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Nintendo May Use "Shorter Development Periods" On Some Games To Offset High Costs

An exciting prospect for the Nintendo Switch 2 outside of just "Switch, but bigger and more" is that the tech under the hood should allow for some more hardware-intensive games on the platform. However, bigger and flashier games could lead to increased development costs, a concern raised in a recent investors call. To assuage this concern, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa spoke of the ways the company is planning to keep development costs down, noting how it's considering shorter dev periods as a way to do so.

"Recent game software development has become larger in scale and longer in duration, resulting in higher development costs," Furukawa explained. "The game business has always been a high-risk business, and we recognize that rising development costs are increasing that risk. Our development teams are devising various ways to maintain our traditional approach to creating games amidst the increasing scale and length of development.

"We believe it is important to make the necessary investments for more efficient development. We also believe it is possible to develop game software with shorter development periods that still offer consumers a sense of novelty."

You have to wonder if games such as the Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour and Drag x Drive, both games quite small in scope compared to other, mainline Nintendo series, fit into that category of games with "shorter development periods that still offer consumers a sense of novelty."

The same investors call also addressed concerns over the cost of the Switch 2 potentially keeping kids from getting one.