Games just keep getting bigger, and if you’re wondering how Nintendo feels about longer development cycles, the company’s president thinks it’s “inevitable.” In a recent shareholder Q&A, Shuntaro Furukawa mentioned that game development today is “more time-consuming, complex and advanced” and to cope with this, Nintendo must constantly expand its “development resources” and make “necessary investments”.
Nintendo’s senior executive and corporate director Shinya Takahashi reiterated that it was “inevitable” that software development cycles increase as hardware advances, but at the same time he thinks Nintendo is “succeeding” in its efforts to shorten overall development cycles by “constantly improving” development surroundings”.
This same question touched on how Super Mario Bros. Wonder is “the first new 2D Mario game in 11 years” and while that much time has passed between releases, according to Takahashi “it’s not like Super Mario Bros. Wonder has been in constant development for almost a decade”. The “long gap” between releases was due to various initiatives and studies.
While this is the case with the latest Mario game, Nintendo has experienced incredibly long development cycles this generation with games like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and the upcoming Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, which was even rebooted at one point. This follows a comment Furukawa made about Generative AI, mentioning how it is “open to using technological developments” but will continue to deliver value that “cannot be created by technology alone”.
