- The former marketing lead claims that Nintendo feared for the company’s future during the rise of the mobile gaming era.
- Nintendo believed that the handheld business was threatened because of smartphones.
- However, the handheld business has coexisted with mobile gaming and grown significantly over the years.
Over the decades, Nintendo has become the dominant force in the handheld gaming industry. Handheld gaming has also been on the rise lately across multiple companies, something one would not have expected after the rise of mobile gaming began a decade ago.
However, the growth of mobile gaming also led Nintendo executives to genuinely fear for the company’s future. This tidbit was shared by the former Nintendo PR manager, Krysta Yang, who clarified that it was the one time when handheld gaming was threatened.
Why it matters: Nintendo believed that the convenience of smartphones could harm its handheld console business, as mobile gaming has become a significant part of the overall industry.
On the Kit and Krysta Podcast, the marketing lead explains that mobile gaming dominating the on-the-go scene had Nintendo showing genuine fear. The company executives had started believing it was over for handheld gaming.
[It was] the one time when we were within the company where we saw genuine fear from the executives at Nintendo.
However, Nintendo did not give up on its strategy and doubled down on pushing for handhelds in the coming years. So, instead of smartphones replacing portable consoles, both began coexisting peacefully in different parts of the industry.
Someone shared this video of this little kid, like three years old, playing games on an iPad, and you saw everyone’s face in that meeting was like, ‘it’s over for us, this is the end of the handheld market.’
The immense and consistent success of Switch years after its launch, and Switch 2 following that same path on an even faster scale, shows that handheld gaming is here to stay and grow.
In fact, the Nintendo president even apologized because the current demand is too high; even shareholders are having a hard time buying the Switch 2.
Do you think Nintendo surviving and thriving in the mobile gaming era means the threat is over now, or is the handheld console business still at risk? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below, or join the discussion on the Tech4Gamers forum.
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Shameer Sarfaraz has previously worked for eXputer as a Senior News Writer for several years. Now with Tech4Gamers, he loves to devoutly keep up with the latest gaming and entertainment industries. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science and years of experience reporting on games. Besides his passion for breaking news stories, Shahmeer loves spending his leisure time farming away in Stardew Valley. VGC, IGN, GameSpot, Game Rant, TheGamer, GamingBolt, The Verge, NME, Metro, Dot Esports, GameByte, Kotaku Australia, PC Gamer, and more have cited his articles.
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