New Nintendo President Wants to Expand Their Smartphone Business, Global Switch Support

Following the news that current Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima is set to retire in June, a new interview (via Nikkei) was held with key Nintendo bosses to focus on the management shift, and their upcoming strategies.

Incoming Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa made a bold statement with his desire and priority to expand their smartphone game business. He also teased something could arise from this part of their output that might later become something “big,” in the same way a release from them could perform on consoles.


Kimishima noted the huge success with their mobile spinoff Pokemon GO, which he said has become a model for how to adapt gameplay and story elements from a console game to function well on smartphones. Furukawa, however, shot this down a bit and said he can’t say if there are any titles like that currently in the works.

On a side-note, Furukawa said that he wishes to expand the sale of Switch and its titles to a more global scale, like within regions in the Middle East or Southeast Asia. He noted that for over three decades the company has been typically selling their wares in regions like the United States, Europe, and Japan.

Kimishima praised his successor and shared one of the reasons Furukawa was chosen as the next president, noting the incoming boss simply knows how to find the potential within development teams, and that within the past two years has established the foundation for the next generation of creators at Nintendo.

Lastly, Furukawa pledged to set up a panel of five directors that will handle making decisions within the company, which includes himself. He said the goal is to share making the call on different aspects within the company.


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