Nintendo commented on a variety of topics during the Q&A portion of its financial results briefing earlier this week. One of these points was development time.
We all know that the Wii U suffered from a lack of games at launch. Thankfully, in the future, this is something that Nintendo should be able to avoid.
Shigeru Miyamoto stated that Nintendo “already completed the step of learning new development techniques,” meaning there should be fewer “less developmental delays stemming from learning new hardware.”
Also part of Nintendo’s plans are to create spin-off titles based on major franchises. These project swill be made “on a smaller scale”. Miyamoto said that the company is “preparing to expand on our characters while also increasing the number of software we output and allowing our customers to have their next experiences in certain franchises without waiting three years.”
Finally, Miyamoto mentioned that Nintendo is working with third-party companies more regularly to make games – think asset creation, cut-scenes, etc. The Big N started to work with some of these developers for the first time this year. “We are in the process of creating a system where we are actively seeking outside assistance to help us create an abundance of major titles,” Miyamoto said.
"On development time, we have already completed the step of learning new development techniques. So, we should experience less developmental delays stemming from learning new hardware. From now on, it becomes a matter of if we can use our experience efficiently and one part of our plan to do so is to use ‘spin off games’, which allow us to use our major title franchises, but create on a smaller scale and we are working hard on making these sort of derived products. In this way, we are preparing to expand on our characters while also increasing the number of software we output and allowing our customers to have their next experiences in certain franchises without waiting three years.
We are also working more and more with many different 3rd party companies to produce our titles [note: this seems to refer to outsourcing stuff like asset creation, cut-scenes, etc] and from this year we have begun to work with some software developers for the very first time. We are in the process of creating a system where we are actively seeking outside assistance to help us create an abundance of major titles. I feel that next year’s Wii U titles are plentiful. We will continue working hard." -Miyamoto
