Nintendo won’t be hopping onto the metaverse train for the time being, as it doesn’t know how it would use the concept to offer Nintendo’s “fresh surprises and fun”.
Nintendo Co., Ltd. is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as Nintendo Karuta by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade hanafuda playing cards.
In recent financial earnings Q&A, president Shuntaro Furukawa was asked about Nintendo’s ambitions for the metaverse and NFTs, but only addressed the former.
“The metaverse is attracting the attention of many companies around the world, and we believe that it has great potential,” read a translation of the official answer on VGC. “In addition, when the metaverse is mentioned in the media, software such as Animal Crossing is sometimes cited as an example, and in this sense, we are interested in it.”
But precisely how the metaverse could fit into the multiverse of Nintendo franchises remains a mystery. “On the other hand, it is not easy to define what kind of surprise and fun the metaverse can provide to customers…If we can find a way to communicate our ‘Nintendo approach’ to many people in an easy-to-understand manner, we may be able to consider something, but we do not believe that this is the case at this time,” concluded the answer from Nintendo.
He began by acknowledging the current interest in the idea: “The metaverse has captured the attention of many companies around the world, and it has great potential.” However, Furukawa continued by pointing out that it doesn’t fit Nintendo’s plans at this point:
“At this point in time, there is no easy way to define specifically what kinds of surprises and enjoyment the metaverse can deliver to our consumers. As a company that provides entertainment, our main emphasis is on ways to deliver fresh surprises and fun to our consumers.”
So what would change Furukawa’s mind? The crux seems to be in finding a way to use the metaverse in a ‘Nintendo-y’ way: “We might consider something if we can find a way to convey a ‘Nintendo approach’ to the metaverse that many people can readily understand, but we do not think that is the situation at the present time.”
The metaverse is a concept gaining huge steam in the tech world right now. While there’s no one clear version of what a metaverse is, the basic idea is that it would offer a persistent virtual world that breaks down barriers between online services, connected by a single economy.
