The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Nintendo’s Switch adds Fortnite to success story
LOS ANGELES — It’s been a good year for Nintendo. After spending nearly a decade in the wilderness, Nintendo’s found itself on the successful end of a turnaround. Its Switch, an experimental portable home console, has outperformed expectations since its March 2017 launch. Now fans are wondering how the company will keep up the momentum.
Nintendo offered some clues from the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the game industry’s biggest trade show, which runs this week. Fortnite, the hottest game of the year, is coming to its Switch console, Nintendo announced Tuesday morning in a live-streamed news conference.
The megahit is one of several new games coming to Nintendo’s handheld console — including several that will please its core fans such as a new version of its classic Super Smash Brothers series.
For Fortnite players, having another way to play the game is nice. But for Nintendo, delivering the title is a strategic win in its pursuit to use the Switch’s success to attract more developers, broaden its audience and get even more people to scoop up its new hardware experiments.
Somewhat breaking with tradition, Nintendo’s success doesn’t land only on Mario’s shoulders.
Switch sales have been strong, with 2.17 million units sold in its first year. It was the fastest-selling U.S. console of all time. The novelty of the Switch’s “play anywhere” design got a boost from big-name games made by Nintendo that revisited beloved franchises, including a return to the
world of Princess Zelda and a new adventure for the world’s most famous plumber.
For the past couple of years, Nintendo’s been more willing to rethink its strategies to raise its profile, most notably by agreeing to make some mobile games.
While the Switch has driven Nintendo to new heights, its work is far from over. If Nintendo’s last decade has shown anything, it’s that relying solely on your beloved characters can only goes so far.
Mario and the gang aren’t going anywhere, of course. But building up relationships with thirdparty developers is also key to the company’s success, said Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America’s president, as workers put the finishing touches on the show’s floor booth at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Such partnerships broaden the appeal to players, who may like the Switch’s mobility but be disappointed with its game selection.
“(Developers) want a platform itself that’s vibrant, growing and has a highly engaged player base,” Fils-Aime said.
Nintendo’s ambitions don’t stop there. Gamers are a bigger market than ever — about 2.6 billion people worldwide per the Entertainment Software Association. But the market can be even bigger, said Nintendo’s general manager of Entertainment Planning and Development, Shinya Takahashi. He wants to reach that non-gaming audience with Nintendo’s devices, too.
That can be a risk. In a world where consumers expect one gadget to do everything, finding broad appeal for gaming hardware is a challenge.