[News] Shigeru Miyamoto Wants Nintendo to Be Left Out of the 'Game Wars' Focused on High Specs and Performance

[Catgirl Rika]

Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto pretty much wants Nintendo to stay out of the ongoing console war conversation.

He said as much during an interview with Famitsu (as translated by DeepL) in honor of the opening of the Nintendo Museum, which officially launches on October 2 in Kyoto. He began by explaining that part of the reason for the existence of the museum is for "not only our employees but also people who know about Nintendo, including three generations of parents and children, could come out to see the museum and understand what Nintendo is all about."

"I hope that they will understand Nintendo and not get involved in what is sometimes called the 'game war,' such as high specs and how to improve the performance of game consoles," he continued. "Nintendo will continue to make products that are uniquely Nintendo using various technologies available in the world today and we will continue to create not only games but also entertainment content."

source: https://www.ign.com/articles/shiger...ual&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook

What do you all think? I always felt Nintendo didn't wanna be involved in the console war stuff since...ages ago.

 

[The Mega Champion]

It doesn't make them perfect.

There's still the problem of going after fan games, rom hacks, emulators, and now 'their main competition' (according to others not me; i.e. Palworld) over a patent over 'using balls to capture monsters'

This doesn't make them perfect. Just saying.

 

[Incineroar]

It doesn't make them perfect.

There's still the problem of going after fan games, rom hacks, emulators, and now 'their main competition' (according to others not me; i.e. Palworld) over a patent over 'using balls to capture monsters'

This doesn't make them perfect. Just saying.

I don't really think this was intended to make them look perfect - every company has done things that don't go over well with consumers. Nintendo tends to be in the spotlight often because a lot of the attention is on their games (And the games published on their systems) and not games from other companies. While I won't say that Nintendo is a perfect company either, I do enjoy that they're not looking to try and be the most powerful system out there - they're like Apple in a sense where they make the software for the hardware and the hardware for the software. They don't need sheer power to run a game system, they can just try and squeeze every last bit of performance out of the hardware that they can, whereas games on the PS5 are trying to look so life-like that it's getting to the point that you need incredibly high-end components in the system and it drives up the price - just look at the fiasco that the PS5 Pro is currently causing with its $700 USD/$960 CAD pricing. I could go buy TWO Nintendo Switch OLEDs and still have money left over for at least two games if not more, depending on the title.

What Nintendo does seem to understand is that not all of their consumers are made of money, especially right now. Sony didn't read the room on that one and just kept raising their prices. And these are the points that I think are worth discussing here.

 

[Explorer of Time]

I don't have any interest in buying a new console, from anyone (I'm primarily a PC gamer), but I think this is a smart decision by Nintendo. The average consumer has never been particularly concerned with powerful graphics, and a partially-handheld console like the Switch is never going to beat dedicated home consoles like the PS5 in the graphics department anyway.

That being said, I've always felt that Nintendo not also releasing its games for PC, like Microsoft and Sony do nowadays with many of their console exclusives, is just leaving money on the table. Nintendo's strengths as a company are its excellent 1st-party games and its back catalogue, and the way to maximize profits on those is to make them as accessible as possible for consumers to purchase.

 

[PoryKid575]

I don't have any interest in buying a new console, from anyone (I'm primarily a PC gamer), but I think this is a smart decision by Nintendo. The average consumer has never been particularly concerned with powerful graphics, and a partially-handheld console like the Switch is never going to beat dedicated home consoles like the PS5 in the graphics department anyway.

That being said, I've always felt that Nintendo not also releasing its games for PC, like Microsoft and Sony do nowadays with many of their console exclusives, is just leaving money on the table. Nintendo's strengths as a company are its excellent 1st-party games and its back catalogue, and the way to maximize profits on those is to make them as accessible as possible for consumers to purchase.

I agree on the first point, most people don't really care about graphics too much. And the Switch using somewhat dated technology allows them to both release handhelds (which typically sell more units since 99% of people will only buy 1 console, while some parents will buy multiple handhelds for their kids, they break easier which encourages purchasing replacements, etc) and sell their consoles much cheaper then the competition. They're essentially letting Sony/Microsoft do the hard work of innovating on the technology front, then waiting for said tech to become cheaper and reusing it for massive profits since a $300 Switch with most of the same multi-platform games is a very tempting proposition compared to a $500+ gaming PC or PS5.

I disagree on the second point though, I'd definitely love to see 1st party Nintendo games on PC; but keeping them exclusive is a sound business decision. They sell their consoles at a profit, and gating Mario and Zelda behind their systems likely generates more money then they lose by not selling them more widely. Especially when you factor in extra money they receive from stuff like online subscriptions and additional controllers bought that are high margin.