Gaming giant Nintendo is interested in the concept of the metaverse, but doesn’t plan to participate in its making straight away.
Company President Shuntaro Furukawa said as much when asked about the idea in a recent earnings Q&A. “The metaverse has captured the attention of many companies around the world, and it has great potential,” he said. “When the concept of the metaverse is introduced in the media, games like Animal Crossing: New Horizons are sometimes brought up as examples. In that sense, the metaverse is of interest to us.”
Furukawa went on to explain that the concept will only be relevant to Nintendo once it can find the right way to implement it. “We might consider something if we can find a way to convey a “Nintendo approach” to the metaverse that many people can readily understand, but we do not think that is the situation at the present time,” he concluded.
Certainly, the answer to what the metaverse itself will eventually end up looking like is still very much in question. Meta is building out a suite of social VR apps under its Horizon label and other platforms like Rec Room exist, but enormous challenges lie ahead to make any sort of persistent VR landscape play a major role in our lives.
Nintendo itself has dabbled with VR in the past in the form of Labo VR for Switch, but it was only a minor peripheral that didn’t deliver a high-end experience (see our rundown of its games above). Were the company to ever properly commit to the metaverse, it would likely mean we see more Nintendo content in VR too. No matter your take on the concept of the metaverse, we can likely all agree that would be a good thing.
