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Former Nintendo President Satori Iwata passed the pass before the Switch was launched in 2017, but he left the vision that it would work.
“Iwata was the head of development, so he switched a lot of thoughts and time,” said Miyamoto Miyamoto, a veteran game designer and fellow Nintendo, in 2017.
Despite its creativity and innovation, Nintendo often appears to be behind the curve when adopting new technology and gaming ideas. Nintendo abandoned the tech console weapons race in 2006, and launched an inadequate Wii, proving that it doesn’t have to win with graphics. Instead, the company prefers to follow the “lateral thinking with withered technology” philosophy – using mature and reliable technology to create new ideas – Gunpei Yokoi described in his book Gunpei Yokoi Game Kan.
However, Nintendo has been adapting to the multiplayer trends in the Switch era, experimenting with more players. Tetris 99, F-Zero 99and Super Mario Bros. 35 – These competitive multiplayer games are borrowed from popular last player standing games (Pubg, Fortnite) Modernize classic 8 and 16-bit franchises with huge player counts.
We’ve already seen some of it in the new Mario Kart game on Switch 2. This appears to double the number of concurrent online competitors seen from 12 to 24 in previous Mario Kart entries.
Some of these large multiplayer games arrive near the end of the Switch’s lifecycle, suggesting that Nintendo is beginning its massive multiplayer ambitions.
Last year, the company launched the Nintendo Switch Online: PlayTest Program. This has launched “a mysterious beta version developed by Nintendo to test the boundaries between server mass multiplayer features and gameplay.” It’s still not clear how Nintendo will implement ideas like MMO, but there are certainly powerful Nintendo franchise candidates who can benefit from introducing a higher number of players.
Together with even larger audiences, experiencing the joys of play through Nintendo’s IPs like Super Mario Bros. and Animal Crossing, and brand new experiences could be the pinnacle of Iwata’s vision.
