Back in June, The Pokémon Company surprised fans with the announcement of a brand new team-based battle game called Pokémon Unite. It's a cross-platform title for the Nintendo Switch and mobile devices.
During Nintendo's recent six-month financials Q&A, president Shuntaro Furukawa was asked about the company's thoughts about cross-platform play. In short, Nintendo has "no plans" for this type of connectivity in any Nintendo game. Here's his full response:
Question: Pokémon UNITE (announced by The Pokémon Company on June 24) is planned to be crossplatform for Nintendo Switch and smart devices. While this was likely decided by The Pokémon Company, I believe that the two companies (Nintendo and The Pokémon Company) have close ties. I'd like to hear Nintendo's thoughts on cross-platform titles.
Furukawa: After advance discussions with The Pokémon Company about Pokémon UNITE, it was decided that given the genre of the game and the anticipated player population, a crossplatform format was appropriate. That said, we have no plans for cross-platform play for Nintendo titles.
Of course, in order for cross-platform play to get off the ground - you first need a game published across multiple devices.
Right now, about the most interaction we've seen between a Nintendo mobile game and a Nintendo Switch game is some minor connectivity between titles like Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp and Animal Crossing: New Horizons - where you link your Nintendo account with both games to receive some special rewards.
Would you like to see Nintendo release a game by itself that can be played across multiple devices? Are you a fan of cross-platform play yourself? Let us know in the comments.
[source nintendo.co.jp]
Comments 19
I can’t see many of their titles truly working as Cross Platform anyways.... Mario Kart or AC maybe.... but they’d have to develop new games for both series to enable that.... I couldn’t see Zelda or Metroid working well in Cross Plat, nor would Mario because N wouldn’t make a main series Mario game for the phone.
Edit - Fire Emblem with Cross progression could work well. Even cross play for vs battles, or co-op. That’s probably the max one could hope for in terms of an N cross plat/progress game.
Big N already announced that they will focus on Switch after the great success of ACNH.
Nintendo putting their games on mobile would be Nintendo shooting themselves in the foot. I know full well that I am old fashioned and in the minority. There's a lot of people out there these days that don't care about having physical controls for gaming on the go. I can't stand touchscreen-only based games, but the younger generation has grown up with it now. So putting the games on mobile would badly slash into Switch/hardware sales.
Further, I really hate the mobile games market. It's like a poison, corrupting everything it gets its grimy hands on. Microtransactions, F2P scams, gatcha mechanics, loot boxes...
Keep that trash out of our beloved games please! I have no faith Nintendo could keep itself from getting warpped if they brought their main games to mobile. They're still a company and the business side of it only cares about money. Like it or not, microtransactions, lootboxes, F2P scams, gatcha mechanics and such are all quite profitable.
Although I don't mind Nintendo having spin off and games made specifically for mobile. I just don't want them to lose focus on their dedicated hardware, and I want mobile game design to stay on mobile!
Switch already has mainline counterparts of all of Nintendo's mobile titles outside of Dragalia Lost, so yeah, mobile/Switch cross-platform titles don't make too much sense.
Nintendo does seem to be drifting away from the big screen games to the handheld market.
And of course their reaction would be what it is.
Nintendo can't make enough games to keep its gamers happy. The first eight months of this year shows that. Nintendo need to realise it's limitations.
We need achievement on nintendo switch lite Sony and macrosoft we are in 2020 and still no achievement on nintendo switch
Of course there will not be any cross platform games, as that means Nintendo has to actually release a game, when did they last do that??
Draglia Found coming to Switch in 2023
I'd love a Switch game to use a phone as a second screen Wii U style for maps and things!
Cafe Mix can't share a save file between mobile and Switch versions, I don't think Nintendo know about technology beyond 2005.
The Switch having less features than the DSi and Wii is evidence of this.
I just want more news amd updated on Pokémon Unite! I’m very excited for the title and hope it plays well! Looks great and I’ve never fully invested time into a MOBA but this will be the one! 👍🏻
Nintendo is slow to change, so I don't expect them to go full mobile any time soon. But if they created a dongle attachment and a bluetooth Nintendo controller, or a decent screen mirroring app, every mobile device or tablet could theoretically be a Switch and they'd only need to be able to launch their own eshop, or put their games on the existing marketplaces. They could even release their own mobile hardware that guarantees game performance - I'd buy a Nintendo smartphone or tablet, especially if it was running some version of Android. I am not predicting this will be Nintendo's future, but it seems like a possible future based on the direction they've been going.
Nintendo better not bring new Mario Kart content to the switch!😠😠😠 that's a joke
@Bunkerneath 12 days ago they released they're last game (and another game was released 2 days before it, and another one 12 days before that, and 15 days before that they released another game), but, if that's not soon enough for you there's another new game coming out in 8 days, and 14 days after that another game will be released. Nintendo put out a ton of great games this year, just like always.
I had completely forgotten Pokémon Unite was a thing.
@zool You have no idea what you're talking about, as always. "Gamers" are a minority and Nintendo never cared about those people (neither any company). What any big company cares is about the mass market, so the most people possible.
@Nemesis666 I have no idea what I'm talking about? But since you replied to me, you must know what I'm talking about.
@zool we've been going through a ***** pandemic
@Dero rather than state the obvious, say what you mean.
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