Shinya Takahashi, general manager of Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development Division, explained how all development teams of the company are focused at work right now for NX, the next console of the company, whose debut is scheduled for the month of March 2017.
Although Takahashi, in statements issued to Nikkei Trendy, did not disclose any specific details about the console (which is expected to occur in autumn), he explained that Nintendo wants to offer a console that can attract the general public and gamers. The interviewer did refrence to a question during the development of Wii he got to hear that Nintendo wanted a console that “parents wouldn’t hate.”
At that, Takahashi replied that “I cannot talk about this in detail yet, but we are aiming so that neither people who like games nor moms dislike it. I think that I want to release a game device that both customers who have much experience in gaming and customers who haven’t played much can enjoy greatly.”
Regarding the development of software, Takahashi is asked for months with lack of releases on Wii U, something linked to the low sales of the console. Also Takahashi is asked if Nintendo is taking steps to improve the flow of releases and game development to unite all staff under one roof, one of the changes in the structure of the company.
“We are paying attention to that. Having said that, it isn’t about drastically increasing the amount of development staff. To be specific, software development teams and teams that create the development environment are thinking about the NX lineup together.”
“For example, a software development team may have a request ‘if we had this library, then development would progress quickly.’ Teams creating the development environment respond to that by considering ‘if we prepare an environment like this, then development will go smoothly,’ and they actually discuss with development teams and hear their opinions and prioritise those things.
