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Nintendo first-party line-up designed to inspire third-party studios

Company says Zelda, Mario Kart 8, Arms and Mario Odyssey show developers what is possible on Switch

Nintendo's production group GM Shinya Takahashi says that Nintendo's first-party Switch line-up is partially designed to inspire the development community.

Speaking to french publication Pixels, Takahashi said there are 11 internal Nintendo teams working on multiple projects each. And that part of the responsibility of these teams is to create titles that could encourage third-party studios to support the platform.

Nintendo has attracted some limited third-party support for Nintendo Switch, with a handful of titles from EA, Square Enix, Capcom, Konami, Ubisoft and Bethesda, amongst others. It's still early days, with some publishers only now starting to react to the sell-out popularity of Nintendo's latest machine. Takahashi hopes that Nintendo has already shown studios what can be done with the console.

"The fact that the launch games were Breath of the Wild, 1-2 Switch and Snipperclips was very important," he said. "These are games that each take advantage of the specificities of the console. With Zelda, you can start on your TV and continue taking it with you, you discover the nomad side of the console. With 1-2 Switch, one discovers the practical side of the Joy-Con, the fact that you can detach them, pass them, and so on.

"As for Sniperclips, we are fortunate to have an indie team who perfectly understood the specificity of the controllers and proposed game ideas that allow to appreciate their singularity. It was important to have these three games that are very different to be able to transmit to the people the originality of the console.

"Then come Mario Kart 8, Arms, Splatoon, then Super Mario Odyssey at the end of the year, a series of games that do not resemble each other but allow to show the developers all that it is possible to do. The catalog must be sufficiently enriched to offer experiments that are unique and unique to the console."

Takahashi says that Nintendo has been working hard to ensure Switch is "an easy-to program console", and cites integration with Unity and Unreal to try and ensure a better ecosystem for games versus the Wii U.

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Christopher Dring avatar

Christopher Dring

Head of Games B2B

Chris is a 17-year media veteran specialising in the business of video games. And, erm, Doctor Who

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