Nintendo wants to “produce new surprises” for existing characters. The newly appointed CEO of Nintendo, Shuntaro Furukawa, has explained. Indeed, Furukawa has been speaking out for the first time following his grand appointment and his vision sounds rather promising for Nintendo fans worldwide. New Nintendo surprises are always appreciated.
In a statement from the new head honcho, which was translated by Kite Stenbuck for Japanese Nintendo, Furukawa promises “new surprises” and “making everybody related to Nintendo smile”. We can get down with that. What form these “new surprises” take, however, is anyone’s guess. Furukawa doesn’t go into too much detail.
New Nintendo Surprises? Count us in!
Furukawa wants to expand Nintendo’s audience while pleasing those already in the loop. The Switch has been doing a great job in terms of sales and building Nintendo’s confidence back up after the failures of the Wii U. There is a nagging sense, though, that Nintendo can always do more. It’s understandable that Nintendo wants to reach new audiences as they did with the Wii and DS. Furukawa wants to get more people into “contact” with Nintendo IPs:
“Nintendo’s basic strategy is ‘Enlargement of population that gets into contact with Nintendo IPs’. I’d like to improve the corporate’s values by having even more people get into contact with characters and game world settings created by Nintendo.”
Perhaps Nintendo is looking to continue its expansion into other media? Nintendo theme-parks and movies are in the works and a good amount of emphasis has been placed on mobile titles. Will we start seeing Nintendo TV shows again? Nintendo characters coming into other worlds? It’s an interesting time, for sure.
“At the same time as an entertainment corporate, Nintendo puts up a CSR policy of “Making everybody related to Nintendo smile”. I think the social responsibility we must fulfill is to expand the circle of smile in society with Nintendo’s products and services.”
Furukawa just wants to make people smile. Isn’t that lovely? He finishes by arguing Nintendo’s need to continue to create new surprises. “Based on the CSR policy of “Making everybody related to Nintendo smile”, Nintendo is always continuing the challenge to produce new surprises.”
Just what exactly are these new Nintendo surprises? More titles aimed at a larger demographic on Switch with existing IPs? New TV shows? More spin-offs and collaborations? It will be interesting to see exactly what direction Furukawa steers Nintendo in.
