decide to take from here on out. The Kyoto company, after all, has not followed the times of the other two companies for a long time, always following an alternative path that balances a lower power of its platform with other original features. We have seen it with Wii and its motion controls, with Wii U and its gamepad as a second screen and now with Switch, thanks to its hybrid nature. Despite this, Nintendo certainly cannot ignore the other contenders and, already this year, it could be forced to pull out several tricks up its sleeve. The question we ask ourselves in this article is therefore this: what could be the intentions and future plans of Nintendo to continue to maintain the popularity of its console?



Nintendo and the future: how will the Kyoto house face the next-gen?

Between killer app and hardware review

Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser recently stated that the Switch is currently in the middle of its life cycle. It will therefore take some time to see the real successor of the hybrid console, however, looking at the history of the company (and the many rumors that have spread over time) it would not be strange to see the arrival of a hardware revision first. Although the platform is having a huge success, with around 76 million units sold according to VGChartz estimates, a possible enhanced version of Switch would be an excellent move to face this period of full next-gen, even more so if its launch were accompanied by major flagship titles.



We cannot help but think of the importance that the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild could have in this sense, the perfect game to combine with the possible release of the console. A potentially very effective "combo", especially in view of an important year for several Kyoto house sagas. In fact, 2021 will not only see the thirty-fifth anniversary of the saga starring Link (another reason why the release of the new chapter would be apt), but also important birthdays of Metroid and Pokémon, the perfect opportunity to celebrate the two series through unpublished titles. In the first case, the release of the Prime Trilogy would be effective, an excellent appetizer waiting for the fourth episode of the series. In the second, rumors and expectations would point to the remakes of Diamante and Perla, titles released on DS 15 years ago.

Obviously, these are only suppositions, considering that at the moment we don't know much about the future of the Kyoto house. We know Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury, coming in February, and many third-party games of great relevance such as Monster Hunter Rise (of which we recently analyzed the demo), Monster Hunter Stories 2, Shin Megami Tensei V, Bravely Default II and No More Heroes 3. If we add to these the hypotheses listed above, Nintendo could count on a really robust line-up which, even without the help of a hardware review, could guarantee the success of the hybrid platform even in the company of the next-gen.

Nintendo and the future: how will the Kyoto house face the next-gen?

The strength of Nintendo IPs

2020, as for everyone, was a difficult year for Nintendo. There have been good releases, such as Paper Mario: The Origami King and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, but we know how Animal Crossing: New Horizons drove Switch sales. An incredibly successful title that alone was able to keep the spotlight on the hybrid high. Last year was clearly a demonstration (and certainly not the first) of the great strength of the IPs developed by the Japanese company, which owns series that represent real killer applications. Let's face it, the sequel to Breath of the Wild or a hypothetical new Super Mario 3D could be enough to effectively support the annual sales of the console. Speaking therefore not only of 2021 but also of the years to come, years in which Sony and Microsoft will increasingly enter the mechanisms of the new generation, Nintendo will potentially be able to count on works of great caliber and great strength.



Also considering the existence of titles such as Metroid Prime 4 and Bayonetta 3, the Kyoto house would therefore have what it takes to do well without the need for a new Switch model. However the latter it would be a great way to freshen up the hardware and, at the same time, give users the ability to play some cross-platform game without the need for cloud streaming. Although we still know little about its intentions and although the consequences of the advent of the next-gen are yet to be determined, the near future of Nintendo seems quite promising. We just have to wait for news to find out what the company has in store for the next few years, hoping that the good old Directs will return, perfect for containing all the information we are waiting for in a single package.

Nintendo and the future: how will the Kyoto house face the next-gen?

And after Switch?

Always sticking to Doug Bowser's words, Switch should give way to its successor in about four years. The latter will then be released at a time when next-gen Sony and Microsoft will have already largely taken shape. However, it is really difficult to hypothesize how Nintendo will move in this direction. Will it continue in the wake of hybrid nature? Or will it decide to adapt to its competitors and produce a particularly performing home console? Clearly the latter option would allow the company to greatly increase the technical quality of its games, but not only. With fewer hardware limitations, a creative software house like the Kyoto house would have the opportunity to experiment with even more gameplay solutions, similar to what Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart did thanks to PlayStation 5. Of course, the cost of the console would obviously increase, but in all likelihood it wouldn't be a problem if everything was backed up by good software support and that touch of innovation that is usually never lacking in a Nintendo platform. In this regard, thanks to a statement by Shigeru Miyamoto a few years ago, there was talk of a particular new generation controller in production, on which, however, the game designer has no longer provided any details.



However, it is also true that it is not easy to definitively abandon the gimmick of a hybrid platform, an idea received extremely well by the public and which led Switch to achieve success. Furthermore, this would lead to a move away from portable consoles, a move that would contradict the incredible numbers that this type of platforms have collected over the years. For this reason, a further solution could be the union between the two hypotheses mentioned above, or the creation of a context in which the hybrid nature carried out by Switch and the power of a performing console coexist. The Switch “family” would therefore play the part of the 3DS, leaving the place of the main home platform to a new hardware. At this moment we can do nothing but guesswork, but we will see how the Kyoto house will decide to act in the future. Being all very clouded, there is certainly a lot of curiosity in this regard and we can't wait to find out some first details on Nintendo's plans for the after Switch.

add a comment of Nintendo and the future: how will the Kyoto house face the next-gen?
Comment sent successfully! We will review it in the next few hours.