Many have long believed that Nintendo has avoided operating within the same ‘console war’ landscape as PlayStation and Xbox, and while one analyst agrees, he argues that it isn’t to the extent that you or Nintendo themselves might think.
When asked in an interview with GamesRadar+ whether he agrees with the sentiment that Nintendo is running its own race when it comes to consoles, Mat Piscatella, executive director of games at Circana posited that it isn’t all black and white, saying “I think, to an extent, yes. Maybe not as much as Nintendo themselves might believe.”
While Nintendo has always attempted to forge its own path in the industry, Piscatella believes that, as the dynamics of the industry shift, Nintendo too has had to change how it operates to match it. “So Nintendo has always been a Nintendo game-first platform and device, right? That’s the primary goal. Always has been. Nintendo hardware to sell Nintendo software,” Piscatella begins, “That hasn’t changed. But you look at the games that are becoming more popular and the Fortnites of the world are as popular on Nintendo as they are on other platforms. They’re starting to have to work with that dynamic just like the other manufacturers are.”
Nevertheless, Piscatella believes that, for the moment, Nintendo is still a unique phenomenon in the market, in part due to how consoles like the Nintendo Switch Nintendoare often purchased in addition to a PlayStation or Xbox, as opposed to instead of. “Ultimately, yes, Nintendo is its own thing. Its sales patterns are a little bit different, the way that consumers will buy Nintendo devices in conjunction with a PlayStation or an Xbox or a PC.”
Rather than viewing Nintendo as a second-choice console of sorts, Piscatella argues that this plays heavily into Nintendo’s hands, and is what allows the company to operate as it does. “These are devices that – you use the word supplemental and people think, ‘Oh no, that’s, like, secondary to you.’ And that’s not the case at all. But they do supplement a player’s gaming life, right? Not in a subservient way or a second-level way. They could be the most-played device, but they’re a device that’s often owned with other types of gaming devices. Which is great, it offers that variety. [Where] they operate in and their sales curves are just different, and the factors that may be impacting PlayStation and Xbox might not be impacting Nintendo in the same way.”
For all the news on Nintendo’s next console, check out everything we know about the Switch 2.