103 million Nintendo Switches sold since the release of the Japanese console in 2017. An insolent success that cannot be denied, since the Switch is currently selling more than the very recent Xbox Series and PlayStation 5. How to explain a such success? Answer with Brice N’Guessan, editorial director of Video Games Magazine.
franceinfo: The paradox with the success of the Nintendo Switch is that it is not the most advanced console in terms of technology.
Brice N’Guessan: Where PlayStation and Xbox seek to offer the most powerful machines, it’s been 25 years now that Nintendo decided not to participate in technological one-upmanship, preferring to offer innovative consoles, consumer games, all at an affordable price. It really is the DNA of the brand.
Remember in 1989 the Game Boy which democratized the portable video game. It offered black and white images when the competition was in color. However, it will become the second best-selling console of all time.
And what about the Wii, a not very powerful machine but which will make video games accessible to everyone, from 7 to 77 years old, with these famous sensor controllers which were all the rage even in retirement homes with its tennis game .
A specificity of Nintendo for consoles, but also for its games, another key to success?
Unlike its competitors PlayStation and Xbox, the best-selling games on Nintendo consoles are productions that come directly from Nintendo: Mario, Zelda, Animal Crossing. To better understand the tour de force, know that in the top 20 best-selling games of all time, there are 10 games exclusively made for Nintendo, 1 game belonging to Xbox and no trace of a title from a studio. Playstation.
Nintendo sells its consoles very well and its own games very well… Is this a strategy that can last in the long term?
Nintendo has always operated this way, and relies above all on its internal talents. Shuntarō Furukawa, the boss of Nintendo, has also indicated this week that he had no plans to acquire external studios, like his competitors, preferring to rely on historical know-how. of the Japanese brand, born in 1889 near Kyoto, which knew how to grow by passing from toys to video games with the success that we know of.