Nintendo and the Switch are flying right in the faces of the trends that the Xbox One X and PlayStation 4 Pro are trying to set in the gaming world. At a sacrifice of power and performance, Nintendo, as usual, is aiming for the largest audience with the most widely appealing games.
And to appeal to as many people as possible, Nintendo does not even consider 4K screen resolution to be a viable target… yet. This comes from Nintendo President Reggie Fils-Aimé who described Nintendo’s stance in an interview with The Verge.
The Nintendo mission is to reach as many consumers as possible and to have them engage and have fun with our [intellectual property]. That’s what we try and do. So inherently, we go for a more mainstream audience. Inherently, we want our products to be affordable. We want our products to be easy to pick up and experience, low learning curve. We want our IP to shine as we deliver these experiences.
That’s the way we approach it. And so, what that means is, a sweet spot of $300 for the Nintendo Switch, a platform that has Mario and Zelda and Splatoon. Going against a more limited consumer pool, a higher price point, requiring investments in other ways — 4K TVs, what have you — that is a strategy that for us, candidly, is a bit too limited.
In other words, cheaper technology at a lower price for a larger audience. That’s about as typical as a Nintendo strategy gets, and it resonates with every other piece of hardware it has made over the last forty-some-odd years.
