Nintendo first-party titles aren’t coming to other platforms, but people keep asking the company anyway. A recent financial results briefing raised the timeless question yet again. Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa shot the theory down, as the company has continued to do.
Nintendo held a Q&A during its first-half 2019 fiscal earnings report. The Q&A led to a question directed at Furukawa about offering Nintendo first-party titles, like Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros Ultimate, on other platforms. The question suggested Nintendo could reap major profits from releasing these titles on other devices, just like the immensely successful Fortnite. Furukawa responded as Nintendo always has.
“If publishers want to release cross-platform titles, and doing so would make consumers happy, then as long as it is technically feasible, we would want to support them,” he said. “That said, we have absolutely no plans to offer any Nintendo games as cross-platform titles at this time.”
Nintendo has been very clear about its decision to keep its games on its own systems, until recently at least. The developer and publisher released its first all-new smartphone game in 2016, with Miitomo. Since 2016, Nintendo has released at least one mobile phone title each year, with its most recent being Dragalia Lost. Some games are extensions of long-running franchises, like Fire Emblem and Animal Crossing, which leveraged those titles’ popularity to line Nintendo’s pockets.
Nintendo has also entered friendlier relations with Microsoft, teaming up to produce an ad about cross-platform play for Microsoft’s Minecraft. The Switch has been a huge success for Nintendo, selling over 20 million units in under two years. The Nintendo Switch has been dominated by first-party games, including The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey. The latter of which has become the best-selling title on the Switch with over 12 million copies sold.
