To our great surprise, Nintendo has just blown the dust with the Animal Crossing: New Horizons update. It came with a similar update for Splatoon 3, with both updates made available on Switch and Switch 2.
Now, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa has explained why the company revisited these older titles, but it's not because there are any plans to continue supporting them long-term. Instead, these updates were meant to keep the fanbase going while the Switch 2 library is a little sparser, giving them something to play with if they upgrade.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons' last update was part of the Switch 2 strategy
As Animal Crossing World points out, Furukawa was asked about the reasoning behind the Animal Crossing and Splatoon updates as part of a recent financial briefing. In particular, one shareholder asked the company's president to explain the business logic behind the updates.
“In January, in addition to the free update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons, we also released Animal Crossing: New Horizons Nintendo Switch 2 Edition,” says Furukawa (machine translated from Japanese). “Since the update, many customers have been playing the game, including those who have been away from it for a while and now come back. We're also seeing an increase in people playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons on Switch 2, so we believe we're off to a good start this year.”
He continues, going into the reason behind the updates. “As we work to transition customers from Switch to Switch 2 over the coming years, we believe it is extremely important to maintain our relationships with customers engaged with Nintendo gaming hardware,” he explains. “With that in mind, by updating Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Splatoon 3—both of which achieved significant sales on Switch—at this time, we wanted to encourage more people to continue playing on Switch and create a path for customers to transition to Switch 2 at their own pace.
In other words, if you find yourself playing Animal Crossing again, it might make you look at Switch 2. This is because there was a special Switch 2 update alongside the regular one, boasting unique features. Getting the money for a new console is also a little less daunting, especially one as expensive as the Switch 2, when you know you can already play fun games.
This means further updates are incredibly unlikely. As console generations continue, Nintendo will have plenty of new games to push any stragglers into buying a Switch 2, so there will be less need to update older games. Hopefully, one of those new games will be the next Animal Crossing release.
- issued
-
March 20, 2020
- ESRB
-
Everyone / Comedy pranks, mild fantasy violence, user interaction, in-game purchases
- developer(s)
-
Nintendo EPD
- publisher(s)
-
Nintendo
- Engine
-
Havoc
- Multiplayer
-
Online multiplayer, local multiplayer
- Cross-platform play
-
no
