Nintendo Q&A Summary - April 2017

[Asriel]

I do think Nintendo's strategy with 3DS will be quite interesting from now on. GBA sold fairly strongly in North America even as DS took off because there was a low-income market Nintendo managed to attract. Nintendo must be looking at global totals for 3DS and wondering how they can tap into the markets that bought GBA and DS at this point in their life-cycle, especially given North America sales in excess of 40 million for GBA and just over 60 million for DS (near 60 million for DS in Europe, too). By way of comparison, 3DS is just over the 20 million mark in both North America and Europe.

It's not inconceivable we'll see a mixture of 'late' localisations coming over from Japan, as well as continued support using existing game engines and assets. If the rumoured Superstar Saga remake is true, we're already seeing further evidence of that. We might also see further use of the X/Y engine, with Pokemon Stars hitting Switch and 3DS (or even an additional gen 1 remake next year), or the Link Between Worlds engine being used for a Link's Awakening 3D, or a new handheld title. Nintendo's software development practices have undergone some tweaks to keep content coming, with re-use of engines and assets becoming more common. Fire Emblem is a great example of this, with the Awakening engine being used to create the three Fates versions and now a remake of Fire Emblem Gaiden. But we've also had several Wii U, N64 and Wii ports on 3DS.

The early signs on Switch - cross-platform Zelda, cross-platform Fire Emblem Warriors, re-use of the Splatoon assets/engine, port of Mario Kart 8 DX, rumoured port of Smash, rumoured Pokemon Sun - point to a continuation of this trend. Continued cross-platform development of remakes and remasters from older systems would be an easy way to provide further first party support on Switch and 3DS, even as Nintendo's higher end titles (like Splatoon 2, Super Mario Odyssey) remain exclusive to Switch.