Unless you’ve been living under a wonderfully handy Bell Rock for the past year, you’re probably aware that Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been a big hit. The latest entry in Nintendo’s cuddly sim series has already sold more than 31 million copies, challenging Mario Kart 8 Deluxe to become Switch’s best-selling title.
So how will the game’s success affect Nintendo’s future game development? In an interview with Nikkei, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa explained that the adoption of the game’s longevity – thanks to continuous content and updates – will have a “significant” impact on Nintendo’s future work.
Here are his full comments on the topic of Animal Crossing, which helps people stay at home, with translation by Nintendo Everything:
“It is true that our recent growth has been driven by the need for people to stay at home [Japan’s] The state of emergency is over, people are spending more time at home than before.
As games with a long lifespan like Animal Crossing become more accepted, we think it will have a significant impact on future development. We want to offer games that enable communication between friends and family. “
Of course, Animal Crossing: New Horizons has helped friends and families stay connected in new, unique ways during the pandemic. The fact that Nintendo is hoping to offer more games that we can keep in touch with is probably a good thing, especially considering that we already know the company plans to add both staple series and brand new ideas in the future to work.
Maybe games like Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 could eventually get optional online co-op because of this? Or maybe Nintendo will come up with completely new ways to stay in touch with a new IP address? Time will tell…