Nintendo President Says Longer Game Development Cycles Are "Unavoidable"
Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa says longer game development cycles are unavoidable and they're expanding dev resources.
Shuntaro Furukawa, President of Nintendo, addressed the issue of increasingly prolonged game development cycles during a recent shareholder Q&A, stating it’s an unavoidable consequence of the growing complexity and advancement in game development. He emphasized the necessity of continually expanding Nintendo’s development resources and making necessary investments to handle this challenge.
Shinya Takahashi, Senior Managing Executive Officer, echoed Furukawa's views, noting that as hardware advances, longer development cycles become inevitable. Nevertheless, Takahashi expressed optimism about Nintendo's strategies to shorten overall development times by improving the development environment steadily.
Examples of extended development periods include 'The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom' and ‘Metroid Prime 4: Beyond’. Furukawa also mentioned that although Nintendo is open to technological advancements like Generative AI, the company aims to offer value that cannot be created by technology alone.