Nintendo says the Switch 2 run is only just beginning
Nintendo of America's president says the console's first year is the opening act, and points to a Zelda film in April as one way to reach players who have never bought one.
Nintendo's American arm says the Switch 2 has barely got started. Devon Pritchard, the president and chief operating officer of Nintendo of America, told Variety at a technology summit that the console's first year is the opening act rather than the main event, and that the company has plans well past the anniversaries it is currently celebrating.
What she actually said
“We're at the beginning of Nintendo Switch 2,” Pritchard said in the interview, as reported by Eurogamer and GameRant. “This is just beginning and we've already had some really wonderful experiences, both ours and third-party come to the table and I can't wait to see what the system is going to do and what our talented developers will bring to the table.” She put the shorter version of the same thought to Variety directly: “This is just the beginning.”
The Zelda film is part of the plan
Much of the enthusiasm in the interview was reserved for screens bigger than a television. Pritchard pointed to the live-action The Legend of Zelda film being made with Sony Pictures, which she said arrives at the end of April, and described the partnerships with Sony and Sony Pictures as one of the most exciting things ahead because they carry Nintendo's characters to people who do not own its hardware. On the games side she namechecked The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the remake that arrives on Switch 2 in November.
The numbers she is talking over
Pritchard is speaking from a position of comfort. Eurogamer notes that Nintendo has said the Switch 2 became the fastest-selling video game hardware device in United States history, and that it reached nearly 20 million sales almost a year after release, making it the second-fastest selling console in that market. The momentum has survived a hardware price increase, which is the part most platform holders would struggle to say out loud. None of that makes the next 12 months automatic, but it explains why the company is talking about longevity rather than a specific holiday line-up.
Our opinion
Read the quotes carefully and the console is the least interesting thing in them. A president saying a platform is at the beginning of its life is what presidents are for, and it costs nothing to say in the same quarter that a price rise lands. The deliberate part is where she spun the future: a film, a partnership with a studios rival, and one remake she was willing to name. Nintendo has spent a decade learning that a well-made adaptation sells hardware to people who will never read a Direct, and that is a slower, cheaper growth engine than a spec-sheet leap. The Switch 2's second year will be judged on software, but the company is clearly betting that the cinema screen does the recruiting.