Nintendo Does Not Seem Worried About PS5 and Xbox Series X

Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa revealed via a recent Q&A session that he’s not too worried about the upcoming releases of the PS5 and Xbox Series X.

“We will explain the specific figures for the next fiscal year in our next fiscal year announcement, but I think there will certainly be a change in the environment as new products of our competitors appear,” Furukawa says. While that certainly suggests that Nintendo is bracing for war, Furukawa also seems to suggest that Nintendo thinks the Switch appeals to a more specific market and different purposes. As such, he says that “we do not believe that the business trends of other companies will have a significant impact on our business.”

Interestingly, Furukawa also noted that Nintendo believes that the Switch is “just in the middle of its life cycle” and that he believes the most important thing is to “maintain the momentum of Nintendo Switch” through both additions such as the Nintendo Switch Lite and software releases. In terms of software, Furukawa says that it is “very important to continue our efforts to sell titles that we have released so far.”

There are a few things to talk about here, and the most notable will almost certainly be that PS5/Xbox Series X shoutout. So far as that goes, you basically always expect companies to say that they’re not worried about the competition and are focused on themselves. However, that statement is much more interesting in this instance as Nintendo may be right to insinuate that the Switch’s unique features don’t put it in direct competition with upcoming next-gen consoles in the same way those consoles are in competition with each other. This would also seemingly suggest Nintendo is not aware of any plans for either company to replicate the Switch’s handheld features outside of possible cloud gaming support. 

Yet, the bigger takeaway from this statement may be that Nintendo doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to release an upgraded “Switch Pro” in the near future. Rumors of such a device releasing this year have been shut down, but it generally sounds like Nintendo isn’t putting much thought into new hardware beyond the Nintendo Switch Lite and may be more focused on new and existing software. 

In any case, this holiday season should be an exciting one as the Switch continues its record-setting pace and we prepare for Microsoft and Sony to release their next-gen consoles. 

Matthew Byrd is a staff writer for Den of Geek. He spends most of his days trying to pitch deep-dive analytical pieces about Killer Klowns From Outer Space to an increasingly perturbed series of editors. You can read more of his work here or find him on Twitter at @SilverTuna014.