With Switch 2 Coming, Nintendo Explains Why It Must Go Beyond Traditional Games

2025 is shaping up to be a big year for Nintendo, as the Mario company is launching a highly anticipated new system, the Switch 2. But the company isn’t going to rely only on traditional hardware and games to find success. Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa has opened up on why Nintendo must push “beyond video games” to encourage people to engage with Nintendo.

As part of Nintendo’s latest earnings report, Furukawa said Nintendo is making use of theme parks, official stores, “visual content,” and mobile experiences to “generate interest in our core business.” In case there was any doubt, Furukawa stressed that the “dedicated video game platform business” is Nintendo’s core business, and efforts outside of that are being undertaken to funnel people back there.

“Going forward, even as we transition to Nintendo Switch 2, it remains important to increase touchpoints beyond video games,” Furukawa said.

The executive said content and experiences for smart phones will play a “very important” role in this effort, and Nintendo will continue to push in this area, Furukawa said.

Nintendo’s push into the mobile market has already reached some 900 million cumulative downloads, Furukawa said, noting that some of Nintendo’s success in the smartphone business has come in countries and regions that don’t have support for Nintendo’s traditional game consoles.

“I believe this has increased the opportunities for more people to access Nintendo IP and characters,” Furukawa said.

Nintendo’s big three mobile games today are Mario Kart Tour, Fire Emblem Heroes, and Super Mario Run, Furukawa said, also mentioning Pikmin Bloom, which Nintendo co-developed with Pokemon Go company Niantic. Nintendo shut down online services for Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp at the end of 2024 amid a transition to making it a paid game called Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete.

“Although we cannot provide details on future application releases, we are continuing to develop new game applications,” Furukawa said.

Nintendo also has the Nintendo Music app, which launched in 2024 and continues to get updates that add new tracks. In general, Furukawa said Nintendo’s aim is to use smartphone apps to “create opportunities for consumers to come into contact with Nintendo game worlds and music even outside of dedicated game systems.”

He added: “Going forward, we would like to continue to develop these types of initiatives, including integration with games, for individual titles.”

Furukawa acknowledged that, for many people, their first gaming platform is not a traditional console but rather a smart device. So Nintendo is trying to meet people where they are, with the assumption being that one day they might pick up a Switch console and games, in addition to whatever they might use and enjoy on their smart phone.

“We will continue to deliberate on this topic,” Furukawa said.

Even before Furukawa was named president of Nintendo, the company acknowledged that a growing percentage of people first encounter Nintendo experiences outside of a platform that Nintendo sells. For example, previous president Tatsumi Kimishima said fewer and fewer young people are finding out about Nintendo games through… games. Instead, they’re discovering Nintendo and its characters through things like officially licensed Mario toothbrushes. He said in 2016 that people can expect these kinds of licensing deals to continue and possibly increase, and indeed they have.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie, released in 2023, is perhaps Nintendo’s biggest non-gaming success story so far–it brought in more than $1.3 billion at the box office. It is one of the top 20 highest-grossing movies in history and the No. 1 video game movie of all time. Multiple more Nintendo movies are on the way, including a live-action Zelda film and The Super Mario Bros. Movie 2.

Then there is the Super Nintendo World theme park attraction, which expands in a big way this May when it opens at Universal Studios in Orlando. And anyone who’s been to a grocery store or a department store knows full well how many licensed Nintendo toys there are.

As for the Switch 2, the new console launches later this year. Nintendo will share more details about the system during a Nintendo Direct in April.